[colordrops]

One aspect is that NBC has a lock on the Olympics for the US. Their streaming service is utter trash - unreliable, bad quality video, confusing menus (couldn't even figure out how to watch live events), rewind and fast forward don't have preview (at least on Roku), so you have no idea where to stop, no overlays describing any details of the stream, no editing of recorded events (i.e. 45 minutes of a zamboni cleaning the ice), etc.

Also, NBC seems to be working for the State Department in trashing China at every turn. Yes, China commits human rights abused, but this is a gold standard case of the pot calling the kettle black. The US is one of the biggest human rights abusers out there. The Olympics is about setting that aside for a moment. The US should have either boycotted the olympics or shut up about the politics.

[awillen]

The US has diplomatically boycotted the Olympics this year. That doesn't have anything to do with NBC - they have a first amendment right to cover the Olympics.

You're assuming there's some sneaky stuff going on with the State Department pulling the strings, but in this case the simplest explanation seems more likely - NBC recognizes the strong anti-China sentiment around human rights abuses in the viewing public, so they know that catering to that sentiment will be best from a business perspective.

[colordrops]

I'm confused, did I call for censorship? Are you saying that no one should be criticized because they have first amendment rights?

Also, it's extremely naive to think the US government has no influence over US media. First, there is significant overlap and connectivity in the ruling class that runs the government and runs media companies. Second, there are many examples of the media and the government working together to craft a message. I can provide several references to examples if you were unaware of this.

[germinalphrase]

They are clearly behind in understanding how young people want to enjoy the games. The experience is trash when it even works (half the streams return an authorization error at random).

[Graffur]

> The Olympics is about setting that aside for a moment

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55794071

Ah.. just set it aside for just a moment..

[colordrops]

You are repeating state department propaganda about Uighur camps. Most of the information about Xinjiang has been coming from CIA contractors and vague satellite photos. They were claiming that 2 million (out of 10 million) people were in camps until it became untenable to maintain this lie. There's no doubt that China is an authoritarian state with major human rights issues there, but it's not at the scale being claimed, and it isn't some unique or new situation as it is being presented, and they aren't any worse than the human rights abuses the US commits. For instance, the US has the world's largest prison population, which jails millions, disproportionately minority. This is just as egregious as anything China is doing in Xinjiang. And you've got the US killing millions in the middle east over the last few decades. Guantanamo bay is still open.

But yeah, China is the one who needs to be pointed out. How is it not obvious that this is an intentional campaign by the US government to attack China's image? They said nothing about Saudi Arabia or Israel when they marched out during the opening ceremony. And Israel is a rogue nuclear nation and apartheid state with millions in lockdown, which is not even hidden, and finally acknowledged by Amnesty International in the last few days. NBC's comments were to fawn over the first orthodox jewish woman in the Olympics. What's next? To fawn over the first evangelical christian doing whatever? The hypocrisy is frustrating in the extreme.

[anm89]

So your argument here is that their concentration camps aren't that bad because it's actually only a million people that are in them, instead of two million people?

Yeah China has a record of harvesting organs and running concentration camps for the purposes of ethnic cleansing. People probably aren't going to stop repeating that fact any time soon.

[colordrops]

No, that's not my argument. That's a strawman - don't put words in my mouth.

The only evidence for everything you are saying is from CIA contractors and documents of questionable provenance. The US has obvious conflict of interest when reporting on the misdeeds of their biggest competitor. It's an obvious smear campaign.

There is evidence of abuse and mistreatment of Uighurs yes, but not a full scale genocide and jailing of millions. It's a lie, or at most, a gross exaggeration.

But that wasn't my point. My point is why is China specifically picked on? Why didn't the US detail their own human rights abuses when they hosted the Olympics? They are easily argued to be as bad or worse. As mentioned, the US has far more minorities in actual prison, and prisoners in the US are LEGALLY subject to unpaid labor, basically slaves. This is 100% true and easily verifiable, not hidden or a conspiracy.

This doesn't even get into the millions killed overseas by the US military. But I guess that's not human rights abuse, because those brown middle easterners arent human in your eyes. Or, they aren't human unless abused by china.

[hakfoo]

I hear you entirely.

I tend to think there are countries which have reached the "no-win" stage of public relations. It sort of reminds me of when the UN sent inspectors to Iraq looking for the legendary WMDs-- even transparency wasn't good enough. The fix is in, and there's no reasonable sequence of definite actions they can perform that would get China on the West's good side. They could walk Joe Biden personally through the length of Xinjiang and someone would still say "they must have hidden the prisoners!"

Every positive story about China is always tempered with "but but Tibet/the Uighurs/social case-celebree of the week."

That slant, in particular, is particularly annoying. It's dehumanizing because we're treating a country of over one billion people as a single undifferentiated unit.

Did any of the tens of thousands of people who worked to deliver this event get up in the morning and think "Gosh, if I just paint these bleachers just right, they'll let people I don't know, 5000km away, get away with a genocide! Can't wait!" I doubt it. On the ground level, this is the work of ordinary people with ordinary motivations-- and the concept of "If we're going to be on a global stage for two weeks, let's do the best possible presentation we can." is not some malicious whitewashing conspiracy. They don't deserve the slander.

I have to wonder if we're in a situation where we're looking for an enemy. The Cold War was great for business-- it justified eternal defense spending and trade restrictions against a major economy. What a coup if they could pull it off against China!

[Graffur]

What positive story are you talking about? That the Olympics isn't that popular or is "terrible" as the OP describes it?

Who is talking about the people who delivered the event, and who is slandering them in this conversation?

You say "5000km away" but it is the same government.

Have a read through this https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-22278037

[hakfoo]

I'm saying that building the facilities and hosting the ceremonies are a lot of hard work for tens of thousands of people. That they were able to pull the event off as smoothly as they have, during a global pandemic, is still an accomplishment, regardless of the TV ratings.

Maybe we can say that once in a while without having to frame it in the context of "TeH cCp EvIl AnD fAiLiNg"

Saying "it's the same government" is rather a broad-brush. When there's a new library or stadium built in Phoenix, do we belittle the hard work of the contractors and architects over what ICE is going with immigrant children?

You see that sort of coverage on a lot of news about China. "20,000 km of high speed rail built in a year" or "space program is proceeding smoothly" inevitably pivots to human-rights potshots, even when the actions in the story have only the most gossamer links to it.

[Graffur]

> There's no doubt that China is an authoritarian state with major human rights issues there, but it's not at the scale being claimed

Hold on, _you_ introduced the point about scale and then argued against it.

> and they aren't any worse than the human rights abuses the US commits

Your whole comment reads like a joke

> But yeah, China is the one who needs to be pointed out.

The Olympics is hosted in China, you know that right?

> How is it not obvious that this is an intentional campaign by the US government to attack China's image?

I posted a link to the BBC. Is your next conspiracy theory that the US government runs the BBC?

I know I have asked a few questions in this post but please don't bother replying. Any conversation with you is beyond worthless.

[colordrops]

Your response consisting solely of sneering and ad hominem says all that needs to be said about the quality of your argument.

[Graffur]

I knew you would reply :)