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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a Monday interview that he believes Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union, is the “most dangerous person in the world.”

In an interview with Semafor, Pompeo, who is thought to be eyeing a potential 2024 White House bid, said that education is one of the central issues that Republicans should focus on, noting his criticism of Weingarten and the current teaching curriculum in U.S. school systems.

“I tell the story often — I get asked ‘Who’s the most dangerous person in the world? Is it Chairman Kim, is it Xi Jinping?’ The most dangerous person in the world is Randi Weingarten,” Pompeo said.

“It’s not a close call. If you ask, ‘Who’s the most likely to take this republic down?’ It would be the teacher’s unions, and the filth that they’re teaching our kids, and the fact that they don’t know math and reading or writing,” the former top U.S. diplomat added.

“These are the things that candidates should speak to in a way that says, ‘Here’s the problem. Here’s a proposal for how to solve it. And if given the opportunity, these are the things I will go work on to try and deliver that outcome that fixes that problem,'” Pompeo concluded. “Pretty straightforward stuff.”

In a thread on Twitter, Weingarten said she didn’t know if the remarks should be considered “ridiculous or dangerous.”

“At the state department, Pompeo defended Middle East’s tyrants & undermined Ukraine. He was more focused on pleasing Trump than fighting 4 freedom, national security & democracy. To compare us to China means he must not know what his own department says,” she wrote.

“Maybe spend a minute in one of the classrooms with my members and their students and you will get a real lesson in the promise and potential of America.”

Education was one of the issues Americans cited as the most important during the 2022 midterm election cycle, as many GOP-led states implemented laws that prohibited the teaching of critical race theory — a college-level theory that posits racism underlies American institutions and public policies — or LGBTQ perspectives in classrooms.

Florida’s state legislature earlier this year passed its Parental Rights in Education bill, commonly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The law prohibits educators in the state from talking about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary schools, and parents are able to take legal action against school districts they believe have violated it.

Weingarten, who has been AFT’s president since 2008, told USA Today in August that “extremists on the right wing” despise teachers unions and their commitment to creating a safe and welcoming environment for every student.

“Our job is about what kids need, what communities need,” she said at the time. “Because when you’re doing that, you’re also doing what your members need.”

“But it’s never been as bad as right now — where it’s not just political, it’s cultural,” Weingarten said. “People had a different view of how to do education, but there was not this attack on people’s basic humanity. This is really new.”

The Hill has reached out to AFT for comment.

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newscast1 · 1 year

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Looking back at 2022 through global lens

By Geeta Mohan: As 2022 comes to a close, the world witnessed major events that changed the discourse geopolitically. We take you through the big international happenings of 2022 as we ring in the New Year. Besides Covid and climate change, the Russia-Ukraine war dominated global headlines. RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR On February 24, 2022, in what Moscow called “special military operations”, Russia…

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#Argentina #china heatwave #china taiwan #elon musk #fifa world cup #global #global lens #lens #nancy pelosi #new year #pakistan floods #queen elizabeth dies #Russia-ukraine war #shinzi abe #sri-lanka economic crisis #twitter #us snowstorm #xi jinping #year 2022. year ender

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piosplayhouse · 6 months

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I too watched the hbomberguy video and went straight to Twitter, whereupon I found that James Somerton had mentioned danmei in one of his videos and it made everyone mad, so I went looking and. yeah here's a full transcription of his just completely incorrect coverage of cql and mdzs from "Hollywood's (Gay) China Problem" so you don't have to watch it and give him views:

"The 2019 fantasy series The Untamed, featuring an unlikely bond between a man with magic powers and a stoic prince, started an online craze over the pair's implicit romance, but the show's promotion focused on its portrayal of Chinese traditional culture, a push consistent with Chinese communist party propaganda.

The show was... Queerbait-y. But the novel on which it was based [shows a picture of the fanmade cover for The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation made by fan translator team Exiled Rebels] certainly was not. That featured a very explicit love story between the two main characters, but was self-censored when adapted to meet the censorship guidelines of the Xi Jinping government. But it didn't matter. Like so much queerbaiting before, people saw through the weak veneer of heterosexuality. They "took the bait", so to speak. The series has accumulated a total of 9.5 billion views in China as of this summer, and had also received an international release via Netflix. It was described as a global phenomenon, taking off like no BL series before it, making its way all around Asia and with the Netflix deal, all across Europe and North America as well.

Tencent, the Chinese streaming platform it originated on, saw 2.6 million new subscribers to the service when it was released. And WeTV, an app that lets you watch BL content anywhere in the world, saw growth of 250% while the show was airing. In January of 2020, the cast members planned to embark on a multi-city, worldwide fan meeting tour. Cities included Bangkok, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Macau, Kuala Lumpur, Toronto, Los Angeles, New York... But it was cancelled due to COVID-19.

Even the Chinese government has endorsed it. The overseas popularity of these romantic sword-wielding heroes is often highlighted in Chinese media coverage focusing on the massive overseas streaming numbers and its ability to build a growing appreciation of the charm of Chinese culture."

#hbomberguy #james somerton #cql #mdzs

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justaboutsnapped · 1 year

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Begging you guys to look at what's happening in China

If you have a minute to spare, please consider reading and sharing this post.

[image ID: various photos about the #A4 revolution that is happening in China.

1st photo: a piece of white A4 paper with the following text on it: "Protests have been breaking out in many cities and university campuses across China thsi weekend in response to the highrise fire tragedy in Urumqi. Protesters called for end of zero-Covid policy and even an end to the Xi Jinping regime. The sheer number of particiipating cities and universities in this wave of protest have not been seen since 1989, after the June 4th Tiananmen Square Massacre where protesting students and citizens were murdered by the Chinese army. Freedom of expression and protest are luxuries in China. Even holding a piece of white paper in public can get you into trouble with the police. We call on Chinese nationals from every corner of the world to join in the #A4revolution and simply post a picture of an A4 blank paper on social media to speak the unspeakable and support the brave fellow Chinese citizens who are taking it to the streets in China." In the bottom right hand corner are the hashtags #白纸革命 and #A4 revolution.

2nd photo: protesters holding up pieces of white, blank A4 paper. The third photo is has protesters holding up paper on the left side, and a row of police standing guard right across from them. The fourth photo is of a piece of blank A4 paper

3rd photo: protesters holding up paper on the left side, and a row of police standing guard right across from them.

4th photo: a blank, white piece of A4 paper

end ID.]

I don't wanna guilt trip people and say things like "if you don't reblog this you don't care". but not a lot of people in the world know about what is happening in China right now so I'd really appreciate it if you'd share it with your family, friends, and peers.

The images above are reposted from the instagram account @citizensdailycn. If you speak Chinese and are not up to date regarding the situation please check them out at https://www.instagram.com/citizensdailycn/. They are also on twitter under the same username: https://twitter.com/CitizensDailyCN. If you speak English, you can check out their English counterpart, @whatsup_beijing: https://www.instagram.com/whatsup_beijing. Actual footage of the protests can be found on the Instagram account @northern_square: https://www.instagram.com/northern_square. If you want to distribute posters, here are some designs protestors have made: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vgjmsp8dgjnav93/AAD04p5ljQZ1hi9YSz4TAfmHa/%E6%9C%89hashtag%E6%B5%B7%E6%8A%A5?dl=0&subfolder_nav_tracking=1, https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vgjmsp8dgjnav93/AACsR7d5ICrG7hlYPErJSIuEa/%E6%97%A0hashtag%E6%B5%B7%E6%8A%A5?dl=0&subfolder_nav_tracking=1, https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ql2CyIZfWy36nFRn0ahu83oCxh5zRXAj

This is the first time I've posted anything like this, and it is 2:49 AM in the morning so my post might not be perfect. If anyone has any resources or additions please feel free to add them in the reblogs! Also if you think the image IDs need improvement, or that I need more trigger/content warning tags please let me know by sending an ask or a message. Thank you.

#china #politics #protests #current events #human rights #covid 19 #tw politics #tw police #important #long post

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mengjue · 1 year

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What's Happening in China? The November 2022 Protests

Hello! I know that there's so much going on in the world right now, so not everyone may be aware of what is happening in China right now. I thought that I would try to write a brief explainer, because the current wave of protests is truly unprecedented in the past 30+ years, and there is a lot of fear over what may happen next. For context, I'm doing this as someone who has a PhD in Asian Studies specialising in contemporary Chinese politics, so I don't know everything but I have researched China for many years.

I'll post some decent links at the end along with some China specialists & journalists I follow on Twitter (yeah I know, but it's still the place for the stuff at the moment). Here are the bullet points for those who just want a brief update:

Xi Jinping's government is still enacting a strict Zero Covid policy enforced by state surveillance and strict lockdowns.

On 24 November a fire in an apartment in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, killed 10. Many blamed strict quarantine policies on preventing evacuation.

Protests followed and have since spread nationwide.

Protesters are taking steps not seen since Tiananmen in 1989, including public chants for Xi and the CCP to step down.

Everyone is currently unsure how the government will respond.

More in-depth discussion and links under the cut:

First a caveat: this is my own analysis/explanation as a Chinese politics specialist. I will include links to read further from other experts and journalists. Also, this will be quite long, so sorry about that!

China's (aka Xi Jinping's) Covid Policy:

The first and most important context: Xi has committed to a strict Zero Covid policy in China, and has refused to change course. Now, other countries have had similar approaches and they undoubtedly saved lives - I was fortunate to live in New Zealand until this year, and Prime Minister Ardern's Zero Covid approach in 2020-2021 helped protect many. The difference is in the style/scope of enforcement, the use of vaccines, and the variant at play. China has stepped up its control on public life over the past 10 years, and has used this to enforce strict quarantine measures without full regard to the impact on people's lives - stories of people not getting food were common. Quarantine has also become a feared situation, as China moves people to facilities often little better than prisons and allegedly without much protection from catching Covid within. A personal friend in Zhengzhou went through national, then provincial, then local quarantines when moving back from NZ, and she has since done her best to avoid going back for her own mental and physical health. Xi has also committed China to its two home-grown vaccines, Sinovac and Sinopharm, both of which have low/dubious efficacy and are considered ineffective against new variants. Finally, with delta and then omicron most of the Zero-Covid countries have modified their approach due to the inability to maintain zero cases. China remains the only country still enacting whole-city eradication lockdowns, and they have become more frequent to the point that several are happening at any given time. The result is a population that is incredibly frustrated and losing hope amidst endless lockdowns and perceived ineffectiveness to address the pandemic.

Other Issues at Play:

Beyond the Covid situation, China is also wrestling with the continued slowdown in its economic growth. While its economic rise and annual GDP growth was nigh meteoric from the 80s to the 00s, it has been slowing over the past ten years, and the government is attempting to manage the transition away from an export-oriented economy to a more fully developed one. However, things are still uncertain, and Covid has taken its toll as it has elsewhere the past couple of years. Youth unemployment in particular is reaching new highs at around 20%, and Xi largely ignored this in his speech at the Party Congress in October (where he entered an unprecedented third term). As a result of the perceived uselessness of China's harsh work culture and its failure to result in a better life, many young Chinese have been promoting 躺平 tǎng píng or "lying flat", aka doing the bare minimum just to get by (similar to the English "quiet quitting"). The combination of economic issues and a botched Covid approach is important, as these directly affect the lives of ordinary middle-class Chinese, and historical it has only been when this occurred that mass movements really took off. The most famous, Tiananmen in 1989, followed China's opening up economic reforms and the dismantling of many economic safety nets allowing for growing inequality. While movements in China often grow to include other topics, having a foundation in something negatively impacting the average Han Chinese person's livelihood is important.

The Spark - 24 Nov 2022 Urumqi Apartment Fire:

The current protests were sparked by a recent fire that broke out in a flat in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang province. (This is the same Xinjiang that is home to the Uighur people, against whom China has enacted a campaign of genocide and cultural destruction.) The fire occurred in the evening and resulted in 10 deaths, which many online blamed on the strict lockdown measures imposed by officials, who prevented people from leaving their homes. It even resulted in a rare public apology by city officials. However, with anger being so high nationwide, in addition to many smaller protests that have occurred over the past two years, this incident has ignited a nationwide movement.

The Protests and Their Significance:

The protests that have broken out over the past couple of days representing the largest and most significant challenge to the leadership since the 1989 Tiananmen movement. Similar to that movement, these protests have occurred at universities and cities across the country, with many students taking part openly. This scale is almost unseen in China, particularly for an anti-government protest. Other than Tiananmen in 1989, the most widespread movements that have occurred have been incidents such as the protest of the 1999 Belgrade bombings or the 2005 and then 2012 anti-Japanese protests, all of which were about anger toward a foreign country.

Beyond the scale the protests are hugely significant in their message as well. Protesters are publicly shouting the phrases "习近平下台 Xí Jìnpíng xiàtái!" and "共产党下台 Gòngchǎndǎng xiàtái!", which mean "Xi Jinping, step down/resign!" and "CCP, step down/resign!" respectively. To shout a direct slogan for the government to resign is unheard of in China, particularly as Xi has tightened control of civil society. And people are doing this across the country in the thousands, openly and in front of police. This is a major challenge for a leader and party who have prioritised regime stability as a core interest for the majority of their history.

Looking Ahead:

Right now, as of 15:00 Australian Eastern time on Monday, 28 November 2022, the protests are only in their first couple of days and we are unsure as to how the government will respond. Police have already been seen beating protesters and journalists and dragging them away in vehicles. However, in many cases the protests have largely been monitored by police but still permitted to occur. There seems to be uncertainty as to how they want to respond just yet, and as such no unified approach.

Many potential outcomes exist, and I would warn everyone to be careful in overplaying what can be achieved. Most experts I have read are not really expecting this to result in Xi's resignation or regime change - these things are possible, surely, but it is a major task to achieve and the unity & scale of the protest movement remains to be fully seen. The government may retaliate with a hard crackdown as it has done with Tiananmen and other protests throughout the years. It may also quietly revamp some policies without publicly admitting a change in order to both pacify protesters and save face. The CCP often uses mixed tactics, both coopting and suppressing protest movements over the years depending on the situation. Changing from Zero Covid may prove more challenging though, given how much Xi has staked his political reputation on enforcing it.

What is important for everyone online, especially those of us abroad, is to watch out for the misinformation campaign the government will launch to counter these protests. Already twitter is reportedly seeing hundreds of Chinese bot accounts mass post escort advertisements using various city names in order to drown out protest results in the site's search engine. Chinese officials will also likely invoke the standard narrative of Western influence and CIA tactics as the reason behind the protests, as they did during the Hong Kong protests.

Finally, there will be a new surge of misinformation and bad takes from tankies, or leftists who uncritically support authoritarian regimes so long as they are anti-US. An infamous one, the Qiao Collective, has already worked to shift the narrative away from the protests and onto debating the merits of Zero Covid. This is largely similar to pro-Putin leftists attempting the justify his invasion of Ukraine. Always remember that the same values that you use to criticise Western countries should be used to criticise authoritarian regimes as well - opposing US militarism and racism, for example, is not incompatible with opposing China's acts of genocide and state suppression. If you want further info (and some good sardonic humour) on the absurd takes and misinfo from pro-China tankies, I would recommend checking out Brian Hioe in the links below.

Finally, keep in mind that this is a grass-roots protest made by people in China, who are putting their own lives at risk to demonstrate openly like this. There have already been so many acts of bravery by those who just want a better future for themselves and their country, and it is belittling and disingenuous to wave away everything they are doing as being just a "Western front" or a few "fringe extremists".

Links:

BBC live coverage page with links to analysis and articles

ABC (Australia) analysis

South China Morning Post analysis

Experts & Journalists to Check Out:

Brian Hioe - Journalist & China writer, New Bloom Magazine

Bonnie Glaser - China scholar, German Marshall Fund

Vicky Xu - Journalist & researcher, Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Stephen McDonnell - Journalist, BBC

M Taylor Fravel - China scholar, MIT

New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre - NZ's hub of China scholarship (I was fortunate to attend their conferences during my PhD there, they do great work!)

If you've reached the end I hope this helps with understanding what's going on right now! A lot of us who know friends and whanau in China are worried for their safety, so please spread the word and let's hope that there is something of a positive outcome ahead.

#孟珏’s china corner #中国 #上海 #习近平 #习近平下台 #共产党下台 #China #Shanghai #China protests #China protests 2022 #Xi Jinping #Xi Jinping step down #CCP step down #Xi Jinping resign #CCP resign #乌鲁木齐 #Urumqi #Urumqi fire #Urumqi apartment fire

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sarkos · 1 year

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When initially launched, the letter lacked verification protocols for signing and racked up signatures from people who did not actually sign it, including Xi Jinping and Meta’s chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, who clarified on Twitter he did not support it. Critics have accused the Future of Life Institute (FLI), which is primarily funded by the Musk Foundation, of prioritising imagined apocalyptic scenarios over more immediate concerns about AI – such as racist or sexist biases being programmed into the machines. Among the research cited was “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots”, a well-known paper co-authored by Margaret Mitchell, who previously oversaw ethical AI research at Google. Mitchell, now chief ethical scientist at AI firm Hugging Face, criticised the letter, telling Reuters it was unclear what counted as “more powerful than GPT4”. “By treating a lot of questionable ideas as a given, the letter asserts a set of priorities and a narrative on AI that benefits the supporters of FLI,” she said. “Ignoring active harms right now is a privilege that some of us don’t have.”

Letter signed by Elon Musk demanding AI research pause sparks controversy | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian

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everyteamsterisasaint · 3 months

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Obnoxious thing on Twitter where someone was like "what's your favorite tweet" and now it's this endless stream of losers recycling not that funny jokes from the last few years. Totally taken over my feed. Glorious Xi Jinping please impose censorship controls over X and forcibly eliminate all funnymen

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egnaroo · 2 years

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Chinese 20th communist party congress Xi Jinping assures clean and green china in 2060. what can we hope

On Sunday, President Xi Jinping declared that the preservation of nature is a crucial component of creating a modern socialist nation and that China will prioritize environmental protection and the promotion of eco-friendly lifestyles. China has made strides in addressing environmental issues during the last ten years, according to Xi, who spoke at the beginning of the twice-decade ruling…

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#chinese president xi jinping #jinping #jinping xi #president xi jinping #xi jinping #xi jinping the governance of china #xi jinping twitter #xi mingze #xin jin ping #xin jing ping

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tomorrowusa · 1 year

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Recent demonstrations in China may have initially been protests against severe government lockdowns. But they quickly evolved into criticisms of censorship and the dictatorial style of leader Xi Jinping.

Xi is a classic micromanager. His régime has even tried to regulate how much toilet paper people can use by putting facial recognition cameras in public bathrooms. China has a growing Orwellian-named “social credit” system which punishes or rewards people based on how worthy or untrustworthy citizens’ behavior is – according to the ruling Communist Party.

The strict COVID lockdowns in China have seemed increasingly suspicious. China isn’t using the effective mRNA vaccines which have brought down the infection rate and reduced the seriousness of infections for people in North America, Europe, Japan, and South Korea; not sure why this is except, possibly, misplaced nationalism. Outside China such lockdowns are a tool of the pre-vaccine period of the pandemic.

My own impression is that Xi is using COVID policy as an excuse to increase his personal control over the population. Control freak Xi would rather have lockdowns than import better vaccines.

People in China are generally becoming fed up with Xi’s efforts to impose an intrusive digital Stalinism on the population. And the government’s so called “Zero Covid” restrictions are having a negative impact on the Chinese economy which is spilling over into international trade. Apple has production facilities in China, and because of government policy it is falling behind in production of iPhones.

China is trying to keep the rest of the world from following the current wave of dissent. Elon Musk’s mass firings and drastic weakening of moderation have helped China flood Twitter with spam to drown out reports about the protests.

Elon Musk Slashed Twitter's Safety Team. Then a Chinese Spam Campaign Ran Rampant

In a bizarre move, China is censoring World Cup coverage to keep people from seeing large crowds without masks.

China Appears To Be Censoring The World Cup Coverage Due To Lockdown Unrest

The Chinese Communist Party apparently doesn’t want Chinese people to see that the rest of the world is doing a better job at controlling COVID – without severely controlling people’s lives.

Like Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China is an example of what can happen when one person is allowed unlimited power. Democracy may be more messy but it does a better job in the long run.

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beardedmrbean · 2 years

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Nike, the NBA, and star player LeBron James have remained silent on China's increasing hostility toward the LGBTQ community, most recently when one of the country's most prestigious universities cracked down on students displaying LGBTQ flags.

Fox News reached out to Nike, the NBA and Upland Workshop – an advisory company founded and led by James’ spokesman and advisor Adam Mendelsohn - for comment on the crackdown but did not receive a response.

The silence comes after two students at China's Tsinghua University were reprimanded for distributing LGBTQ rainbow flags, according to a report in Bloomberg. The students were given official warnings and were prohibited from receiving scholarships and awards for six months, with the school warning that further violations could result in the students facing more serious penalties such as losing eligibility for civil service and state-owned-enterprise jobs.

News of the punishment for the students went viral on Chinese social media, but the posts were quickly deleted on China's tightly-controlled internet. The incident was just the latest in China's apparent crackdown on the gay community in the country, with Chinese President Xi Jinping pushing for a more conservative approach to gender and sexual identity.

ENES KANTER EXCORIATES THE NBA, NIKE FOR NOT STANDING UP TO 'BIG BOSS' CHINA: 'BIGGEST HYPOCRITE COMPANIES'

"This incident is the latest example of university authorities increasingly constraining space for LGBT advocacy and expression – even when it is mild and lowkey," Darius Longarino, a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, told Bloomberg.

James and the NBA have been vocal on a host of political and social issues in recent years, but have mostly turned a blind eye to Communist China's behavior on gender, sexual identity, and human rights abuses. Critics have largely panned the NBA and Nike in recent years over their ties to China, with the country representing a large new market audience for the professional basketball league and source of cheap labor for the shoe giant.

Former Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey, who currently works as the president of basketball operations of the Philadelphia 76ers, sparked controversy in 2019 when he took to Twitter to defend protesters in Hong Kong, encouraging followers to "fight for freedom" and "stand with Hong Kong" during China's crackdown in the independent administrative region.

The tweet, which was quickly deleted, created backlash in China and caused the NBA to lose valuable sponsorship dollars, even drawing a rebuke from James at the time.

"We all talk about this freedom of speech, yes, we all do have freedom of speech. But at times, there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you’re not thinking about others and you’re only thinking about yourself," James said at the time. "I don’t want to get into a word or sentence feud with... with Daryl Morey. But I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand and he spoke."

#nunyas news #not a shock they've said nothing #if the public outcry isn't there #they're not going to risk their paycheques #over it at all

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mariacallous · 2 years

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Having consolidated his hold on power at the Chinese Communist Party’s recently concluded 20th National Congress, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has now set his sights on influencing the U.S. midterm elections. China’s latest efforts to sow doubt about U.S. election integrity are consistent with Xi’s stated goal of championing China’s autocratic model as a “new choice for humanity.” The threat of Chinese interference in democratic elections demands immediate action by policymakers in Washington and other Western capitals.

As early voting across the United States kicked into high gear this fall, so, too, did the activities of Chinese government-affiliated cyberactors seeking to discourage Americans from voting, discredit the election process, and sow further divisions among voters.

In one social media campaign uncovered by U.S. cybersecurity firm Mandiant, a Chinese hacker group with the code name Dragonbridge posted English-language videos across social media, blogs, and other platforms questioning the efficacy of voting and highlighting “civil war” as a possible way to “root out” the United States’ “ineffective and incapacitated” system. These posts also suggested attacks against law enforcement and other forms of political violence. Separately, Twitter announced in late October that it had disrupted several China-based operations on its platform. Those campaigns involved 2,000 user accounts and more than 250,000 tweets containing false election-rigging claims about the 2020 U.S. presidential election and hate speech against the transgender community.

Similarly, cybersecurity company Recorded Future identified another Chinese state-sponsored social media campaign aimed at dividing U.S. voters, this time by manipulating voter sentiments around divisive themes like racial injustice, police brutality, and U.S. military assistance to Ukraine. Likewise, in September, Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta uncovered fake accounts originating in China that targeted voters on both sides of the political aisle. While some of these fake accounts portrayed U.S. President Joe Biden as corrupt, others castigated the Republican Party and, in particular, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio for their stances on abortion access and gun rights.

For its part, the FBI warned that Chinese government hackers were actively scanning the two parties’ various internet domains, looking for vulnerable systems as a potential precursor to hacking operations. Such probing is broadly consistent with the intelligence community’s 2020 assessment about China’s interest in acquiring information on “US voters and public opinion; political parties, candidates and their staffs; and senior government officials.”

These and other election-shaping operations are not occurring in a vacuum, nor are they amateurish one-offs that can be ignored. Indeed, they reflect Xi’s growing emphasis on what the Chinese call “discourse power”: Beijing’s drive to alter global narratives about Chinese autocracy and Western democracy by comparing, contrasting, and consistently misrepresenting the two competing visions in ways that are advantageous to China.

In its most extreme form, which China’s People’s Liberation Army calls “cognitive domain operations,” discourse power seeks to influence individual and group behaviors to favor China’s tactical or strategic objectives. China’s ultimate goal: to undermine an adversary nation’s collective will to resist Beijing’s intentions. This can be done by sowing social division, undermining faith in public institutions, introducing conflicting social narratives, and even radicalizing specific groups within a population. All these themes featured prominently in China’s recent cyberoperations.

To achieve discourse victory, China has restructured its party-state to support the integrated employment, across peace and wartime, of public opinion, legal, and psychological warfare. Beyond simply aiding in the formulation and execution of China’s political warfare strategy, China’s decision to centralize command and control enables the party to more effectively direct the nearly $10 billion it spends annually on foreign interference. Central to the strategy, according to Lu Wei, the former head of the Cyberspace Administration of China, is to “occupy emerging public opinion spaces,” especially social media and other internet platforms, to propagate messaging about democracy’s failings and autocracy’s ostensible benefits.

If the principal target of these political warfare operations is the United States, Washington is hardly alone. Hours after former British Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her surprise resignation, the Chinese Communist Party’s Global Times claimed Britain’s political upheaval demonstrated that Western democracy “cannot solve new problems.” This specious framing mirrors Beijing’s portrayal of the West’s pandemic response as “chaotic,” whereas China claimed its superior governance model, consisting of mass surveillance and lockdowns, achieved a “strategic victory” over COVID-19. These themes were later broadcast on Chinese and foreign platforms around the world, leading to a marked increase in favorable views—most notably in the global south—about China’s global stewardship.

As for the U.S. midterms, Beijing’s meddling is unlikely to cease on Election Day. In fact, just the opposite. After polls close, malicious cyberactors and Chinese state-backed media will almost certainly amplify claims about voting irregularities and contested election outcomes. These operations will not be limited to any one political party or geography. Their goals will be the same: to undermine democracy’s credibility and exploit cultural cleavages inherent in all pluralistic, nontotalitarian societies.

Identifying these social media campaigns may very well be straightforward, in large part due to contributions by technology firms headquartered in the free world. But undoing the long-term damage to U.S. institutions will be much harder. Even worse, China will almost certainly seek to employ this same playbook in other countries in the coming years.

That’s why policymakers in Washington and other democratic capitals must prioritize whole-society counteroffensives to respond to and ultimately neutralize China’s political warfare operations. That will require hardening democratic institutions, including modernizing campaign finance, strengthening counterinterference, and tightening espionage laws to increase transparency and disclosure requirements for individuals and entities that may be acting on China’s behalf, as well as toughening enforcement and sanctions to deter potential violators. Additional work must also be done to equip government officials, journalists, political parties, companies, civil organizations, and the general public with the information needed to reduce their exposure to China’s malign discourse. And that’s just for starters.

Above all, policymakers must make clear to Beijing that election meddling will not go unpunished. Upcoming meetings between democratic leaders and Xi at the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, are as good a place to deliver that message as any.

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azspot · 1 year

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Last week, investigative journalist Saurav Das shared the fact that—in response to legal demands—Twitter blocked access to two tweets he had posted about India’s Minister of Home Affairs, Amit Shah. Censorship demands originating from the Indian government are nothing new, and Twitter boss Elon Musk has thus far agreed to grant them, blocking the material from view within India.

This is in line with Musk’s faulty understanding of “free speech” as a simple reflection of an individual country’s laws, no matter how oppressive.

But this time, Twitter did something different: It blocked the tweets not just within India, where Indian law applies, but everywhere. As with many of Twitter’s moves of late, it’s unclear if this decision is a result of Musk’s personal directives; understaffed teams; slipshod, off-the-cuff policy making; or all three. Twitter has yet to offer an explanation, despite requests from the journalist whose tweets were blocked.

Twitter’s international application of local law is worrying enough on its own. But it looks as if Twitter’s global block may not just be a concerning isolated incident, it may instead be part of a deeply troubling trend of tech companies willingly choosing to allow the most authoritarian diktats to guide content moderation.

#freespeech #twitter

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lgbtawarenessproject · 1 year

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Part 3: China

so much research....

After this is Bhutan and Myanmar/Burma. Turkmenistan is going to be separate.

In 2020, ShanghaiPRIDE the longest lasting pride event in China, announced that it would be canceling all future events, and not planning any more. The announcement gave no information as to why.

In a letter to CNN, the organizers left this message,

“The decision was difficult to make but we have to protect the safety of all involved,” they wrote. “It’s been a great 12-year ride, and we are honored and proud to have traveled this journey of raising awareness and promoting diversity for the LGBTQ community.”

In another letter, this one to the China Project, an organizer left this,

“Pride has grown to a scale that was probably too visible, likely making an impact, and thus catching too much (unwanted) attention.”

Sources: 1 2

Additional resources: 1 2

China has a history of censorship, and it’s no different in LGBT+ spaces. In July of 2021 China shut down dozens of LGBT accounts on the app WeChat, which is China’s version of Twitter. When users attempted to access these accounts, several of which were club and group accounts run by universities, they were given the following message.

“After receiving relevant complaints, all content has been blocked and the account has been put out of service.”

These group and university accounts had run for years, sharing support, movie suggestions, and other things. According to one of the managers of an account, going by the pseudonym Cathy, their goal now is to survive and help LGBT people. No longer will they engage in radical activism.

Sources: 1 2 3

In May of this year(2023), the Beijing LGBT Center was shut down abruptly due to a “force majeure”, or situations outside of their control. The shutdown of this center was an attack from the Chinese government who have been cracking down on more and more LGBT things since 2015 when Xi Jinping was given power.

None of the news sites I have checked have been able to get in contact with organizers from the center. However, an anonymous volunteer told Bloomberg News that the shutdown was the result of long lasting pressure. LGBT+ citizens in China are scared.

As one activist put it, “They are not the first group, nor are they the largest, but because Beijing LGBT Center was in Beijing, it represented China’s LGBT movement,” this activist requested to stay anonymous out of fear for his safety, he continued, “In our political, economic and cultural center, to have this type of organization. It was a symbol of the LGBT movement’s presence.”

Beijing LGBT centers 2022 report said, “We experienced negative things such as forced relocation, canceled or postponed work for various reasons, and vilification of our team and members. These events have brought us to a collective emotional low, and it would be disingenuous to say that we are still ‘passionate’ about our work in this situation.”

Over the years, China has become more and more dangerous. Please, I encourage you if you can manage it, to read through the sources on this matter and educate yourself.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

First Part

Part 2<- ->Part 4

Please support the project by checking out the intro post and taking the survey in the link tree!

#project unknowing #current politics #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqia #lgbtqia+#queer #discrimination #trans discrimination #gay discrimination #bi discrimination #lesbian discrimination

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