This is funny because the US anti-intellectual MAGA movement is doing the exact opposite. People with degrees who know what the fuck they are doing are being shunned and idiots with feels are being rewarded.
How long to learn Mandarin? 🤣🥹🤷🏼♂️
They say it’s the hardest language to learn…
Oh, if only a solid metric for reliable quality of life were eloquence, much less basic fluency, eh? 🫠
I’m not sure that’ll solve anything. Plenty of people with degrees are idiots too. And many people without degrees may have long running experience in topics they talk about due to other reasons than getting a degree.
Yeah I think this could backfire horribly, when grifters with degrees are given that extra credibility by government decree. Andrew Wakefield is a doctor after all.
Surface-level, seems good idea. In practice, it depends entirely on who gets to define an “influencer”, what is a “serious topic”, what activities meet the threshold of “speaking on” that topic, and which universities’ degrees will be respected and which won’t. It seems like a very flexible framework that their government could use to remove nearly any person from any platform for any reason. If I post “fruit is good for you” on a social platform and someone else sees it, that falls under these rules as I understand them. I anticipate selective enforcement of these rules against those not aligned with the CCP, in fact the rules seems to be specifically written with that in mind.
In China, the level of trust people have in the Government is very high compared to the US and Europe. That is the reason why this policy would work and would have reasonable public support.
In the US or Europe, a policy that seems reasonable but could be exploited by the Government for political control is a bad policy. In China, people have already sort of accepted that the Government is pretty secure in its position so it really doesn’t need to suppress speech in roundabout ways; if the intention is to suppress speech then they will be explicit about it by using the words “this threatens state security” or “this is offensive to public morals”. The thing about being a secure authoritarian regime with reasonable popular support is that you don’t need to come up with pretexts to suppress speech or dissent. You can just say “this threatens our power” and put a stop to it. If the policy states the goal is to stop uninformed people from spewing nonsense on the Internet then people will accept that to be true, and the reality is that it probably is what the goal is.
That “high trust” is only because the government hides a lot of information from them where in a free country it would be discussed in public. The government heavily controls what information is available, what topics can be discussed and what opinions are allowed.
Its not because they govern responsibly and earnt the admiration of the general public.like you seem to suggest.
You are half right and half wrong.
The Government controls all media. There are no major independent news organisations in China. Therefore, they won’t allow negative press about it to spread.
Because the news and social media only ever have good or at worst neutral news about the Government, never critical news, the result is that people think the Government does a good job governing.
At the same time, the poverty alleviation and anti-corruption efforts of the CCP have indeed brought millions out of poverty (even though that poverty is largely a result of bad leadership decisions by the same CCP in the past) and eliminated most forms of petty corruption. That is something that the Government makes sure everyone knows about and is always talking about. And to their credit, it isn’t wrong.
I do not and will not suggest that popular support for the Government would be anywhere near what it is now if it weren’t for the Government’s propaganda efforts and the suppression of speech, dissent, and criticism.
I wouldn’t suggest that people think their government is doing a good job because the media doesn’t expose the bad. Rather, the goal of speech suppression is to limit factions forming, organizing, and growing. Public discussion is the fuel for organization. Limiting speech keeps everyone in the same tent or in their own tiny, isolated pockets.
And you are correct. But it doesn’t matter to my original point. For any reason, people trust the Government. Because of this trust, policies like the one discussed in the original post don’t alarm the average Chinese netizen.
Although an interesting side note is that while some people think that saying anything bad at all about the Government will get you arrested in China, that’s not really true. You are free to talk all the smack you want about the Government, in private. It’s when you try to start some kind of political movement or organise something in public that now you will be labelled a threat to public order and state security.
Absolutely.
The only fair way to handle it is to pay lip service to the free flow of information, and then get your friends who own every mass media platform with reach to push your own agenda, burying the rest in lawsuit threats and filtering algorithms.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m not defending the Chinese government as saints, but I think at this point we can safely acknowledge EVERYTHING sucks. If there’s a country fairly managing to promote truth while keeping dangerous nonsense from propagating, I sure haven’t found it.
“They are so powerful that they no longer tell lies” isn’t a take I think human history would support.
I do not claim that. The Chinese government absolutely lies when they need to. I am just saying that they have a track record of not lying in this manner, because they don’t need to.
How does a post where you make a bunch of uneducated guesses about a country get only up votes? Oh right, china bad, got it.
If only China would live up to the shining standard of the USA…
One country is spiraling into civil war while the other is the fastest growing economy in the world, and yet its the suicidal countries citizens constantly talking shit about the rest of the world.
China is not a third world country. They aren’t oppressed people. America is both of those things.
Well I’d watch out from posting anything like this unless you have a degree in Political Science from an approved institution. You might accidentally influence me and get fined!
So… Did you bring anything to the discussion? What’s your take on the new policy?
I’ll still take the USA over CCP run China, because over half of the US voting population is against the MAGA insanity. When the mainland Chinese vote for Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, then we’ll talk.
Most americans dont even know Chinese people vote for politicians, they think they are just told what to do all times of the day.
Makes sense to me, for certain topics/areas.
Australia has a law about not being able to give financial advice without a qualification to do so, so ‘influencers’ who cover topics such as banking and investments do need to be careful about how they present their content because we dont want people going into financial ruin thinking “DollarGodMoneyMaker” on youtube is trustworthy and knows what the fuck he is talking about.I mean, it’s not really a horrible idea, so long as it’s not being used to promote propaganda. (Which considering the source- it is)
Influencers are fucking horrible. Popularity should not default to trustworthiness. Remember: it was this type of thing that led to the idea that vaccines cause autism.
Gating influencers behind having even a bachelor ya degree in whatever field they’re teeing to bullshit people into buying, will cut down on the amount of ignorance spread as a result.
But should trustworthiness default to popularity?
No.
Influencers are trustworthy only because they’re influencers. They usually have no knowledge about jack shit aside from what they can get for free for advertising for it.
Under no circumstances should anyone calling themselves an “influencer” be trusted.
Not the question
Dr. Oz is a heart surgeon, but that doesn’t prevent him from selling bullshit.
And his shittery isnt a new thing.
He was shilling “alternative medicine” back in the 80s.
What? You mean you’ll have to actually KNOW something , before you blather on about it? That’s un-American!
Which is precisely why China’s quickly taking the world leadership title away from the US.
Needing the Chinese government’s blessing of your online activities, is, I totally agree, very un-American.
America doesnt have free speech.
六四天安門事件
Sure. But you can say a lot more in the USA than you can China without risking a knock on the door from the authorities.
You know if the title was just “China bans influencers” I’d be ok with it.
Aaaand Louis Rossmann? A person actually working to bring influence and not just saying stuff?
This seems like it could be abused pretty easily. IDK are there any Chinese citizens here to comment
Naw come on, China’s not known for their extreme degree of control over what they’ll allow their citizens to see or post online, that’s just wild talk man. They certainly don’t have enormous human and technological infrastructures dedicated to making sure that their internet is squeaky-clean and government-approved for all their citizens who they totally trust.
The only reason it seems that way is because western countries would use that to control their populations, and you are likely from one of them and are fed anti-china propaganda.
Please define anti-China propaganda.
Is it that the Chinese have extreme wealth inequality while cranking out more billionaires than any other country?
Oh wait, is it the old China is just another imperialist state that abuses minorities?
China didn’t get the fastest growing economy by themselves. In fact, it was businesses in the US that gave them the money to do what they did. This means that China is great because of the US not despite it.
I get that confused westerners get a China boner when they get disillusioned by their governments. I think that these sort of people are just reactionary and can’t see the bigger picture. There are no good guys.
Is chinas wealth inequality worse than america? Do you really know what’s happening in Xinjiang? Chinas economy is the fastest growing because the western world exported every bit of skilled labor there. The west trained them on everything they know, and then stopped training their own people on the same things. China has problems but people constantly acting like its a third world country and so far beneath any western country is extremely laughable.
Even more rididiculous are comparisons to the US which is about to be shattered apart by civil war.
Yes, by far. Yes. I already explained their economy is propped up by trade. They did not create it in a vacuum.
Much of China is rural with great wealth inequality. China had its own civil war where horrific things like hundred of thousands of civilians were starved to death.
As I already said. Disenfranchised westerners often latch onto China as some kind of alternative without doing any real research. I will say China has done well for itself economically. They deserve credit where credit is due.
Having said that their government is authoritarian and saying the wrong thing will get you locked up for years and sometimes decades in prison.
China abuses minorities and engages in imperialism. They sell weapons to conflict regions and project their power in the same way western countries do.
You speak of propaganda and then say the US is about to be shattered by a civil war. Sounds like propaganda to me.
Those damn Commie bastards!
Hey! That’s actually not a bad idea. Can we do that in our government, as well as dopey influencers? Start with PeeWee Mengele.
America has a guy in charge of the health department that says a bunch of wack shit. It’s not just influencers but people with positions of power.
That’s who I was referring to as PeeWee Mengele.
Americans: “This is censorship” Also hundreds of American dumbass youtubers: "Covid vaccine makes you a transhuman robot; drink horse de-wormer instead. " Also american dumb shit tech ceo’s talking out of their asses about shit they never studied: “Trans people are a conspiracy against humanity.” The list goes on and on.
Well like, yeah, it is in fact censorship. I don’t think it’s a fundamentally bad idea by any stretch, but if it were implemented here in the US it would be instantly abused to dictate the political narrative. Given that’s the basis pretty much all american commentators are basing their reactions from, and that chinese citizens are restricted from sharing their impression with the broad internet, it’s understandable why the narrative on this topic is that way. The opposing viewpoints are all contained within a country that is extremely ideologically isolationist.
For what it’s worth, China isn’t particularly better on the issue of abusing policy to dictate the political narrative either. As examples of some of the concerns I’ve seen expressed by my chinese colleagues about this: nobody is clear (neither on english-language sites or on what chinese news sites said colleagues can access) about what these rules would actually entail - Will they then require university educated people (or certified or etc.) to present broadly accepted established scientific claims? Will those claims be restricted to their relevant field (that seems reasonable, but impossible to police) or is anyone with a university degree allowed to comment? What about people with university degrees, but politically inconvenient opinions about, say, Covid? We’re not very far out from a Chinese government that advocated for TCM and Barefoot Doctors, so while it’s good the government is working to combat medical disinformation, they also have been historically a source for some of the most damaging misinformation that’s still extant in chinese society today.
It’s fine to cheer this decision on the face, but dunking on youtubers is easy and by association dismisses the very credible concerns people are raising over this policy.
I don’t think it’s a fundamentally bad idea by any stretch, but if it were implemented here in the US it would be instantly abused to dictate the political narrative.
I don’t get this logic of “yeah it’s a good idea but if we do it we’ll do it wrong.” Like okay… Then do it right then?
It’s like when someone advocates for higher taxes on the rich and someone responds with “yeah that’s great and all but the rich will just find loopholes” like okay. Then close the loopholes as well.
I do not think the concept itself is bad (verifying credentials for people presenting information on social media), and something like it could theoretically be implemented in the US. This system specifically though, as it appears to be being implemented by china, would be utterly unworkable in the US. There’s absolutely no infrastructure in place to allow for that sort of broad centralized verification, and constructing some centralized system for credential verification across all US states would be an absolute field day for identity theft.
It’s currently unclear how China anticipates handling that requirement too, FWIW. As far as I can find, that centralized resource also does not exist for chinese credentials (possibly one exists for degrees from major universities, but since this is not restricted to just university degrees, it’s still an open-ended question). I’ve got no idea how they plan on verifying claims, and I suspect neither do any major service providers in China right now.
Make it illegal and prosecute those that wind up with an audience. You can’t stop everyone giving out bad advice but you can prevent people making it their career and building a large following.
The issues that instantly come to mind: That’s fundementally unconstitutional, there is no mechanism for enforcement, there is no agency tasked with that and US LEAs are already beyond the workload they could ever hope to address, very rarely is “more cops” a solution, how do you address people that say things like “wink wink this is not medical advice”. This is simply not a problem that can be solved in a single paragraph response. It could possibly be done, but it would be spectacularly non-trivial to implement, even if we were in an environment where giving that kind of authority to fhe current administration seemed like a good idea.
Why’s it unconsititutional? Freedom of speech doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want.
And there’s no agency for it? Then make one.
The exceptions to freedom of speech are extremely specific, aren’t trivially described and have not been expanded in more than a century. You can’t simply dismiss that constraint because things like libel and active incitement are conditionally established exceptions. This would, under current laws, inarguably be unconstitutional - perhaps an amendment could be passed, but the best route for this would be through the extant libel laws and the civil court.
And there’s no agency for it? Then make one.
Sure, more cops is clearly a great solution! But that’s not what China is doing, which was the initial premise.
If youre an influencer with millions of followers a degree should be a small road block. Unless you dum.
If youre an influencer with millions of followers a degree should be a small road block. Unless you dum.
That last sentence seems to describe a great deal of “influencers” that I’ve seen.
Man
Of all dystopias why is Deus Ex becoming true?
This has shades of a conversation you can have in that game’s Hong Kong where a bartender tells JC something to the effect of “China’s ‘repression’ has ironically preserved people’s ability to keep on like, LIVING. Whereas the United States with all its freedom was carved up and eaten by megacorps”
Whereas the United States with all its freedom
The United States is the country that leans on their supposed freedom the most in the world, but they are not the country with the actual highest freedom. And that’s even entertaining the rhetoric that absolute freedom is indeed desirable, which it most certainly is not.
I’m mostly just quoting a video game that was eerily predictive, is all.
I like the idea of not letting stupid people spread misinformation on the internet (unless it’s myself), but this is just gatekeeping the right to speak out in public about certain topics which I find deeply problematic.
There’s got to be something to do for accountability, but ….
Just want to point out the guy who made up the whole vaccine-autism scare was a scientist. All of the propaganda against anti-smoking, anti-climate change, anti-pollution, anti-lead efforts over the years has been produced by scientists
Educated people are people too. Just because they should know better doesn’t mean they are
You’re spot on with accountability. Why not just legally allow people harmed by following the advice to be ableto sue the influencers and allow those with proper credentials to become certified in the topic and certification protects from lawsuits?
Or maybe not the second part. Anybody giving bad advice should be sued.
“This isn’t medical advice, but drinking battery acid will allow you to live forever.” Would never hold up in court.
Freedom of speech seems to be the most misunderstood right.
The challenging part is a lot of it is indirect. General incitement to violence or misinformation is difficult to tie back to directly causing harm.
Freedom of speech was simpler before internet when you were likely singled out as a kook and ignored. Now with the internet you have a much bigger audience as well as other kooks where you can build on each other. Your reach is farther, you can more easily appear to have common opinion, you can do more harm, and yet are more distanced from the harm you do.
I have no idea what to do differently but we’ve seen free speech in an online world without any accountability has been able to do a lot of harm.
Yeah, I think more is being lost here than “solved”. Sometimes you need to ask simple questions about complex things. Ask any teacher and they’ll say that students deepen their own understanding just as much as they teach back. It’s part of the flow of creative ideas and inspiration. Everybody should have the right to be curious, ask questions, learn and make new discoveries.
Instead, this feels like “You are only allowed to have ideas once you’ve gone through the propogandization program to have the right ones”. But I still do agree that we need to start trying lots of things to combat misinformation. Maybe a rebrand of education to show how much more interesting reality is than conspiracy theories. A focus on the truth that so much remains unknown, and conspiracy theories are like unhealthy junk food that never satiates that truth.
There you have it, another MAGA dream, because most of those university graduates are fucking CCP members.
