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Two demonstrably true observations:

- China actively works to remove mentions about the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

- There are CCP sympathetic posters on HN. I've had them reply to me before. They have identified themselves Chinese.

Combining these two into the statement, "There are posters sympathetic to the CCP stance of censoring the Tiananmen Square Massacre who are flagging these posts," does require some information not available on my side of the screen, but it's not exactly a big jump.

And on a completely personal observation, it wouldn't bug me much if HN did not tolerate such members' attempts to censor the Tiananmen Square Massacre - did not protect them as a group from criticism. Intolerance of intolerance being required for a tolerant society, and all that.




> Two demonstrably true observations:

> - China actively works to remove mentions about the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

When you say “China”, don’t you think you are being unnecessarily ambiguous?

Any Chinese national can identify with the word “China”, yet unlike Western nationals they’d have absolutely no say in these policy matters, even indirectly through an election.

Think about the effect you want your message to have. With careless phrasing, some of the audience of the message might have two choices: either be left feeling put down in a non-actionable way, or start taking offence—which, if we simplistically pretend there are just two sides in this issue, might mean your message would end up slowly fuelling the opposite side throughout its lifetime on the Web (which would probably be many years).

I personally am trying to be more precise and stick to “CCP” in such context, and in this situation support the sentiment in dang’s note.


I just want to provide you with another data point. I may well be in the minority, but nevertheless I am a bonafide contributor and enjoyer of HN. I should also point out that I did not and would likely not flag posts about the Tienanmen Square Massacre. However, there is a sense in which I could be construed as being "sympathetic" to the CCP and I'm 100% British. I am not sympathetic in the sense that I support the murder and cover up of protesting students, rather I am unsympathetic to the idea that the CCP is motivated by a cartoonish idea of despotism. Whilst I do believe that the most significant component in the censorship of Tank Man is formal CCP policy, I don't believe that extends to the wider conversation. My feeling is that the majority of non-Chinese commentators are disproportionally informed on Chinese history compared to Western history. For example the Opium Wars, or why Hong Kong was a British colony, or the effect the Century of Humiliation had/has on the Chinese collective consciousness. Again, to make sure I'm clear, there is no possible justification for state-sanctioned murder. However my "sympathy" is that we are failing as intelligent and caring fellow human beings if we cannot imagine the CCP as anything other than a Hollywood-esque super villain. So whilst I know I push against these stereotypes, and I suspect so too do Chinese nationals, that doesn't mean I also push against attempts to censor The Tienanmen Square Massacre.

So I'm not trying to disprove your point that censoring is actively occurring, I just want to try to add some nuance to the situation, that there are other currents at play here. And that when sweeping sentiments are expressed and reinforced about China there's a danger those other currents get drowned out and even misconstrued. So if I'm interpreting @dang's intentions correctly, I very much support his attempts to navigate this almost impossible situation with fairness yet firmness.




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