We won't get past Facebook and Twitter injustice until we stop being hypocrites
Today's wacko news: five or seven individuals, perhaps Chinese high school students, have been kicked off Facebook and Twitter for posting pro-Chinese depictions of the Hong Kong protests. Presumably we've also kicked some Russian programmers off those platforms too because they posted stuff that supported Trump for president.
The reason: stating government points of view on the platforms so that you and I could possibly see them here in the United States.
Please note the ludicrousness of this--the Chinese government itself has banned the platforms domestically, so clearly China (and Russia) has very little reason to care what gets posted since their own citizens can't legally see any of it (not even all the selfies!).
Still-- the media, including NPR for instance, characterizes the high school student posts as "an international propaganda campaign."
Two points of insanity destroy this perspective:
The reason: stating government points of view on the platforms so that you and I could possibly see them here in the United States.
Please note the ludicrousness of this--the Chinese government itself has banned the platforms domestically, so clearly China (and Russia) has very little reason to care what gets posted since their own citizens can't legally see any of it (not even all the selfies!).
Still-- the media, including NPR for instance, characterizes the high school student posts as "an international propaganda campaign."
Two points of insanity destroy this perspective:
- The Chinese government has been heavy-handed, but not nearly as heavy handed as the US or EU would be. You want evidence? Imagine a bunch of bankers protesting on Wall Street against any federal government intervention in New York State banking. How long do you think it would be before the NYPD had every single one of those people in jail? Or think of the gillet jeaune on the streets of Paris. Or look at the crushed protests on both left and right in Portland OR this week. Both those economic protests have been broken into small groups of less than 50, by force, since they began.
- Our elected, but nonetheless petty despot, Donald Trump watches Fox News and twits--oops, I meant tweets--all day. If this isn't state-sponsored propaganda, what is? It's also inane lies--something you can't say about the Chinese government's response to the three weeks of Hong Kong protests.
Conclusion: if you want to kick Chinese high school students off Twitter, Trump's account needs to be closed first.
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