Comment by segasaturn

Comment by segasaturn 4 days ago

19 replies

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The way people are talking about the name of the app feels very stupid to me, in a way I can't put my finger on. I guess it smacks of more Red Scare paranoia, trying to tie anything Chinese to scary, nefarious communists. I doubt that they were thinking of Mao at all when making the app, Xiaohongshu is an app tailored for young, wealthy, cosmopolitan Chinese as an alternative to Douyin which is more for the masses, I wouldn't call that very Maoist.

Aunche 4 days ago

Antiestablishment-types supporting an ideology like Maoism is at least something I can understand. Antiestablishment-types expressing their loyalty to the establishment of a foreign adversary is significantly more concerning.

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  • kelseyfrog 4 days ago

    When your own government is more of an adversary than a foreign government, the equation solves itself.

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    • Aunche 4 days ago

      This nihilistic outlook may make you feel better, but at the end of the day only creates a void in government that megacorporations and malicious actors are happy to fill in.

      In case if you weren't merely being facetious, your home country at least has some incentive to work towards your interest, no matter how evil they are because they have to pay the consequences of these actions. Even in autocratic China, for example, anti-lockdown censorship during Covid in China eventually caused even more resentment against the CCP.

      On the other hand, look at examples of Russian election interference in 2016 [1]. One of the posts is "Satan: If I win Clinton wins. Jesus: Not if I can help it. Press like to help Jesus win." The entire goal is to get Americans to distrust and hate each other. Nobody in America has anything to gain from posting this, but China and Russia have nothing but to gain from a more fractured America. We only found out about this because Facebook cooperated with American intelligence to find this foreign propaganda. At best, you can't expect the same cooperation from TikTok they are accountable to the CCP. At worst, TikTok would actively be working with China to disguise this propaganda as genuine content.

      [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-e...

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      • kelseyfrog 4 days ago

        The people who want to unite Americans might find more success meeting the outliers where they're at rather than framing it as needing them to conform. That approach is what made the outliers cynics in the first place. What would it look like to make real change to address the objects, rather than the subjects of frustration?

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    • sushid 4 days ago

      What a truly insane take. Do you honestly think the Chinese government looks out more for your interests as an American citizen? The fact that you couldn't make the reverse claim in China without being censored speaks volumes.

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      • kelseyfrog 4 days ago

        When you've exhausted legitimate means for change, you begin searching for illegitimate means. Sorry, but at the end of the day, leverage is leverage and if a person in power says "this really hurts," congratulations they've told you their weakness.

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      • zem 4 days ago

        the chinese government doesn't care about you one way or another; the US one is actively hostile towards you.

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      • [removed] 4 days ago
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8note 4 days ago

it probably isnt, and is just a random name, but it feels like the name is a joke about the red scare

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nonethewiser 4 days ago

> The way people are talking about the name of the app feels very stupid to me, in a way I can't put my finger on. I guess it smacks of more Red Scare paranoia.

Is it paranoia if Mao Zedong is still revered? If the government is the communist party? I realize the CCP is not perfectly communist in many ways but they are unapologetic about communism and their roots.

It is a coincidence that the original work did not mean little red book. But thats how it was translated, and the translation of the app is correct. So obviously now when you have the same name coming from a country that doesn't denounce communism I think it's fair to be concerned about communist influence.

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  • 8note 4 days ago

    he'll be revered forever the same way geroge washington is. theyre both warlords who founded a country, casting away the prior government and foreign invaders

    washington is still liked even though he was a notable slave owner

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    • nonethewiser 3 days ago

      Mao Zedong should not be revered even if George Washington is worse than Hitler.

      What you're doing is called "whataboutism."

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