Okay, so background: I'm your average pro-gun fuck-the-police, fuck-trump zoomer honed by years of unsupervised internet access and I've just discovered this community and started lurking for a while. But I still hold extremely negative views on China, which I still think are justified.
"Which views?" I'll throw them out real quick: child labor! internet censorship! media censorship! anti-LGBTQ! uygher genocide? positive and pro war relations with russia! (because fuck putin)
So I get really confused anytime I see people expressing pro-China sentiments. Have I been spoonfed by the media or are some of these points actually justified?
While even your explanation of the Great Firewall does seem slightly dystopianish, that's actually a pretty good reason for why they would do that. I always likened it to North Korea's internet system with the exception of the VPNs.
Also, do you have sources for the history courses? I wholeheartedly believe the Winnie thing is fake now but my brain still wants me to believe in censorship
Facebook has actively assisted in genocide and the banning of it is a net good for society https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/
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I'd argue the open internet as we have it has become a sort of dystopia. When it was still new, companies and tech enthusiasts proclaimed that it would unsure in a new era of human understanding and free information -- a pretty utopian promise. What we actually got is a tool for building private databases of advertising profiles and the mass proliferation of Q-anon style nonsense. I'm kinda envious of China's model. If you can clear the most basic barrier of tech literacy, congrats, you get to visit the open web! Otherwise, it's a walled garden where yer gran isn't gonna get silly ideas about Sharia law or vaccine 'poisons'.
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I assume you're from the States. I'm European and tbh we (I) don't want US companies like Facebook to be handling our social media. They dictate whatever they feel like, which might speak to people in the US but not to people in Europe, and then they threaten to pull out when they get the slightest slap on the wrist from the EU or other governments (they never actually end up pulling out though).
An example I can think of right now is when Facebook allows you to raise money for exclusively US charities. What do I care about some children's hospital in Virginia when we have our own children's hospitals here?
It feels like they're dictating to us how to think, and it comes across as more cultural imperialism. It's not enough that we consume their media, we also have to consume their products and live their lives.
Internet sovereignty is an increasingly important thing, every region in the world needs their own tech and web solutions.
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with the relentless complaining about Russia and China cyberattacks you'd think America would beg for a "firewall"