[reaperducer]

China is offended by him offering an opinion on something. So, that makes them right?

I'm offended by his backpedaling. That makes me right, right?

China really needs to get a grip and understand that with seven billion people in the world, not everyone is going to agree with everything it wants.

[khc]

This is more representing the power of social media mob justice than what "China" wants. It's really not that different from how the left or the right boycott a business after any other tweet

[alisonatwork]

This is only superficially true.

In China the CPC exercises strict control over what topics are allowed to trend on social media, so what appears to be "mob justice" is actually a carefully curated event. The state media chose to report on this rather than ignore it. The Cyberspace Administration chose to allow this outrage to gain momentum while topics that do not toe the party line are squashed.

You cannot really compare the kind of social media "mob justice" people speak of in the west to how things are managed on the Chinese internet.

[Jommi]

This is not completely true, depending on what you mean by "trending on social media". I have witness multiple anti-government trending topics on social media in China as well.

[chadcmulligan]

likewise any criticism of Chinese policy that occurs on the internet is no doubt being monitored and influenced by an army of Chinese intelligence operatives

[chadcmulligan]

It seems they're downvoting my criticisms :-D

[o10449366]

I disagree. This is exactly what the Chinese government wants. They're able to have this outsized influence on American companies because they've heavily invested in them. Going against the Chinese government means risking a significant piece of your business for many companies - it isn't about the "social media mob" at all.

[twno1]

For reference: Force U.S. airlines remove Taiwan: https://time.com/5348666/airlines-websites-taiwan-china/

Hide Taiwan emoji flag in Hong Kong: https://blog.emojipedia.org/apple-hides-taiwan-flag-in-hong-...

[supercanuck]

Sure it is. One represents free speech in response to market participants making decisions.

The other is an authoritarian government shutting down business ties based on one employee opinion.

How do people not see the difference in this? On twitter, people are to speak whatever they want and can choose to buy whatever they want.

In China. Not so much.

[SpicyLemonZest]

If the NBA were big in Spain, and the guy had said "Fight for Freedom, Stand with Catalonia", I expect he would have had to apologize too. The government is more involved in China, because the government is more involved with everything in China, but there are few countries in the world where people don't get mad at foreigners wading into touchy political issues.

[44595throw]

Or if he had tweeted

"Fight for Freedom, Stand with Palestine"

I wonder what the reaction would have been?

[cannadhopefu]

> government is more involved with everything in China

There lies in the difference. In Spain, it would be the people demanding it. In China, its the authoritative government that is not only demanding but also threatening.

Its not quite apples to apples.

[bhy]

How do you know that? How many Chinese people have you talked with?

[cannadhopefu1]

I don't need to talk to Chinese people to know that China is an authoritative government and that Tencent was ordered to stop streaming Rocket games by the government.

[supercanuck]

Because it is not democratically elected.

[rumanator]

> How do you know that? How many Chinese people have you talked with?

Do the Hong Hong people count?

How about Tibetan people? Or the sadly famous Uyghur?

And does Taiwan has a say as well?

[mytailorisrich]

You obviously do not know China and this issue.

Hongkong's takeover by the British has been a humiliation for China and the Chinese people, which has been provoking strong feelings on their part since well before the Communist Party was even founded.

That China must get Hongkong back is a highly consensual opinion among the Chinese. This was a policy of the Communist Party because that really is something that every Chinese strongly wanted.

There are elements of wanting independence for Hongkong in the current protests and of foreign interference (whether it is true or not, this is how it looks). This is an absolute red flag for Chinese. In fact if TVs were showing everything we are shown in the West the government would have to act more strongly against the protesters by popular demand.

The Chinese government may not be democratic but that does not mean that it can ignore public opinion or that its policies never align with what the people want.

Campaigning for democracy was always going to be a uphill struggle in Hongkong, but these violent protests (which can be qualified of 'riots') have been highly counterproductive.

[env123]

The 2047 Hong Kong fiasco, the Irish backstop, the US left-right divide, blame it all on the British Empire

[throwaway1997]

The crisis in Hong Kong is not a separatist movement, unlike Catalonia.

[hw]

Not to mention the people in China are pretty nationalistic and are on the side of the government when it comes to the situation in HK, so the response from the people in China and the CBA is not surprising.

[magicsmoke]

Or how people talk about boycotting stuff from China due to their political issues. Even before the trade war tariffs, there were American consumers that made it a habit to not buy Chinese because of their political stances.

[bhy]

If American are offended by the violation of free speech, they should boycott NBA like the Chinese do.

[reaperducer]

Already done.

Except, I'm just a one person boycott, since I don't have to agree with what my government tells me.

[jhanschoo]

These incidents remind me of the self-censorship amid threats from militant Muslims back then over depicting Muhammad.

[boomboomsubban]

>China really needs to get a grip and understand that with seven billion people in the world, not everyone is going to agree with everything it wants

1.4 billion of those people are Chinese, and they can get outaged over whatever ridiculous shit they want.

[throwaway1997]

It's controlled outrage. The Chinese government controls what they see and therefore where the outrage is directed towards. The average Chinese person either doesn't know about Tinanmen or agrees with it, but are outraged by this.

[age_of_stone]

"The average Chinese person either doesn't know about Tinanmen" I am an average Chinese person but I know it since I was a teenager. I suggest that you don't assume that Chinese people is controlled like puppet, that's simply wrong.

[aembleton]

How did you find out about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests? Was it at school? From family or friends? Online? Do you use a VPN?

I'm curious because I don't know how that information would spread in China or if it is talked about much.

[age_of_stone]

I watched the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests on China official TV daily when it was broadcast until the end of May 1989. I was a teenager at that time. we talked about it at school. we talked about at home. we talked about it heavily at college. we just didn't talk much about it publicly. nobody got arrested by simply talking about it, which may not be like what you might be thinking.

when I was young, there was no GFW. I remembered that I visited lots of western medias about it to better understand it by two-sided stories. and I believe that I did better understand it.

I do use VPN as many of others when I am in China. It's a common thing.

[PavlovsCat]

> we just didn't talk much about it publicly

"just"? Not being able to say something in public is like not being able to say it at all. What you just talk about with your friends or family is as relevant to the public sphere as your private thoughts are.

[Jommi]

The moment you want you access the internet as a chinese kid, you can google tianmen and get information about it. Its not of course always the correct information that is on the first results, but its not like its completely wiped.

[age_of_stone]

you are right. but there is bigger question of what information is "correct". no offense, it'd be naive to treat the first result of google result as being correct. we all know there is such a thing called SEO.

[Jommi]

This is absolutely wrong.

[chronic71819]

> 1.4 billion of those people are Chinese, and they can get outaged over whatever ridiculous shit they want.

Only in your own thoughts and dreams (for now). You're not allowed to outrage on Weibo or WeChat. Is this correct?

[boomboomsubban]

I highly doubt they'd object to people angrily repeating the state's position to an American country.

[ekianjo]

Most of them are brainwashed by one party politics and one party news in their own country so I am not sure their outrage means anything.

[age_of_stone]

how many Chinese people have you ever talked to before you say "most of them are brainwashed"? If more than 1 billion people are brainwashed in the era of Internet, either 1. it is a huge success of Chinese government or 2. it's not the truth.

As we all know, VPN is very popular in China. It's just an easy job to access information out of Great Fire Wall.

thinking critically, could you be "brainwashed" by some degree when you assume more than 1 billion people got brainwashed?

[ekianjo]

vPN is very popular in China? In what range? Thousands of users? Hundreds of thousands? Dozens of millions? Hundreds of millions? The scale matters completely for the discussion.

And brainwashing does not start with the internet. education is a major source of brainwashing and do not discount mass media either which still shapes culture even in hyper connected countries like the US.

Brainwashing works, its not even a remotely disputable claim, we have had two large countries going thru major brainwashing efforts in the 20th century with the Third Reich and the Soviet Union and the results were very convincing in terms of how effective brainwashing can be. Not sure why you would discount brainwashing when China went thru the Cultural Revolution to basically make all dissident voices extinct or irrelevant.

[boomboomsubban]

>education is a major source of brainwashing and do not discount mass media either which still shapes culture even in hyper connected countries like the US

How much of your belief that the Chinese are brainwashed people who's opinions should be ignored came from school and media?

[age_of_stone]

if you don't know or doubt how popular VPN is used in China, it indicates that you know little about modern China. everyone I know uses VPN or know how to use VPN if they need. as for exact scale, I'd leave that to you. you could easily figure that out as there are ton of such information online.

If brainwashing really worked greatly like you said, Soviet Union would still exist now. It was their people who overthrew Soviet Union.

exactly because of China going through the disaster like Cultural Revolution, many people just don't believe these propaganda anymore.

my point was not there is no brainwash. it's everywhere including China and US. my point was in the era of Internet and the popular use of VPN in China, i don't think the brainwash really works greatly like you'd think.

[ekianjo]

So how many millions of VPN users please?

[wglb]

I have often wondered about the fact that 'outrage' and 'outage' are only off by one letter.

[ionforce]

You're not a global power.

[aww_dang]

"The Pope! How many divisions has he got?" --Stalin

Today the Vatican is still a state. The Catholic church remains influential. The USSR has fallen and the Soviet system has been discredited.

The above article would not have been written if the CCP's objections were an effective way to silence western critics. It would not be unreasonable to expect a truly powerful entity to be unconcerned with criticisms from a basketball team's GM.

History will tell all.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

[rumanator]

> Today the Vatican is still a state. The Catholic church remains influential. The USSR has fallen and the Soviet system has been discredited.

The Russian federation still exists, is controlled by a former KGB operative from the Soviet Union, and is actively waging war in Europe while annexing parts of neighboring countries.

And the pope still has zero divisions to oppose that.