[101404]

When I lived in China 10+ years ago, the West would criticize the Chinese government for limiting the spread of "opinions" on social media. Today, in the West, we call that "fake news", and limit its spread too.

Give it another 10 years and, at least here in Europe, we will have the first countries copying the "social points" system China is currently rolling out.

Not sure what to do about it.

[dntbnmpls]

We, along with Europe, had "social points" system for a long time. If you smoked weed, were associated with communist/socialist circles, etc, you were or could be barred from certain jobs (public and private), banks, voting, etc. The idea that it's bad when china does it is just hypocrisy or borderline jealousy.

> Today, in the West, we call that "fake news", and limit its spread too.

We say/use "civility" or "western values" to censor, attack, etc. The chinese use "harmony", "chinese characteristics", etc to censor, attack, etc.

We shame the chinese and demand they treat muslims better while killing millions of muslims and destroying a few muslim countries. The chinese shame the west and demand we treat muslims better while interning millions of muslims.

Too bad hypocrisy isn't a currency or we'd all be rich and living large.

[shadowprofile77]

Your false equivalence here is absurdly full of shit on both points.

The highly decentralized, mostly non-computerized western social shaming that existed for decades for certain social beliefs and practices, which to some extent still exists in certain limited contexts was in no meaningful way comparable to a systematic, almost entirely centralized government-directed formal social credit scoring system that dictates one's "worthiness" and so many aspects of their social life, economic life and literal freedom to move around based on what political opinions they publish, who they're friends with, what things they read, share on social media or even what things they buy. Comparing the two is ridiculous. It's either blatantly blind or you're trolling for some other reason. No western state has anything like this. No notable number of people in the west are literally ruined economically or banned from travel, or the victims of their friends being nudged by the government into abandoning them because they posted something against Trump, or against Obama or in any other context. Very public, very open debate and protest against numerous government policies is still very much alive and well in the west. In China this is blatantly not the case.

[dntbnmpls]

> Your false equivalence here is absurdly full of shit on both points.

Ah "false equivalence". It gets me every time because at this point it's so obvious. A talking point by people who don't know what it means.

> The highly decentralized, mostly non-computerized western social shaming that existed for decades for certain social beliefs and practices

Highly decentralized? FBI background checks are decentralized? Credit checks are highly decentralized? If you think "the west" is decentralized, you really have bought into the propaganda hard. Let me guess you think "the west" is individualistic while the east is "collectivist".

> No notable number of people in the west are literally ruined economically or banned from travel, or the victims of their friends being nudged by the government into abandoning them because they posted something against Trump, or against Obama or in any other context.

And notable number of people in china have been? Or is it just parroting propaganda you just choose to believe in.

> Comparing the two is ridiculous.

Only to people with an agenda.

> It's either blatantly blind or you're trolling for some other reason.

This is called a false dichotomy with a dash of ad hominem.

> In China this is blatantly not the case.

The hong kong protests don't happen? How come there are so many protests in china?

https://www.economist.com/china/2018/10/04/why-protests-are-...

Just because they aren't identical doesn't mean they aren't comparable. Just because one is bad doesn't mean the other is good. You can cherrypick nonsense to fit an agenda or just look at the obvious objectively.

[shadowprofile77]

If you can't plainly see the difference between the west's flawed but essentially democratic and mostly liberal systems of government, media rules and management of free expression (even if they sometimes veer into the authoritarian in an ad-hoc, sporadic way) and the overtly authoritarian, systematically repressive systems of social and political control that exist in the Chinese state, then there's no debating your nonsense. Spare me the claims of it all being anti-China propaganda too. The CCP is quite blatant about what it does and numerous creditable NGOs and media sources have reported on these subjects extensively.