Reddit Protests and China’s Control of American Culture
nicholasjrobinson.com
nicholasjrobinson.com
> Ultimately, if America is no longer the top exporter of culture, what becomes of our identity?
Every other country is practically a net importer of American culture. Often to the detriment of their own. So they have had the same questions: is this just a market, or should there be cultural protectionism?
Edit: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/07/france... "Culture is like chewing-gum, a product like any other." -- Jack Valenti
It's easy-ish to reason about rights of corporations when they are groups of your own citizens.
When you poke through the veil to ultimate beneficial ownership it's a lot less obviously easy to reason about.
Edit: link please?
The decision had nothing to do with corporations being considered legal persons or the definition of person.
It's a bit silly for people to keep railing on Citizens United in particular. That was a group of people made a movie knocking a particular politician. The 1st amendment gives them the right to do this and also to organise themselves to do this. But officials tried to stop them because the law limited such activity by organisations.
But there will be lots of real-world cases where the corporation is not a political ginger group. There, the free speech (and free assembly) case becomes much weaker. A fully foreign owned corporation being the most clear case.
By this argument, everyone everywhere has the same freedom of speech under the US constitution that Americans do. It's even the same amendment.
> It's trivial to make an argument about what a government can't do without necessarily bestowing broad rights on people the US constitution does not directly apply to.
I don't see what you're imagining here. Prohibiting the government from doing something to you is what a right (against the government) is. If the government can't take an action against members of a particular class, then members of that class enjoy the relevant right. If the government can't take an action against anyone, then the class in question is "everyone in the world", and everyone in the world possesses the relevant right.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/17/17-965/41835/20180...
> The Bill of Rights consists largely of structural constraints that limit the power of the federal government
> The text of the First Amendment does not limit its applicability based on either territory or citizenship
> The original understanding of the Bill of Rights does not set territorial or citizenship status limitations on its applicability
> Under the Establishment Clause [doesn't apply to freedom of speech, but the other arguments do] of the First Amendment, the proclamation is unconstitutional and void even as to foreign nationals abroad
Can you explain why you think it's a good idea to be so vocally opinionated on a factual issue you're obviously not familiar with?
Which people?
By this argument, aren't all immigration restrictions invalid? I don't think anyone is seriously making this argument.
I'm not responsible for what you think, but I'll note that in general it's a good idea to look at what people are saying before deciding what you think they're saying.
> By this argument, aren't all immigration restrictions invalid?
No; for example, if you apply for a visa and check the box saying "I am planning to engage in a terrorist attack against the United States", I'm pretty sure this argument would have nothing to say about denying your visa. It does invalidate plenty of historical restrictions.
> Which people?
Legal people, because it is inline with other comprehensions of how "persons" are afforded rights. Immigration restrictions are not invalid because the right to immigrate (or even technically resettle) are not covered by the constitution. So a presidential order (or governor's order) could be levied to restrict the emigration of people from one region to another - it would possibly run afoul of the terribly broad 9th amendment (basically, you have the right to do anything you should be able to do) but isn't explicitly banned... interesting this would be wholly illegal in Canada which establishes "Freedom of mobility"[1] explicitly.
Laws are fun!
Politicians often make divisive hyperbolic statements with no basis in fact!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and...
It seems pretty straightforward to observe that Chinese residents --- not to mention British residents --- do not in fact enjoy the First Amendment rights of Americans. In fact, neither do Americans, when they're in China or the UK. If they did, British libel law would be different, would it not?
> neither do Americans, when they're in China or the UK
But American citizens in other countries still enjoy the same constitutional protections--protections which only apply to actions taken by the US government.
For instance, if you're a US citizen and a resident of the UK or China, you might want to call the President of the US a big baby on twitter. The UK or Chinese government probably wouldn't have a problem with that, but the first amendment protections you enjoy, even while abroad, is preventing the President from calling up twitter and trying to have you banned.
Free speech being extended to corporations has nothing to do with the legal concept of corporate personhood. Read the decision, it was very explicit. The rights of the people who comprise a group were held to extend to collective action by that group.
> money is speech and there are no values higher
The people (Federalist Society, etc.) who make this argument are the ones who want Saudi/Russian/Chinese/Israeli/... propaganda to dominate or subvert American discourse (with the same subversive power also granted to homegrown plutocrats), as long as they can take a cut or they perceive the resulting public confusion to advance their ideological agenda.
And yes: this is a very short-sighted and dangerous road to travel down, eroding republican norms and civic trust and concentrating power among the unaccountable.
One only need to look at how universal healthcare was not implemented in the US because the USSR had it as a pithy example of how damaging this way of thinking is.
I didn’t say they were evil or stupid or duped. Just short-sighted and self-interested with a practically anti-republican ideology (though I might also add: often disingenuous in public discussion, and largely unwilling to take public responsibility for the side effects of their discourse and policy).
> how universal healthcare was not implemented in the US because the USSR had it
Universal healthcare was not implemented in the USA because the GOP and allied corporate interests have thrown everything they can against it for 75 years, typically sidelining serious policy debate in favor of slogans and cheap attacks. “Because the USSR has it” has little to do with it, except as a disingenuous excuse.
It's sad that my generation who made fun of the culture wars of the 90s has taken the culture wars of the 10s seriously enough to vote for Obama not once but twice.
We either stop believing in free markets or we let everyone play. Maybe there's an untried middle road before returning to isolationism and protectionism. Mercantilism 2.0?
China and Indian companies are just doing exactly the same as the US did last century, and the Japanese and Koreans did a few decades back, or Hong Kong a little before that. With all the same worthless complaining points the US often complains about China now, like espionage, lack of IP protection, propaganda, values, poorer quality, they're good for manufacturing but they'll never design etc, as 19th century Europeans were complaining about the US when they were playing catch up at all cost.
200+ years of history proves it will always happen, aided by those currently leading, and biggest countries (wallets) win in the end. Each and every time someone's culture was "being eroded".
The only ideological agenda is some of their views and norms are different to yours. Newsflash: American mores were different to the Japanese and European too so why weren't they "a very short-sighted and dangerous road" too?
The people who “believe in [unregulated and unaccountable] free markets” and the ones who don’t want to “let every [plutocrat] play [at unlimited anonymous propaganda at the expense of ordinary local citizens]” are not the same.
These two groups are more or less independent and have been ideological enemies for generations, and it makes no sense to conflate them.
“Money is speech” is a view on the US Constitution that is most frequently cited in that language in the US to rally outrage against it as subversive to democracy and facilitating plutocracy, rather than because it is a popular view.
It's certainly true that American culture >> other culture in popular media, so it's hardly surprising or unfair that others want to influence this to their favor (by which I mean, perhaps, merely reduce US-centric influence).
What does that mean?
Just do a Google search for `americanized india` or `americanized china`.
Says me.
Thought it was obvious and conventional wisdom. Feel free to argue the contrary, though.
People aren’t concerned by Chinese propaganda or Cultural exports (positive action) so much as concerned by the possibility they could effect censorship on certain topics they’re sensitive about (negative action).
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/apu3oz/with_the...
>oh no suddenly foreigners are paying huge amounts for speech we don't like
Are also saying this:
>money is speech and there are no values higher
Reddit is very young/liberal and I rarely see e.g. an argument in favor of citizens united. Do you have some examples?
You don't get out much, do you? There is no denying that the US does have quite an influence on a global scale - culturally and otherwise but there is, much, much more going on that the US is nothing to do with.
I'm a Brit who grew up in some strange places: one was called West Germany and the other was a series of public/private (that probably does not mean what you think it does) schools in the UK. All the schools I attended in Germany were British and public, except for the modern and comprehensive ones or the primary or secondary ones.
I have two employees amongst 25 Brits (Ok, some are English, some are Irish and some are Scots and there are others who don't care, oh and some are Welsh) who are Polish. Their parents lived behind the Iron Curtain.
Well that's nice but the world is turning and although English is still one of the lingua franca (oh the irony - franca - French) there are more changes afoot and those who are able to keep pace will "win" and those who can't ... won't. Britain has always been flexible, linguistically. English is an outrageous amalgam of many languages with a simple structure and vocab. that stretches (with a bit of a wobble) across the entire globe.
Well, my English is and always has been very flexible - I personally take great delight in flexing my language and frankly torturing it through accent or spelling until it delivers the desired result. Some other Englishs are a bit taut and inflexible. Some are so worried about being associated with "British" that they are starting to sound a bit odd and stultifying - they will fall by the wayside.
Tell me about your cultural views, Mr pjc50
>(that probably does not mean what you think it does)
>Tell me about your cultural views, Mr pjc50
Do you think the usage of this tone assisted your argument?
On that note, what's your argument?
And with countries like China or India having a larger market, what does America want to do? Not let them invest in the US, accepting that different viewpoints will be expressed? Declare them invalid?
One of the positions that Americans broadly have always held is that when ideas are exchanged, the people overall can figure out what the good ideas are and what the bad ideas are, that's in fact the basic assumption behind liberal democracy. So if these Chinese cultural exports are just propaganda and all around awful, surely Americans will figure it out.
If there's something to them, and they're genuinely valuable and give a different perspective, then it would be bad to try to suppress them.
So by liberal democracies own standards, I find myself puzzled by the flat-out fear of foreign cultural imports.
The fear isn't so much about "cultural imports," but foreign control of cultural institutions. That control can be used to export different kinds of government censorship and other illiberal practices.
That's a narrative, not a conclusion. It certainly wasn't effective in painting Putin as anything than the brutal dictator he is. I think you mean anti-Hillary propaganda, which there is evidence of...although it was so incidental (in spend and trend) that I'm not sure how this is still a news item. I guess it's just a red-scare-orangeman-bad proxy fight. Russia is not a friend of the US, but Putin and Trump are co-narcissists, dancing around each other.
Who is that addressed to? Who would pretend? Just the phrasing of that statement seems strange. It implies an understanding that propaganda serves a function. It always has, that's why the term exists. I didn't imply or assert that a population would "think its way out of it".
There's something you didn't mention when you talked about how "USA wants to spread its values too." American companies that invest in Hollywood and sites like Reddit generally aren't partially owned by the government, and certainly aren't subject to as much government control.
To personalize it, I had plenty of conversations with Chinese VCs back when I was raising for my VR company. I was incredibly aware of the meta implications of this article while writing it. Had I received Chinese investment, I'm not sure I would have written it at all.
> “We are at an interesting inflection with China’s film industry – we have China becoming the most important market globally coupled with an increasingly more sophisticated Chinese audience who strive for compelling stories and movies that captivate the heart and mind,” said Puji Film director Lily Zhao. https://deadline.com/2017/08/china-puji-capital-invests-in-p...
So yeah, I think that it's very possible that Guber might have more reason not to make "Seven Years in Tibet" nowadays compared to in 1997.
This is just conjecture. I don't know to what extent (if any) that such a chilling effect has on a studio's domestic releases.
Given how easily wars on foreign soil are sold to the American public, you should be well aware that the US does not meet those standards. Few countries do.
Hah! Yeah, no. I’m not falling for that one again.
People will happily run themselves off a cliff if someone appeals to them enough, and damn logic.
World's largest economy is shocked and outraged.
Otherwise it's going to be an interesting power-war between China and the USA, and it's unclear on which side the EU will fall.
China's problems are routinely exaggerated and "othered" far in excess of Western problems. After all, we understand the context for Western missteps. "Its complicated."
For example, can you believe that China is overreacting and violating civil rights after terror attacks from Central Asian Muslims? I've never heard of such a thing. Certainly no Western country aside from the USA, Russia, the UK and France would do that.
Meanwhile, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty doesn't seem to count for much.
They have a different history, different culture and different challenges. Demonization is not only wrong, it's a surefire way to mishandle the situation out of ignorance.
Do you think the Dalai Lama is living in India because he likes the weather?
When was the last time America rolled tanks onto their university campuses to shoot students until they fell in line?
America invaded Afghanistan, Iraq and killed hundreds of thousands of unrelated Arabs last time we were attacked by Central Asian Muslims.
Russia? The UK? They've done plenty too, in response to very specifically the same broad ethnic group.
So how come only China gets a daily 2 minutes' hate on hacker news?
Maybe it's nationalism and the thucydides trap?
EDIT responding to below, I'm rate limited, have a good night:
I'm saying that:
1) There's no genocide. There's a mass internment. You're proving my point about bias by using that word.
2) I'm not qualified to judge relative morality of mass internment of your own citizens vs mass death of foreigners.
But most importantly, 3) I'm not even talking about China so much as I am about hacker news. At least nationalist conservatives are honest about their motivations.
Tangentially, the 9/11 attackers were Arab, not Central Asian, and the decision to invade Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, not even as an excuse.
Regardless, you're trying to tell me that invading another country on poor pretenses and botching the occupation is totally the same thing as committing genocide of your own citizens, and then murdering anyone who says fie?
Well ... May 4, 1970. But there were no tanks and they only killed 4 students.
But from my perspective, and probably a lot of the rest of the western world. China is evil.
A lot of harm has been done by people who were positive they were good and the other country is evil.
Take Singapore for example: consistently ranks in the top of quality of life, yet an incredibly dangerous place to practice dissent. China is trying to emulate that model.[0] There's big investments from the Middle East in other social media platforms and I'm yet to see any of them clamping down on content criticising the Saudis.
> because Europe shares America's values of freedom
Interesting take. We certainly look and speak similarly, but there's plenty of differences. Regarding healthcare and education policies who do you think Europe is more similar to: the US or China?
Regarding censorship who do you think is closer again? European states regularly demand removal of social media content, prohibit news outlets reporting certain stories and imprison people for speech that would be clearly protected in the US. [1][2]
In the UK and Australia there are defamation laws that will bankrupt people for simply stating a provably true fact.[3]
The right to bear arms is virtually non-existent, especially for handguns and assault rifles.
The 4th amendment is likewise barely applicable in most Western countries, though sadly that seems to be the case in the US too nowadays.
Things like racial discrimination and LBGT rights certainly are similar. Workers rights too, though I'd call that more a function of national wealth rather than culture.
> ethnic minorities are imprisoned [4]
I'd like to put to you a hypothetical situation where a large region of the USA has a majority Muslim population which has been waging a low level terror campaign for 3 decades? What do you think the response would be? It certainly wouldn't be pretty, the US has no qualms about killing US citizens in assassinations without trial.[5]
Given the prison population in Iraq and Afghanistan during wartime and the horrors[6] found there, it's perhaps a case of walking in their shoes for a day. Democracy won't solve this, the majority of people in China support what's happening in Xinjiang. Anti-muslim sentiment is incredibly common.
[0] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/arti...
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-03-19/free-s...
> To Americans, the idea of the government forcing social media to censor posts may seem to resemble China’s internet censorship. Such legislation wouldn’t just be unconstitutional; it would be almost unthinkable.
[2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/17/europes-free-speech-apo...
> Google, Facebook, and Twitter announced in December that they would work to delete anti-migrant sentiments voiced on their networks within 24 hours of request
[3] https://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/dissent/documents/defamation...
> if what you said was true but not considered by the court to be in the public interest, you can be successfully sued for defamation
[4] https://reason.com/archives/2015/04/16/can-the-president-kil...
> he was within eyesight in Yemen of about 12 Yemeni intelligence agents and four CIA agents, all of whom collectively could have arrested him. He was not engaged in any unlawful behavior. He was unarmed and sitting at an outdoor cafe with a friend and his teenage son and the son's friend. All four, Americans all, were murdered by the drones dispatched from Virginia.
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_prison
[6] https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/28/us/mass-incarceration-fiv...
> nearly 2.2 million adults were held in America's prisons... nearly half of all inmates are locked up for drug charges...African-Americans continue to make up a disproportionate amount of the prison population
Of course no-one can argue against it if you re-state it like that. But the paradox goes much further: "Popper asserted that to allow freedom of speech to those who would use it to eliminate the very principle upon which they rely is paradoxical."
The paradox implies it because if the ideas of tolerance are so fragile, that even in a majority tolerant society, intolerant ideas present such a threat as to consider sacrificing even free speech, then how could they have ever come to dominate in the first place?
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-media-restrict...
Now censorship, propaganda, etc., as well covered in the article — now you’re talking.
America sure loves its China/Russia scaremongering.
Any active Reddit user with non-left leaning political views will most certainly find this assertion amusing at a minimum.
In a similar vein I'd almost rather buy an Huawei phone over an American one because I don't care about China's interests nor live there, so I don't fear them censoring my posts or kicking my door down over some innocuous statement I made online. And for those who think that won't ever happen in the west the UK has already done 2am night raids over a person's tweets. But most redditor's didn't put up a similar fuss over a real life example of the thing they fear from China because he was a (legitimately) douchey right winger who didn't fit into their ideological bubble.
In practice I'd bet far more regular North American and European Reddit users will be banned and have posts deleted for not sharing (by mainstream western standards) the pretty radical left political world-views that is popular on that site's communities - which of course are world-views I see nothing wrong with, people can believe anything they want.
I don't know where I'm going with this other than to say I hope we in the tech community stand against all forms of censorship, not just the one's that fit into their particular pet ideologies. There's plenty of history and literature since the 17th century enlightenment that anything less is a very dangerous path.
ffs... they seem to only be able to see slightly past their own noses.
- Riot Games - League of Legends
- Supercell - Clash of Clans
- Reddit (while waiting for games to load... riding bus.. work etc).
This acquisition will make 100% of their content Chinese owned !
It's hard to imagine a country so against and anathema to Western ideals.
Let's put it in historical context, should we have allowed Franco, Mussolini or Hitler to have significant sway over US media and opinions at the time? How different might the world be now, had we allowed unchecked totalitarianism to spread its ideas before WW2?
We are approaching similar stakes now, where a country that is vehemently against everything we stand for is trying to influence us. We need to appreciate the severity of Chinese investment and not pretend like they are just another investor.