C-SPAM moderation and Xinjiang: read rules in op

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > C-SPAM moderation and Xinjiang: read rules in op

Yossarian-22: Oct 26, 2014

I still really like China and wish the CCP wasn’t so evil

i feel like the use of the word "evil" here is a bit comical and reminds me of the kind of propaganda coming out of the epoch times, that the ccp is the #1 enemy of the world. that's not even to say that it's wrong to call them evil mind you; i think all states are evil to the extent that they are repressive apparatuses and look after their state's own imperialist or parochial interests at the expense of other states. but the way the chinese ccp has been singled out as this boogeyman is eerily similar to reagan calling the soviet union the "evil empire" of the world. it also doesn't really make sense considering the limits of china's geopolitical power.

anti-chinese neo-cold war hysteria has also been part and parcel of the attacks against asian-americans, which complicates discussion of china. that's not to say china should not be criticized, even severely, but it should make anyone rightfully wary of western news about/views of china.

the fact is that we all know very little about china relative to what there is to know, and both uncritical support and fervent anti-ccp attitudes both come from a place of ignorance. the same goes for moderations based on "wrong think" about china: moderators are just as guilty of this ignorance. on that basis i don't think such moderatoins really make sense. the ccp being "evil" and the uighur situation not technically constituting a genocide can both be independently true or false, but they can also both be moderated on the basis of a slippery slope argument that you are, respectively, either privately racist against chinese people on the one hand or denying the actual repression of uighurs on the other. the fact is that moderators can't really establish intent, so 90% of the time neither claim should be moderated.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 20:48

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 18:59

Bathtub Cheese: Jun 15, 2008; I lust for Chinese world conquest. The truth does not matter before the supremacy of Dear Leader Xi.

there's no comprehensive and honest discussion to be had about Xinjiang in English unless said speakers are bilingual in Mandarin. the US is going to distort and lie about this to the maximum extent feasible and the sources the English-language agitprop relies on are shady at best.

practically speaking, there's no peaceful solution and any concerted effort ostensibly aimed at putting a stop to what's being called a genocide will be political cover for economic or literal warfare between the West and China.

no one gives anywhere near as much of a poo poo when every TNC uses slave labor throughout the global south and in American prisons in far worse conditions or the US commits robotic mass murder and tortures and rapes its way through the middle east nonstop for decades. even downplaying any of these things doesn't lead to any kind of political witch hunts, bans, or insane burdens of proof as they do for "uighur genocide denialists". the crocodile tears over uighurs are all shed by people who have other problems with China or Chinese people than Xinjiang and it's obvious

also noting that CAPS LOCK BROKEN ate a ban and an 11 year probe for being unfriendly about the Xinjiang thing but you have people here arguing that there's a genuine controversy now lol. what changed?

Bathtub Cheese has issued a correction as of 20:53 on Mar 24, 2021

# ? Mar 24, 2021 20:50

THS: Sep 15, 2017

Flavius Aetass posted:

I agree that the mods should be taking a looser moderation role in this. I think I was coming down too hard and hamfisted before.

I'm not sure I agree that the rising tensions and sinophobia are really relevant here though. I think C-SPAM posters can separate criticism of China's government from anti-Chinese prejudice or a desire for intervention.

I do not think anyone is free of the wider cultural context and media atmosphere, not even the wise and hardbitten posters of CSPAM. A lot of propaganda is �concern trolling� for lack of a better word, designed to get those who think of themselves as more enlightened and culturally �liberal� on board with the imperial project. This is why so much of it is couched in terms of human rights, preventing genocide, etc. - such that if you question the veracity you appear monstrous.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 20:51

Hairy Marionette: Apr 22, 2005; I am not immune to propaganda

Ferrinus posted:

Jury's still out on that one, but it's definitely proof that Deng knew what he was talking about.

See, you've literally read the opposite of what I wrote. I don't think genocide is okay. You and I disagree on the facts, not the ethics. If I thought the vocational schools in China were even the loose equivalent of the residential schools in Canada, I would oppose them in the strongest possible terms. However, I don't think they're the same for a variety of reasons (taking some adults rather than a preponderance of children, for starters).

To be fair to you, I might be a gleeful supporter of genocide who is simply cloaking his bloodthirst beyond technical quibbles about contemporary and historical facts. For sure, actual holocaust deniers will open with leading questions about logistical feasibility, not lay all their cards down on the table immediately. However, that's not what I'm doing. I think the CCP has contradicting forces in it, some of which genuinely want to push Han chauvinism and who complain that minorities get too many rights, and others of which want to cleave to the Soviet "each nationality gets autonomy" model. I think both communists and capitalists in the Chinese elite have a strong interest in dumping as many people into the industrial proletariat as quickly as possible, such that terrorist attacks in Xinjiang give them a good pretext to ramp up and do manually something that was just happening due to market forces before.

However, no one in China actually has an incentive to commit genocide on any of its internal nationalities rather than just put all those nationalities to work. This is why the one-child policy, for instance, hit the Han the heaviest and minorities like the Uyghurs the lightest.

You�re right about the one child policy. Most (all?) minorities were exempted from the policy. But I could just as easily say that nobody in America has an incentive to commit genocide on any of our minority populations. Genocide is never something that has a rational reason behind it, and yet America does a hell of a lot of it.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 20:52

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Hairy Marionette posted:

You�re right about the one child policy. Most (all?) minorities were exempted from the policy. But I could just as easily say that nobody in America has an incentive to commit genocide on any of our minority populations. Genocide is never something that has a rational reason behind it, and yet America does a hell of a lot of it.

Americans don't have an incentive to literally exterminate Black people and Mexicans, but they do have a powerful incentive to dehumanize and immiserate them because sorting people into tiers and doling out human rights proportionate to your spot on the tier list is an important element of extracting profits. The internment camps on the US's southern border are absolutely logical, because they help us to maintain an underclass to hyper-exploit. Full-on industrial extermination camps might represent an irrational excess, but you don't need those to be doing a genocide as such.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 20:56

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

just going to copy my post in the communist thread over here

Raskolnikov38 posted:

i dunno whats there to discuss. we all largely agree the PRC isn't treating its uighur citizens as they should be but unless you're dumb enough to believe zenz they're not murdering non-han to feast upon/transplant their organs. stop probing/banning people for pointing this out but do punish them if they're legit arguing that the forced assimilation/cultural repression isn't happening

also its stupid bullshit that one forum has to be policed constantly for anyone denying zenz's made up bullshit while another is denying the existence of photographs released by a government official because it makes their team look bad

# ? Mar 24, 2021 20:57

Hairy Marionette: Apr 22, 2005; I am not immune to propaganda

Yossarian-22 posted:

I still really like China and wish the CCP wasn�t so evil

i feel like the use of the word "evil" here is a bit comical and reminds me of the kind of propaganda coming out of the epoch times, that the ccp is the #1 enemy of the world. that's not even to say that it's wrong to call them evil mind you; i think all states are evil to the extent that they are repressive apparatuses and look after their state's own imperialist or parochial interests at the expense of other states. but the way the chinese ccp has been singled out as this boogeyman is eerily similar to reagan calling the soviet union the "evil empire" of the world. it also doesn't really make sense considering the limits of china's geopolitical power.

anti-chinese neo-cold war hysteria has also been part and parcel of the attacks against asian-americans, which complicates discussion of china. that's not to say china should not be criticized, even severely, but it should make anyone rightfully wary of western news about/views of china.

the fact is that we all know very little about china relative to what there is to know, and both uncritical support and fervent anti-ccp attitudes both come from a place of ignorance. the same goes for moderations based on "wrong think" about china: moderators are just as guilty of this ignorance. on that basis i don't think such moderatoins really make sense. the ccp being "evil" and the uighur situation not technically constituting a genocide can both be independently true or false, but they can also both be moderated on the basis of a slippery slope argument that you are, respectively, either privately racist against chinese people on the one hand or denying the actual repression of uighurs on the other. the fact is that moderators can't really establish intent, so 90% of the time neither claim should be moderated.

Here, let me post the entire sentence that you partially quoted at the beginning of your post:

quote:

I still really like China and wish the CCP wasn�t so evil, but their evil is approximately equivalent to America�s evil from what I can tell.

Quoting half a sentence outside of its original context in order to argue against a straw man version of what somebody else said is one of those disrespectful to other poster things that degrades the discourse.

Please try to refrain from such indulgences.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 20:57

Brain Candy: May 18, 2006

Hairy Marionette posted:

You�re right about the one child policy. Most (all?) minorities were exempted from the policy. But I could just as easily say that nobody in America has an incentive to commit genocide on any of our minority populations. Genocide is never something that has a rational reason behind it, and yet America does a hell of a lot of it.

This is a weird thing to say, especially with respect to America. America was explicitly about killing Native Americans and taking their stuff, using 'empty' land as a substitute for dealing with internal issues for most of it's history.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 20:58

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

Crusty Nutsack posted:

So I know and understand that a lot of people are frustrated with other moderation decisions in other subforums. I am sympathetic however we (cspam mods) have no control over those other subforums or mods.

weird how they have lots of control over you!

# ? Mar 24, 2021 20:58

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

open the report forum and make all mod PMs publically viewable so that we can see just how much the d&d karens and mods control cspam

# ? Mar 24, 2021 20:59

F Stop Fitzgerald: Dec 12, 2010

Flavius Aetass posted:

I agree that the mods should be taking a looser moderation role in this. I think I was coming down too hard and hamfisted before.

I'm not sure I agree that the rising tensions and sinophobia are really relevant here though. I think C-SPAM posters can separate criticism of China's government from anti-Chinese prejudice or a desire for intervention.

"i dont know anything about china but something bad is almost certainly happening" is a kind of sinophobia. its both the Inscrutable trope AND its a display of internalized prejudices against east asians who have been painted, historically, as valuing life less.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 20:59

THS: Sep 15, 2017

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:02

Kindest Forums User: Mar 25, 2008; Let me tell you about my opinion about Bernie Sanders and why Donald Trump is his true successor.

You cannot vote Hillary Clinton because she is worse than Trump.

Flavius Aetass posted:

I agree that the mods should be taking a looser moderation role in this. I think I was coming down too hard and hamfisted before.

I'm not sure I agree that the rising tensions and sinophobia are really relevant here though. I think C-SPAM posters can separate criticism of China's government from anti-Chinese prejudice or a desire for intervention.

I'm trying to think of a time in history when the narrative supporting intervention sounded something like this: "Even though I support the Vietnamese government, I hate their people, so we should invade immediately".

It's impossible to separate criticism of China's government and racial prejudice/intervention when you're discussion is entirely based from facts and figures that are manufactured with the purpose of subjugating the Chinese people.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:02

Hairy Marionette: Apr 22, 2005; I am not immune to propaganda

Ferrinus posted:

Americans don't have an incentive to literally exterminate Black people and Mexicans, but they do have a powerful incentive to dehumanize and immiserate them because sorting people into tiers and doling out human rights proportionate to your spot on the tier list is an important element of extracting profits. The internment camps on the US's southern border are absolutely logical, because they help us to maintain an underclass to hyper-exploit. Full-on industrial extermination camps might represent an irrational excess, but you don't need those to be doing a genocide as such.

I don�t follow how genocide can be rational for America and irrational for China. But then, I don�t understand why my fellow Americans are racist despite growing up in the most segregated city in the country.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:02

Hairy Marionette: Apr 22, 2005; I am not immune to propaganda

Brain Candy posted:

This is a weird thing to say, especially with respect to America. America was explicitly about killing Native Americans and taking their stuff, using 'empty' land as a substitute for dealing with internal issues for most of it's history.

It hasn�t really worked out so great for us.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:03

Crusty Nutsack: Apr 21, 2005; SUCK LASER, COPPERS

Raskolnikov38 posted:

weird how they have lots of control over you!

this is dumb bullshit and you need to give it a rest, especially in this thread. this is not for whining about what you imagine is going on with dnd mods.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:05

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

Rime posted:

Genocide is OK here because we are ideologically pure, unlike those filthy capitalists.

There is zero difference between the decades of enforced Sinicization and cultural repression in Xinjiang, and the Residential Schools program of Canada. To claim that what is occurring there is fine and acceptable because China was a communist nation decades ago is insanity. To claim crimes against humanity are an "antidote" to capitalism is reprehensible and disgusting.

Like, FFS, Nat Geo was covering the beginnings of this in the late 1990's when they were cracking down in Kashgar. This is not a hot new CIA psyops campaign.

cultural genocide and genocide are two different, but related concepts. this debate primarily centers around one german loon claiming without evidence that china has set up treblinkas throughout xinjiang which is patently false

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:05

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

the only thing that should be punished is if someone says oppressing the uighurs is good

all skepticism and discussion of claims and whether or not any existing repression rises to the level of genocide and how it compares to historical and existing repression throughout the world should be allowed

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:10

Kindest Forums User: Mar 25, 2008; Let me tell you about my opinion about Bernie Sanders and why Donald Trump is his true successor.

You cannot vote Hillary Clinton because she is worse than Trump.

Hairy Marionette posted:

It hasn�t really worked out so great for us.

America is literally the most powerful place in the world and not one single person who enjoys her spoils are the original inhabitants of the land, or those that participated in the slave or slave-like labour of building the empire.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:11

Dustcat: Jan 26, 2019

Raskolnikov38 posted:

cultural genocide and genocide are two different, but related concepts. this debate primarily centers around one german loon claiming without evidence that china has set up treblinkas throughout xinjiang which is patently false

That could explain some of the vitriol, because I for one thought we were talking about cultural genocide the whole time, not extermination camps.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:12

Flavius Aetass: Mar 30, 2011

comedyblissoption posted:

the only thing that should be punished is if someone says oppressing the uighurs is good

all skepticism and discussion of claims and whether or not any existing repression rises to the level of genocide and how it compares to historical and existing repression throughout the world should be allowed

Can everyone live with this?

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:12

Flavius Aetass: Mar 30, 2011

Dustcat posted:

That could explain some of the vitriol, because I for one thought we were talking about cultural genocide the whole time, not extermination camps.

right, I was going to say that

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:12

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

Kindest Forums User posted:

America is literally the most powerful place in the world and not one single person who enjoys her spoils are the original inhabitants of the land, or those that participated in the slave or slave-like labour of building the empire.

This is quite fairly offensive to the great many indigenous and slave-descendant individuals who have achieved success within the racially biased regimes of North America. :stare:

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:13

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

Dustcat posted:

That could explain some of the vitriol, because I for one thought we were talking about cultural genocide the whole time, not extermination camps.

yeah between the destruction of mosques and cemeteries which there is satellite photo evidence of it should be very hard to claim that china is not suppressing uighur cultural identity

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:13

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

also the increasingly prevelant need for speaking mandarin or other chinese dialects over native lanaguges causing a decline in fluent speakers of the latter but i'm not sure where to draw the line on that between government mandate enforcement and the effects of a modern industrial state

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:16

Kindest Forums User: Mar 25, 2008; Let me tell you about my opinion about Bernie Sanders and why Donald Trump is his true successor.

You cannot vote Hillary Clinton because she is worse than Trump.

Rime posted:

This is quite fairly offensive to the great many indigenous and slave-descendant individuals who have achieved success within the racially biased regimes of North America.

Yes, clearly what I was talking about. Taking indigenous lands and enslaving labor was purely irrational then. All that bloodshed and hardwork just led to indigenous and black people enjoying the same access to wealth and power as the white man.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:18

Flavius Aetass: Mar 30, 2011

Raskolnikov38 posted:

also the increasingly prevelant need for speaking mandarin or other chinese dialects over native lanaguges causing a decline in fluent speakers of the latter but i'm not sure where to draw the line on that between government mandate enforcement and the effects of a modern industrial state

that's where I'm at

there's supposed to be quotas and such in the XAR to protect the Uyghur language and its speakers but IIRC less and less jobs are falling under the categories the law applies to

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:19

THS: Sep 15, 2017

Flavius Aetass posted:

Can everyone live with this?

How are you going to come to a conclusion anyway. Also note that goodwill is threadbare so we can �live with this� without confidence moderation will be reasonable. We don�t have a choice but to live with the historically very good moderation of this webzone.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:20

Brain Candy: May 18, 2006

Hairy Marionette posted:

It hasn�t really worked out so great for us.

A claim that doing evil has no rational basis is either a very sophisticated or very naive. There's obvious material gain to be had from taking other people's things and labor without consequence and it's far easier to plot the lines of history if you think that the racist bullshit is the justification rather than the cause.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:21

F Stop Fitzgerald: Dec 12, 2010

Raskolnikov38 posted:

yeah between the destruction of mosques and cemeteries which there is satellite photo evidence of it should be very hard to claim that china is not suppressing uighur cultural identity

cmon man this has been completely debunked. in fact the number of mosques in xinjiang has exploded over the past few decades

there is no way that their anti-extremism campaign isnt full of abuses though. people are flawed and lovely the world over and there are likely tons of innocent people getting profiled and targeted due to its heavy handedness. acab, etc

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:23

Cao Ni Ma: May 25, 2010

Flavius Aetass posted:

Can everyone live with this?

Gonna have to post this in the mod forums my dude, not in here

But yeah, I agree, sounds like the correct take

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:24

Flavius Aetass: Mar 30, 2011

THS posted:

How are you going to come to a conclusion anyway. Also note that goodwill is threadbare so we can �live with this� without confidence moderation will be reasonable. We don�t have a choice but to live with the historically very good moderation of this webzone.

this is really bordering on needless cynicism and distrust imo, but I'll take that as a reserved yes

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:24

Flavius Aetass: Mar 30, 2011

Cao Ni Ma posted:

Gonna have to post this in the mod forums my dude, not in here

the other C-SPAM mods are on board with reevaluating this and none of this applies to any other forum

admins are not going to come in and start banning people for something we said was allowed

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:25

really queer Christmas: Apr 22, 2014

Flavius Aetass posted:

this is really bordering on needless cynicism and distrust imo, but I'll take that as a reserved yes

Lol

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:26

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

F Stop Fitzgerald posted:

cmon man this has been completely debunked. in fact the number of mosques in xinjiang has exploded over the past few decades

there is no way that their anti-extremism campaign isnt full of abuses though. people are flawed and lovely the world over and there are likely tons of innocent people getting profiled and targeted due to its heavy handedness. acab, etc

i mean they haven't banned islam but i really can't imagine a good reason to raze religious buildings unless they're in danger of collapse

e: fwiw i believe that number of buildings razed is in the low dozens compared to the western media's claims of *checks google* tens of thousands lol

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:26

THS: Sep 15, 2017

Flavius Aetass posted:

this is really bordering on needless cynicism and distrust imo, but I'll take that as a reserved yes

lol ok. keep the thread going for now though. the thread has only been up a couple hours, not a lot of people have had a chance to offer their opinions, and I have been one of the top posters. I�m also one of the worst posters, so get some more feedback

otoh a lot of people might not bother giving feedback because they don�t think it actually changes the moderation. the fact that you don�t understand the cynicism and distrust doesn�t inspire confidence in moderator self-criticism and an actual shift going forward

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:27

Yossarian-22: Oct 26, 2014

Hairy Marionette posted:

Quoting half a sentence outside of its original context in order to argue against a straw man version of what somebody else said is one of those disrespectful to other poster things that degrades the discourse.

Sorry I was quoting it to make a point, mostly that it shouldn't be taken out of context. Like I said, it is easy to see the word "evil" in an almost comical way such that it evokes a certain image, at least for me, of Reaganite rhetoric. Would it be right for mods to claim that the way you used "evil" is anti-Chinese racism? Of course not, just as skepticism of Uighur genocide shouldn't be taken to be anti-Uighur racism.

My personal opinion of what you said was more cringe than it was you being wrong, btw. I mostly used it to illustrate a broader point. Sorry if it feels like I used your post as my guinea pig (I kinda did)

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:28

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Hairy Marionette posted:

I don�t follow how genocide can be rational for America and irrational for China. But then, I don�t understand why my fellow Americans are racist despite growing up in the most segregated city in the country.

I would say that genocide is not rational for China yet, because China is still faced with the challenge of getting as many people as it can into the urban proletariat in order to develop its productive forces, and the wealth it's amassed thus far comes mostly from investment by stronger powers rather than the exploitation of weaker powers. That is to say, slavery and colonialism aren't (yet) major contributing factors to the Chinese economy, so the racism that greases those gears isn't really central to China's continuing function.

This can certainly change depending on how China's relationship to, say, Africa develops, or when the Chinese productive forces have been built up to such an extent that they have to start figuring out how to systematically abandon and warehouse their surplus population. In that case, inventing race to determine who gets a job and who doesn't becomes useful to the point of being arguably unavoidable.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:29

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

Flavius Aetass posted:

Can everyone live with this?

I think that is reasonable

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:29

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 18:59

Cao Ni Ma: May 25, 2010

Raskolnikov38 posted:

i mean they haven't banned islam but i really can't imagine a good reason to raze religious buildings unless they're in danger of collapse

The last time I saw someone post the "blowing up mosque" thing it ended up being them taking down one of the gate structures because they had expanded the compound. Someone posted the before and after and the place like tripled in size.

# ? Mar 24, 2021 21:29

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