ponponproblems-deactivated20250:

I think there’s a lot of optimism around American kids moving to REDNote as an antidote to the, frankly, ridiculous propaganda that Americans have been filled with regarding China and the Chinese people since birth. I have met Americans who believe that all of the Red Scare era propaganda about China, from breadlines to mass executions, is still the case for ordinary citizens in Beijing (and very few Americans who can name Chengdu and Guangzhou).

However, Chinese people on the app are often attempting to warn you, in a very polite and evasive Chinese soc. med. way, that REDNote content is still strictly moderated and content critical of the state (Uyghurs, the recent invasion of Hong Kong, even the economy!!) or supportive of certain identities the state is not cool with right now (Muslims, queer people, etc) is routinely deleted, blocked and so on.

I’m concerned because discussing any subject deemed political in a Chinese context often requires knowing a second language of nuanced implications and statements that can be gleaned through what’s not said rather than what is. I’ve seen American kids claiming that because China is a “communist country” (yes a communist country with the second most billionaires in the world 🙄) it doesn’t even have a right-wing that could be onboarding you with shitty ideas, but well, that’s very much not the case, and the Chinese online right even has words for white people like this lol. The same way the United States portrays China as a dirty country of starving peasants, China portrays the United States as extremely socially divided due to a lack of racial hegemony and nationalist (by which they mean neo-Confucian collectivist) spirit.

Individual people in both countries are cool, but American kids moving to REDNote, where they can’t even discuss minority issues and are forced to play within the sandbox of a government that is just as censorious and diabolical as the United States, isn’t going to end racism lol, especially not if these kids lack the necessary education and awareness of Chinese culture, history and social issues to actually meaningfully learn from the experience and what the Chinese users are saying without saying.

Anyway, it is deeply frustrating that the trend of social media, from Yahoo-Tumblr to whatever happened to twitter to this, is censorship laced with -phobia and -ism.