i should know better by now

[amw]

Last week Zoom suspended the accounts of three people - two in America and one in Hong Kong - for trying to organize online discussions around topics that the Chinese government considers sensitive (Tiananmen massacre etc). This was done at the explicit request of the Chinese government, who declared discussion of these topics to be illegal

Comments

[dadi]

I got into one of these discussions too.. different direction but always the whining right wing assholes. Apparently chinese firms are buying up half lake Garda in Italy and the right wing italians are saluting this with great yahoo, because, china has helped them so much during the pandemic and will certainly give tourism there a big upswing. When some tourism worker unions dared to voice a few doubts on how workers in those firms will be treated, oh the outcry. "china is our friend! they will make everything better! not like germans who want us all dead". Right.

[coercedbynutmeg]

Ugh, no. I'm pretty politically libertarian but I really hate that countries and corporations are letting China buy their stuff, and by that I mean land or means of production, not just finished goods. There are so many bad strings attached to the quick buck.

[amw]

Yep. Even though private Chinese companies are theoretically operating in the free market, we know that at the end of the day they all have to answer to the party. There was a great article about this last year: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/25/china-business-xi-jinping-communist-party-state-private-enterprise-huawei

There doesn't seem to be a way to cut deals with Chinese companies without also getting the party involved in your business, and that should worry libertarians just as much as hawks.

[benicek]

Apple Daily (Jimmy Lai’s paper) has just started doing an online English section and suddenly I see how bad it is there now.

[amw]

Do you mean bad in China, bad in Hong Kong, or bad in internet news comments sections? Because, for two of those three, i can definitely confirm.

[benicek]

In Hong Kong, for the democracy campaigners. I think they are going to kidnap and kill them all.

[belleweather]

Yeah, it's only a first amendment issue if the GOVERNMENT does it... it's annoying how often Americans forget the first 5 words of the first amendment. ("Congress shall make no law...")