[quxbar]

My college education was pretty honest about the atrocities of the USA. I get to openly post about politics all day on facebook without any fear of reprisal. Pretty different from a country with a whole dictionary of secret codewords used to discuss politics and history. There is no 'both sides', there's just your self-pity - the people you call censorious apparatchiks are just people who don't respect your opinion. You mistake being unpopular for being persecuted, which is common for privileged engineering types like us.

[xfs]

The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade. -Julian Assange

[benrbray]

Can you say anything to back up the claim that "speech still has power" in China? That seems to go against what the pro-censorship commenters are saying, which is that most people in China know all the bad stuff anyway and just don't care. If that's true, it seems like words have lost all power.

[MrTmp1]

Cool quote.

But it's not the same discussion . To make it relevant would be to ask :

Once China works the same way at the same scope (Somehow assuming they don't) Will they drop the censor ?

[scottlocklin]

You don't post political views which threaten the US regime. The fact that you don't fall under the eye of Sauron just means you're a good citizen, just like the Chinese guy in the article. For the love of god, Facebook employs former Stasi agents to police people's comments.

Again, US colleges definitely engage in ritual denunciations of the bad old days. So do the Chinese. US colleges engage in political indoctrination that talks about problematic issues in the modern US which the US regime wants changed. So do the Chinese.

The only real difference is the US doesn't have to be as brutal and obvious as the Chinese to police thought. It does occasionally look a lot like old Maoist struggle sessions, but somehow people never make that connection.

[wybiral]

I regularly support the idea impeaching our leader in public and participate in a democratic process of electing representatives to enact policies that I want to see change.

EDIT: As a matter of fact, we just had a Muslim congress-woman openly discuss goals to impeach our sitting president. Things work differently in a democracy with representatives than they do in an authoritarian dictatorship.

[scottlocklin]

The president isn't "our leader." And as I keep saying, yes, the US system isn't as brutal and obvious (in most cases; policing online content, it is) as China. As far as I know, they only attempt to kill American citizens who deviate from the party line when they live abroad.

Let me give you a bit of obvious propaganda by people who really do run the country:

https://twitter.com/Raytheon/status/1021446302515847168

Perfect embodiment of ruling caste self regard ... we blow up brown people ... but at least we are real smart and we ain't sexist!

[wybiral]

> The president isn't "our leader."

Yes, exactly. Because this isn't an authoritarian dictatorship. We have democracy. We vote in representatives. We discuss policies with peers and campaign for people who represent changes we want to see. That's the difference and that's what our free speech protects.

EDIT:

> Let me give you a bit of obvious propaganda by people who really do run the country

Are you being censored for speaking up against Raytheon though? Are you being stopped from electing politicians who would curtail their power or regulate them in some way?

[schiffern]

>We have democracy. We vote in representatives. We discuss policies with peers and campaign for people who represent changes we want to see.

Read and/or watch Manufacturing Consent. This is what Chomsky calls[1] the "standard model" of social democratic societies (the one that the technical class helping run society must be "deeply indoctrinated" to believe).

Problem is, if you look at whose interests are actually represented in our politics it's nothing but a pacifying fiction. His "alternate model" describes how the society actually functions, and... well... why spoil the video? :D

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrBQEAM3rE&19m48s

[scottlocklin]

You're really persisting in missing the point. I am no threat to Raytheon, or the class of people who work there, or the ruling elite of the country who think burning Yemeni children alive is a good idea as long as we teach women to participate in STEM careers.

If I were and could get my message out (people are trying on youtube; they're being censored), well, no doubt my life would be worth girl scout cookies. I'd be unpersonned at the very least.

FWIIW yes, I am being stopped from voting for politicians who would make this state of affairs end. Just as effectively as Chinese people are.

[wybiral]

Get your message out to your peers. Write your representatives. And vote on representatives who plans to change whatever it is that you're indirectly complaining about.

Otherwise it sounds like you're talking vaguely about what I can only interpret as a conspiracy theory of some kind but I have no idea what point you're trying to make.

[coding123]

The US definitely has a problem with terror campaigns. But yes, I really really dislike it when media and general people start thinking the president is a king or something. I actually wish the media would lay off treating the president like royalty. I personally believe we need to get rid of the white house and treat the president more like we do the speaker of the house. More like a regular person that has a specific role.