this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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Has anyone else noticed how prevalent Hexbear posters have suddenly become? Maybe sometime last week I noticed nearly every political post had at least one long thread of Hexbear users that do nothing but repeat CCP talking points while waving anyway anything even remotely reliable as Western propaganda. That or getting all excited about trolled libs. The way they tell it, you'd think everything from DW, to Fox, to Propublica, to straight up AP News articles, are all written by the same people.

Not to mention, their info on the Fediverse observer is either straight up wrong or there's some serious botting going on. According to that, the instance is less than a month old, yet somehow they already have one of the largest, most active userbases, along with far and away the most comments of any instance.

Seems to me like Lemmygrad on steroids. Considering we defederated from them, seems like a no-brainer to block Hexbear as well.

So glad this thread could become such a perfect microcosm of why we need to defederate.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (64 children)

Seems like you're missing a ton of nuance in manufacturing consent, and have turned from the frying pan into the fire in that sense.

Yes, Western media is biased towards corporations. This is most clearly seen in anything labeled "finance" or "money", but is pervasive.

But the only time I can ever think of Western media doing anything on the scale of censoring the 1989 Tiananmin Square Massacre is the Iraq MWD debacle. And they've never done anything like the Great Firewall.

As a rule the US government does not mislead its own citizens the way Russia and China do.

And even if you're 100% on board with every word Marx has written, I don't understand how that leads one to defend modern day Russia and China.

The West absolutely has problems. And it's good and right to point those out and try to fix them. But to try to paint the East as the answer to stand against the West is dangerous and dumb.

[–] [email protected] 92 points 1 year ago (27 children)

And they've never done anything like the Great Firewall.

The great firewall is for your own protection, just look at how you guys react to a small group of users with different opinions!

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (26 children)

Are people stupid enough to believe this?

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The real answer is it is, among other things, an economic tool

The alternative was having the big US techs invade china economically, along with the mass propaganda from capitalist entities (chief among them the US, always pursuing efforts to destabilize China) that would have followed

You don't speak to actual Chinese citizens often, do you ? basically all young people there have VPNs, and nobody cares. Like, at all

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (7 children)

No, the truth is the CCP is a violently authoritarian government that needs to control what it's citizens think in order to stay in power.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The US Is the most violent police state in the world, not that you actually give a shit

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

lol, the great firewall is protecting you right now from getting bodied by millions of CPC members

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago

Do you think people don't have VPNs?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I mean, visit any third world country where there's no such thing as a "great firewall" and you'll find western services and corporations embedded in everything to do with technology. WhatsApp has basically replaced text messaging to the point where even banks use it in my country, twitter is basically a PSA and tech support tool, and Facebook is everywhere. This is terrible for sovereignty. Meanwhile China has developed their own stuff such as WeChat and Weibo. So they're not subject to relying on Zuckerberg and Musk for everything from texting to banking.

That's the main economic purpose the great firewall served, it allowed China to develop their own tech industry instead of relying on silicon valley dorks. Not everything is some evil authoritarian communist scheme to oppress everyone. Chinese citizens could just get a VPN if they wanted to find out anything cordoned off.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago

Lol, you're complaining about other people being propagandized while you say shit like this.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

CCP is a violently authoritarian government

The US state has spent the last three-quarter century sending their intelligence and military forces all over the world to violently snuff out any movement that went against it percieved interests.

China did not do that.

So why are you focusing on China? Who is the real "authoritarian" government here?

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