Ngl, I kinda hate when people say “online is not real life.” I mean, technically that’s correct, but liberals said that to argue against Bernie’s popularity in 2016/2020 while conveniently ignoring that the reasons for his non-election stemmed from an electoral system designed to protect against the will of the people.
But am I incorrect in assuming that since the ubiquitous internet is fairly new, we don’t have enough information to determine whether normalizing bigotry and the most horrific shit imaginable under the guise of free speech, we probably shouldn’t run that risk? Obviously people don’t say this shit irl because they’d get clapped (and they do).
But what do y’all think? Is this like a super niche field of sociology? It’s fascinating to me, I’m curious if the medium changes that in any noticeable way
From personal experience, I would say that this has become a lot more difficult in recent years, because of difficulties in purchasing VPNs from within China, censorship of information on how to bypass the GFW, and the vast majority of VPNs just straight up not working in China anymore.
To bypass the GFW in China and access Western social media, you pretty much have to know someone irl who already knows how to bypass the GFW and have them share their method with you.