#Global social media: China

[kngshuen]

How Increased Surveillance by the China Government during the Global COVID-19 Pandemic Affects Online Communities?

In the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide, including China, intensified surveillance measures to curb the virus's spread. In this context, China's implementation of stringent surveillance, notably through Health Code Apps, has raised profound concerns about its impact on online communities. As facial recognition and data collection become intrinsic to daily life, the potential repercussions on digital spaces and the people within them demand careful examination. This discussion delves into the multifaceted consequences of increased surveillance by the Chinese government and its tangible effects on the dynamics of online communities.

Privacy Erosion

In response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, various countries implemented measures to track and control the virus's spread, introducing tools such as contact tracing apps (Ojokoh et al., 2022), temperature checks (Qu & Lv, 2021) and travel restrictions (Burns et al., 2021). Simultaneously, In China, where stringent surveillance measures were already in place, the government leveraged technology to an even greater extent, using facial recognition and health QR codes to monitor citizens' movements. This involved the deployment of a series of applications known as "Health Code Apps," which have raised concerns about privacy erosion, particularly regarding the use of health code applications. Online communities are not immune to this erosion, as the data collected through these apps includes personal information, health status, and location details. This data is then utilized to assign one of three colours, indicating the user's health status (Ramos, 2020). However, Data is funnelled to entities like the provincial Big Data Bureau, Alibaba, and the telecommunications department, expanding the accessibility to user information, ranging from personal details to health status, location, and device specifics. This centralized model amplifies the risks of data aggregation and user re-identification, exemplified by the Beijing Health Bao system's data leak in December 2020. The incident exposed the photographs, ID numbers, and nucleic acid test information of celebrities, highlighting insufficient safeguards in place (Zhang, 2022). Online communities may find their members exposed to privacy breaches, leading to a chilling effect on open communication and expression within these digital spaces.

Potential for Abuse of Power:

The potential for the abuse of power in the context of surveillance, inadequate transparency and compliance measures is a significant concern for online communities as well. This concern is exemplified by recent events in Henan Province, where health code apps were allegedly manipulated to suppress protests related to potential losses in rural banks on the brink of collapse (Zhang, 2022). The legitimacy of these health code apps faced a setback as city officials marked over a thousand individuals as red, restricting their entry into Zhengzhou City and highlighting the vulnerability of such systems to misuse (Zhang, 2022). This incident underscores the potential for health code apps, initially designed for public health purposes, to transform into tools of surveillance, allowing government agencies to exert control under the guise of maintaining public health. The lack of stringent transparency requirements heightens the risk of these technologies being misused for purposes beyond their intended scope, which negatively impacts the freedom of expression within online communities. As governments exploit surveillance tools to monitor and influence online discussions, online communities may face challenges related to censorship and control, further emphasising the interconnected nature of surveillance concerns and their impact on digital spaces.

Technological Dependence:

Embracing extensive surveillance often involves a reliance on advanced technologies. In the case of Health Code Apps, facial recognition technology is integrated into residential area access control systems, permitting entry only to those with a green code (Ramos, 2020), which has implications for online communities. This reliance on advanced technologies may neglect more human-centric approaches to online interaction, potentially excluding or disadvantaging certain members of digital communities. As surveillance technologies become integral to online platforms, the balance between security measures and preserving the inclusivity and diversity of online communities becomes a critical consideration.

Trust Deficit:

The colour-coded system assigned by health code applications has far-reaching consequences for millions of users in their interactions within both physical and online communities. Requiring individuals to display their health codes in public transportation, shopping malls, markets, and other public places may contribute to a trust deficit between citizens and the online platforms they engage with (Jao et al., 2020). Users within online communities may question the motives behind such surveillance measures, especially if their personal information is shared without their knowledge. Rebuilding trust within online communities, once eroded by mandatory health code reliance, poses a considerable challenge, impacting the dynamics of digital social spaces.

In conclusion, the surge in surveillance by the Chinese government amid the global COVID-19 pandemic undeniably leaves a lasting imprint on online communities. The colour-coded system mandated by health code applications not only infiltrates public spaces but also infiltrates the very essence of digital interactions. This imposition triggers a tangible trust deficit within online communities as individuals question the motives behind these surveillance measures. Rebuilding trust within these virtual spaces, essential for vibrant and open communication, becomes a formidable challenge in the aftermath of mandatory health code reliance. The delicate equilibrium between bolstering security measures and safeguarding the inclusivity of online communities emerges as the linchpin for preserving the dynamic and diverse nature of these digital spaces. In essence, the impact of increased surveillance by the Chinese government is intimately intertwined with the well-being and resilience of online communities.

"Considering the implications of increased surveillance by the Chinese government during the global COVID-19 pandemic on online communities, we'd like to hear your perspective. How do you perceive the effects on privacy erosion, potential abuse of power, technological dependence, and the trust deficit within these digital spaces? Share your insights and cast your vote below."

Reference List

Burns, J., Movsisyan, A., Stratil, J. M., Biallas, R. L., Coenen, M., Emmert-Fees, K., Geffert, K., Hoffmann, S., Horstick, O., Laxy, M., Klinger, C., Kratzer, S., Litwin, T., Norris, S. L., Pfadenhauer, L. M., Von Philipsborn, P., Sell, K., Stadelmaier, J., Verboom, B., . . . Rehfuess, E. (2021). International travel-related control measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic: a rapid review. The Cochrane Library, 2021(3). https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.cd013717.pub2

Jao, N., Cohen, D., & Udemans, C. (2020). How China is using QR code apps to contain Covid-19. TechNode. https://technode.com/2020/02/25/how-china-is-using-qr-code-apps-to-contain-covid-19/

Ojokoh, B. A., Aribisala, B. S., Sarumi, O. A., Gabriel, A. J., Omisore, O. M., Taiwo, A. E., Igbe, T., Chukwuocha, U. M., Yusuf, T. A., Afolayan, A., Babalola, O., Adebayo, T., & Afolabi, O. (2022). Contact Tracing Strategies for COVID-19 Prevention and Containment: A scoping review. Big Data and Cognitive Computing, 6(4), 111. https://doi.org/10.3390/bdcc6040111

Qu, J., & Lv, X. (2021). The response measures to the coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak in China. Open Forum Infectious Diseases, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.1093/ofid/ofab014

Ramos, L. F. (2020). Evaluating privacy during the COVID-19 public health emergency. The ACM Digital Library, 176–179. https://doi.org/10.1145/3428502.3428526

Zhang, X. (2022). Decoding China’s COVID-19 health code apps: the legal challenges. Healthcare, 10(8), 1479. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10081479

[diagnozabam]

Elon Musk, în negocieri pentru achiziția TikTok: Ce implicații globale ar putea avea această tranzacție?

Negocieri intense între ByteDance, proprietarul TikTok, și miliardarul Elon Musk ar putea schimba fundamental peisajul rețelelor sociale și influența geopolitică globală. În ciuda dezmințirilor inițiale, surse de încredere indică faptul că vânzarea TikTok către Musk este în discuție, cu implicații majore atât pentru relațiile dintre SUA și China, cât și pentru viitorul libertății de exprimare…

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Global Digital Divide: How App Bans on Facebook, WhatsApp, & TikTok Shape the Future of Online Connectivity

Written by Dr Michael Broadly, Retired Health Scientist and Public Health Consultant: Health Science Research Exploring the Impact of Social Media Restrictions on Billions for Balancing Security, Culture, and Access to Information in a Digitally Connected World We live on an exciting yet problematic planet where billions of people are connected, sharing stories, ideas, and moments in real-time,…

[finchandthebard]

The "tiktok ban" should scare you and here's why.

Rant made by an autistic, history-loving, chronically online American tiktok cosplayer. Please let me know if I've gotten anything wrong and I will edit the post.

Reblog to spread awareness!

This is not just about Tiktok, and it's not about national security. The Tiktok ban is wrapped up in the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" which has the ability to ban any foreign website or app that the United States government sees as a threat to their "democracy." Not only that, but if the gov't didn't want China to gather data, then they would ban things like Shein and Temu (the latter which they advertised during the Super Bowl), which collect similar data that Tiktok does. If they wanted to prevent our data being stolen in general, they would ban companies like Meta, which monetarily supports the Tiktok ban and had to change their name because "Facebook" was associated with the largest data leak in history.

The documentations of the Tiktok court interrogations prove how incompetent our government is. Repeatedly asking the TikTok CEO Mr. Chew if he's Chinese while he repeatedly assures them he's Singaporean. The officials being concerned that they can't find Singapore on a map. The officials then being confused why the app would be able to have access to their wifi because it needs wifi to load.

The possibility of the US buying Tiktok exposes a greater issue in America: monopolies. The Sherman Antitrust Act was passed in 1890 that restricted the activities of large companies known as monopolies, which started out as small companies and would either buy other companies or buy the factories which produced all their materials. This eliminated competition in the market and gave the monopolies almost full control of quality and prices of items, and it was considered very anti-American at the time. Since the US already has multiple major social medias, including Facebook (Meta), Instagram (Meta), Threads (Meta), X (formerly Twitter), Snapchat, and Reddit, adding Tiktok would mean that nobody could compete with the US in the social media market. This makes them a monopoly, and it's incredibly dangerous.

Banning Tiktok breaks several American trademarks. A) the Republicans banning Tiktok are very concerned about their second amendment right to own guns, but they seem to not care about the first amendment right to freedom of speech and press, which Tiktok delivers. Of course there are app guidelines, but for the most part you have fairly uncensored political and ethical commentary like no other social media. B) the only other countries that have banned Tiktok are either heavily demonized by America or are direct targets for American propaganda (ex. China), which really doesn't make the ban look good. C) banning a social media for the purpose of censorship is a trademark of communism, which Americans are INCREDIBLY wary of.

Your country may follow in suit. Because of America's influence as a global superpower and an ally to many other major powers, America banning Tiktok would likely lead to a domino effect in other countries.

The rich get richer. There is a concept called social darwinism, in which it is the rich's beliefs that the poor must fend for themselves without the help of the government in order to make a living - "survival of the fittest." Tiktok contributed around $14.7 billion USD in 2023 and $24.2 billion in 2024, and it supports around 224,000 jobs [source]. The actual Tiktok website says in 2023, they contributed $15 billion USD in revenue and supported 7 million US businesses [source]. Without these jobs, there could be in increase in homelessness, debt, and sickness due to withdrawals (if you're incredibly addicted to Tiktok) and lack of quick dopamine hits (due to the rapidfire nature of the algorithm).

Remember that the president is not your friend !! Many of the political figures rallying to support Tiktok right now, such as President Biden, initially voted for the ban. President Biden is likely supporting now so that Trump won't get credit for it, and future President Trump is likely doing it for brownie points among younger generations.

The Xiaohongshu migration exposed the American government and its lies. The stories from American 'Tiktok refugees' about the questions from native Chinese on the Xiaohongshu / Rednote / Redbook app (considered the Chinese mixed of Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook) posed a lot of conspiracies and realizations about the American government. The Chinese actually own their homes, they have lower food prices than we do, and they have a slim homelessness rate. Whether this is true or not, it has greatly influenced how we see ourselves in the grand scheme of the American oligarchy, and that is not something that can be suppressed with an app being banned.

Tiktok is not totally Chinese! The CEO is Singaporean, as I've already stated, and there are multiple headquarters in the US, with the main one being in Los Angeles.

In conclusion...

Whether Tiktok is banned or not, whether permanently or not, no matter who saves it or rallies against it, remember that it is harder to scare and control someone when they are in a group. And if you think this was interesting, I'd love it if you could reblog to show some support and inform your friends as well. <3

THIS IS NOT RIGHT VS LEFT❗️IT'S UP VS DOWN❗️

[mywaysthehighway]

“Don’t let Social Media turn you into an American” -> “learn a little bit of Chinese!” Guys, the current largest social media app TIKTOK is CHINESE. I’m crying 🤣

DO NOT LET SOCIAL MEDIA TURN YOU INTO AN AMERICAN

[loganator]

So I saw this post of people dragging Americans for their lack of online cultural exchange but you HAVE to realize this is a nuanced and multi-faceted issue. Its not that Americans do not want to connect with people globally, its that, believe it or not!! A lot of us have not had the chance to. Not everyone is chronically online. Not everyone likes talking to strangers. Not to mention the current state of the internet makes it really hard to connect with people from other places. I'm not talking about tumblr I'm talking about any other social media platform. I only got recommended contacts on FB and Insta that are either local people or friends of people I'm already friends with. I AM chronically online so I have had the privilege of speaking with people from many many places around the world ever since I was a kid, and I wish everyone could experience that! But it's just not something most people here seek out. Especially nowadays since most people have to work 2+ jobs to survive and we are all barely scraping by. Xiaohongshu (RedNote) has given average online displaced Americans the opportunity to connect with people in China- and this is probably a first time experience for many of them and it's beautiful. Please I am begging you to praise this behavior instead of roasting them because "haha Americans are ignorant!" because it's simply not true in the way you think it is and making fun of a group of people is NOT how you incite positive change.

[maaarine]

A new global gender divide is emerging (John Burn-Murdoch, Financial Times, Jan 26 2024)

"In the US, Gallup data shows that after decades where the sexes were each spread roughly equally across liberal and conservative world views, women aged 18 to 30 are now 30 percentage points more liberal than their male contemporaries.

That gap took just six years to open up.

Germany also now shows a 30-point gap between increasingly conservative young men and progressive female contemporaries, and in the UK the gap is 25 points.

In Poland last year, almost half of men aged 18-21 backed the hard-right Confederation party, compared to just a sixth of young women of the same age.

Outside the west, there are even more stark divisions.

In South Korea there is now a yawning chasm between young men and women, and it’s a similar situation in China.

In Africa, Tunisia shows the same pattern.

Notably, in every country this dramatic split is either exclusive to the younger generation or far more pronounced there than among men and women in their thirties and upwards.

The #MeToo movement was the key trigger, giving rise to fiercely feminist values among young women who felt empowered to speak out against long-running injustices.

That spark found especially dry tinder in South Korea, where gender inequality remains stark, and outright misogyny is common.

In the country’s 2022 presidential election, while older men and women voted in lockstep, young men swung heavily behind the right-wing People Power party, and young women backed the liberal Democratic party in almost equal and opposite numbers.

Korea’s is an extreme situation, but it serves as a warning to other countries of what can happen when young men and women part ways.

Its society is riven in two. Its marriage rate has plummeted, and birth rate has fallen precipitously, dropping to 0.78 births per woman in 2022, the lowest of any country in the world. (…)

It would be easy to say this is all a phase that will pass, but the ideology gaps are only growing, and data shows that people’s formative political experiences are hard to shake off.

All of this is exacerbated by the fact that the proliferation of smartphones and social media mean that young men and women now increasingly inhabit separate spaces and experience separate cultures.

Too often young people’s views are overlooked owing to their low rates of political participation, but this shift could leave ripples for generations to come, impacting far more than vote counts."

[mariacallous]

I'm not trying to downplay or excuse the results, but I think we've been seeing a concerted global effort against liberalism, largely spearheaded by states like Russia and China, and with factors amplifying and encouraging it, and Trump and the GOP are the American iteration. Plus, all authoritarians seek to do whatever they can to seize and hold power, and have been more responsive to changes, even if in an oppositional way, than anti-authoritarians. Social media and fragmentation being a key tool.

However, even if an environment has been created to encourage and promote and nourish authoritarianism, it still relies, at least once, on enough people willing to support it - for whatever reasons they might have, even if the reason is because "fuck other people".

[tobiasdrake]

I don't really use TikTok. I know a lot of people do but you see, I have a certain standard, a certain special quality about me. It's called "being old and out-of-touch".

So the impending TikTok ban doesn't affect me personally.

But like.

I do follow news media and have an interest on developing stories that affect our nation. Because I'm old. And here's what gets me about the TikTok ban. Like. Okay.

Problem: TikTok is usable as a mass surveillance system that can track and store vast swathes of information about people all around the globe. Its algorithms could potentially be used to spread misinformation and manipulate the feelings and beliefs of the youth in ways that benefit controlling interest. Solution: TikTok presents a clear and present danger to the integrity of our country and our information security, and must be shut down. Solution: Gimme. Gimme gimme gimme I want it gimmeeeeeee.

Like. Even setting aside that the criticisms levied at TikTok really just sound like "It is a social media platform."

You lost me at "Therefore China must sell TikTok to the Americans."

That's not a national security threat. We're just trying to flex our global political power to steal it.

Like. We all see that, right? If TikTok is so dangerous then it shouldn't exist. Like. You tip your hand when you say, "The One Ring is uncontrollable, it is beyond the ability of mortal men to contain, it cannot be used justly. Therefore I will take it to Gondor and we'll do wicked sweet shit with it." If that is your conclusion then I don't think you actually believe the part where you said it is super dangerous.

I think you're just jealously coveting it and are trying not to look like you're flexing your power to force a rival into an unwanted corporate buyout.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Olga Lautman at Unmasking Russia:

In just over two weeks, Trump has crippled U.S. national security, delivering massive wins to Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. One radical move after another, he has dismantled America’s defenses against foreign interference, corruption, and election meddling—deliberately exposing the U.S. to attack—while simultaneously waging war on our law enforcement and national security agencies. By unraveling critical national security protections, Trump has signaled to adversaries that the U.S. will no longer actively counter their influence. These moves not only endanger America’s electoral integrity but also open the door for authoritarian regimes to expand their control and further infiltrate key institutions with impunity.

Dismantling America’s Defenses: A Direct Gift to Russia

One of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s first acts was to disband the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, a unit dedicated to countering adversarial interference in U.S. politics. Created after Russia’s attack on the 2016 election, the task force investigated foreign hacking, cyberattacks, election infrastructure breaches, and influence operations—including on social media. Now? Russia, China, and Iran have free rein to attack U.S. elections with barely any FBI oversight. Bondi also gutted enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)—ensuring that foreign political operatives can work in America without disclosure or consequence. This means that lobbyists, political influencers, and even disinformation agents working on behalf of foreign governments can now operate freely within the U.S. without fear of repercussions. The removal of these enforcement mechanisms effectively greenlights covert foreign influence on U.S. lawmakers, policies, and political campaigns.

[...]

If You Think It Stops There—Nope.

Bondi also shifted enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), a key tool for targeting bribery and illicit financial networks. By deprioritizing white-collar crime and corruption cases, her office has effectively signaled to foreign entities that violations will no longer be aggressively prosecuted. This move will embolden corrupt officials, business figures, and oligarchs to engage in unchecked financial manipulation, further entrenching foreign influence in critical sectors of the U.S. economy. [...]

USAID Shutdown: Our Adversarie Dream

And all of this while Trump has also shuttered USAID, one of the U.S.’s strongest tools for countering authoritarian influence abroad. USAID has been essential in stabilizing fragile states, promoting democracy, providing life-saving humanitarian aid, and blocking Russian and Chinese expansionism. By shutting it down, Trump has given autocratic regimes free rein to dominate vulnerable nations. Without USAID, U.S. allies will be defenseless against foreign influence. Russia and China will expand unchecked, filling the void with economic coercion and military partnerships. Countries in Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe will lose resources to resist foreign domination, making them easy targets for authoritarian control, corruption, and manipulation. [...]

Trump’s National Security Purge

All this is happening as Trump continues an further assault on America’s intelligence infrastructure and is pushing buyout offers to the FBI, CIA, NSA, and other national security agencies, aiming to purge career officials and replace them with loyalists. These potentially illegal forced exits will cripple intelligence operations at a time of heightened global threats.

Great column by Olga Lautman on how Donald Trump’s two-plus weeks of his 2nd term has been a gift to America’s enemies.

[contemplatingoutlander]

“The hour is late for America. Beyond political success, her fate relies on exorcising the leftist specter dominating education, religion, and culture – a 360-degree holy war for the righteous cause of human freedom.”

--Pete Hegseth (2020) in American Crusade: Our fight to stay free.

In this detailed accounting of Hegseth's beliefs, Jason Wilson writing for The Guardian, implies that Hegseth seems to be primarily interested in "freedom" for far-right "Christians," since he seems to consider many others, especially those on the left to be "America’s internal enemies." Wilson also implies (based on comments by John Whitehouse from Media Matters) that Hegseth would be fine with using the military against anyone who protests Trump's neofascist policies--as long as that is okay with the "rightwing audience" that both Trump and Hegseth want to please.

Relying largely on Hegseth's 2020 book, American Crusade: Our fight to stay free, Wilson claimed the following:

MILITANT "NATIONAL DIVORCE":" Back in 2020, Hegseth indicated that he would be okay with a "national divorce" and/or "civil war" if the Democrats won the 2020 election, because he believed there were “irreconcilable differences between the Left and the Right in America leading to perpetual conflict that cannot be resolved through the political process.”

A "PRO-FREEDOM, PRO-CHRISTIAN, PRO-ISRAEL ARMY": However, Hegseth also believes that “If America is split, freedom will no longer have an army.” He believes that the American military is “the only powerful, pro-freedom, pro-Christian, pro-Israel army in the world.” If that happens, Hegseth believes “Communist China will rise – and rule the globe. Europe will formally surrender. Islamists will get nuclear weapons and seek to wipe America and Israel off the map.”

THE ENEMY: On the other hand, if America isn't split, and the American military remains intact, Hegseth believes it will mean the defeat of “globalism”, “socialism”, "secularism”, “environmentalism”, “Islamism”, “genderism” and “leftism.”

INTIMIDATION TACTICS: Hegseth urges his readers to “mock, humiliate, intimidate, and crush our leftist opponents,” whom he feels are engaged in “sedition.” Here's an example of the intimidation he recommends: “When local businesses declare ‘gun free zones,’ remember the Second Amendment, carry your legally owned firearm, and dare them to tell you it’s not allowed.”

WORTHY OF "DISDAIN": Regarding "the media and 'almost all' politicians and credentialed experts" Hegseth tells his audience to “Disdain, despise, detest, distrust – pick your d-words. But all of this must lead to action.”

AGAINST DEMOCRACY: Hegseth does not believe in democracy, although he continues to claim to believe in the Constitution. Hegseth wrote: “For leftists, calls for ‘democracy’ represent a complete rejection of our system. Watch how often they use the word.” He goes on to say, “They hate America, so they hate the Constitution and want to quickly amass 51 percent of the votes to change it.”

GERRYMANDERING IS FINE: Hegseth is fine with gerrymandering. He writes: “Republican legislatures should draw congressional lines that advantage pro-freedom candidates – and screw Democrats.”

PRO-NATIONALISM: Hegseth is a nationalist, who wrote: “Our weapon is American nationalism.” He went on to say, “The Left has tried … to intimidate us into thinking that nationalism is a relic of a bygone era.”

BANNING WOMEN FROM COMBAT: Furthermore, Hegseth is opposed to women serving in combat.

PRO-PARDONING WAR CRIMINALS: In 2019, Hegseth successfully lobbied Trump, who "pardoned three service members who had been charged or convicted with alleged war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan." [all color/emphasis added]

Finally, Wilson notes that

"John Whitehouse, news director at Media Matters for America (MMFA)... said that Hegseth has 'always given off a proto-fascist vibe'”, and that 'the thing that appealed to him was going into Iraq as a crusader, and when that went wrong he started looking at America through the same lens.'” [emphasis added]

Clearly Hegseth is a militant right-wing "Christian" nationalist, who was rightly tagged by the Army National Guard as being a potential threat to our nation. Hegseth certainly doesn't belong anywhere near the Department of Defense, much less in charge of it.

Wilson ends his article by using Hegseth's own words to show his affiliation with militant far-right "Christian" nationalists:

“See you on the battlefield. Together, with God’s help, we will save America. Deus vult!”

--Pete Hegseth (2020) in American Crusade: Our fight to stay free.

[elbiotipo]

"global socialism, which isn't as far away as it seems in my opinion" oh? I'd love to hear what you mean by this, at this point I'll take anything that can give me some hope 💀

It's not any specific thing, just my understanding of history.

Capitalist countries are not producing anything of value right now, just financial speculation and capital accumulation. This cannot be sustained. You cannot have an economy based on capitalist speculation and social media. The only way the First World has been able to continue this is by plundering the third world and moving their industries away to China and other countries. It's very simple; when the third world and China stop supplying the US and the first world and instead begin producing on their own terms, the capitalist order drawn by the US just will not sustain itself.

The only countries that are having any success are those that place the economy at the service of its people, the ones that actually create things instead of speculating on them. I've said before that China, by placing market forces under the control of a socialist state, was undergoing the largest experiment of all human history, and what happened there would define history for the rest of the century. So far this experiment seems to be succeeding beyond any expectations and people in the rest of the world are realizing it. China still has the potential to fail, and I dislike and outright hate many things about their government. It is still, again, the country that will define human history this century, and if it truly commits to socialism, it might open a new chapter on it.

I do subscribe to some ideas of Latin American and Argentine thinkers that see imperialism as the main issue to be solved to truly build socialism, because we live in an interconnected world after WWII, a world that was drawn by the US and the European empires as the global bourgeoisie with the third world as the global proletariat, so to speak, and this is a world that will not last forever. The world will eventually smash this system and socialism will rise from it.

I also believe that with the interconnection of the world, the next revolution will be global in scope. Global trade networks were built to sustain capitalism and imperialism, but the connections they have created between countries mean that for a truly successful socialist project, it will need to be global in scope. There are many nations, there are many places, but there is only one country at the end, Earth. My grandchildren will live to see the Socialist World Republic.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserve in our archive

By Julia Doubleday

(About a lot more than covid, but talks a lot about it later on)

This week, The Guardian reported that the 1.5 degree climate target agreed upon at the 2015 Paris talks is now “deader than a doornail.”

This will come as little surprise to the public, which has watched as loathsome politician after grinning salesman after equivocating lawyer has steered us ever closer to catastrophe as years and promises fade.

Decades ago, upwardly mobile people in the West were living in a happy delusion. As the Greed-is-good 80s gave way to the Dotcom 90s, the ruling class sold their vision of the future: a rising tide lifts all boats. More money for me means more money for all. Let’s all get rich and happy.

Globalization, neoliberalism, and capitalism, the three ingredients of prosperity everywhere, for everyone, forever. Cut regulations, let businesses thrive, let the markets reign. National borders should constrain people, not capital. In 1991, the USSR collapsed. In 1992, Francis Fukuyama published The End of History. As big business thrived, the Democratic party sprinted toward the center, with the Clintons pioneering “triangulation” and The Third Way. The markets roared. Then in 2001, 9/11 kicked off the 21st century, and a new era of global instability and warfare; the rest, as they say, is (even more) history.

The moments before- the moment where capitalists’ fantasies looked poised to come true- weigh heavy in the minds of our political elite. In the 90s, it all seemed possible; you could denude the rainforest because the rainforest was, after all, infinite; Coca-Cola could suck down all the clean water it desired; big ag could monocrop the hell out of the land; no two countries with a McDonalds would ever go to war; and meanwhile, the middle class would grow, standards of living would increase around the world, everyone would be better off! It was win/win/win/win/win! All those environmentalists and communists were passé; they’d been wrong. The best way to save the Earth, and the people on it, was through economic development.

But capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction, and now, in 2024, we all watch in horror as the planet heaps punishment after punishment on the species too arrogant to understand the warnings we’re generously given. Every emergency light is flashing red- change course or perish. Our feckless leaders seem incapable of understanding.

It’s not only the Earth that has suffered as the decades of exploitation accumulate. The workers, too, feel the crush as the ruling class cannot resist taking more, more, more for itself. Although distributing its ill-gotten gains more fairly would preserve its own position for longer, those at the top are too deluded, too greedy, too loyal to the belief system of their cult to understand this. Leftist, environmentalist, indigenous voices that were once marginalized now gain audiences through social media.

So, we come to the point that the contradictions of capitalism are intensifying. Workers in the West can no longer envision themselves getting a college education, making a decent living, buying a 4-bedroom home, retiring with a pension. Workers around the world, meanwhile, who manufacture our things, continue to suffer inhumane standards of living. Although the most extreme poverty lessens, over half of workers still live on less than $10/day. The global middle class doesn’t materialize anywhere other than, arguably, China, free from the clutches of the IMF and its predatory structural adjustment programs.

It is against this backdrop that the Democratic Party attempts, every two years, to defend the status quo.

The Democratic Party is a party ferociously committed to looking backwards. They yearn for 1995, when the future was neoliberal deregulation, triangulation, and the Clintons. When Fukuyama announced that history had ended, it seems like a lot of Democratic officials stopped reading.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, what the hell does this all have to do with the election just passed? Surely, you’re not arguing that the Republican party is the counter-weight here, the anti-capitalist foe? Not at all. No, the Republican party is capitalist, hyper-capitalist. They have, however, faced the reality that the status quo will not continue as is. There won’t be a future where a diverse, global family shares in the wealth produced by capitalism, where the poor are raised up to become the global middle class and globalization saves the wretched of the Earth.

The communist, socialist, or leftist alternative vision of our future is to dismantle the machine of exploitation that destroys, kills, denudes, and steals resources and workers. In order to have a planet, and workers who share in its bounty, we need to rethink the way we govern ourselves and our resources, drastically. And allowing a teeny tiny group of people- billionaires- to have outsize influence over political and economic policy flies in the face of democratic governance itself.

The fascist vision of the future is to buckle in, turn the machine up higher, and kill anyone who gets in the way. Protect the billionaires at any cost, while understanding very well that it is billionaire vs humanity itself. Get your followers to identify with the former and hate the latter. Build walls, keep out climate refugees. Deport people en masse. As things get worse, blame minorities. Distract people with culture wars, misogyny, racism, transphobia; same as it ever was. As the extinction-level outcomes of climate change materialize, shove your followers into a bottomless vortex of conspiracy, let them be dragged to the bottom, sputtering, swearing, soaking and drowning. Republicans, now led by Donald Trump, don’t act as though there will be enough to “go around”; they act as though they are going to divide society into “winners” and “losers,” with the “losers” condemned to low-wage labor, prison, deportation, or death.

This is how feckless liberalism condemns us to fascism. It offers us no future, while silencing the leftists who try. It’s no longer believable to say you represent workers and donors, oil companies and the environment. You have to pick one. When the chips are down, you have to pick a side.

The public is living through the collapse of what briefly appeared stable: a globalized, capitalist economy, deregulated in accordance with the principles of neoliberalism. This global economic system, little-bound by the laws of individual states and thus more powerful than pseudo-democratically run states, is running up against the physical limitations of the planet. Oil is not infinite. Polar ice caps melt. The methane in the permafrost is a climate bomb. Monocropping degrades the soil. More climate disasters mean less arable land for agriculture. Continually overusing groundwater means water shortages.

You can’t run a global society on the principle that what makes money for a private company today is always beneficial, and what harms the collective in the long-term is never detrimental.

The Democrats’ problem is that they will not acknowledge what has become clear to so many of us: that their “triangulation” 90s-era compromise, their brilliant idea of representing both big business and workers is simply not possible. The interests of these two groups diametrically oppose one another, and the capitalist mythology that rich people getting richer helps everyone get richer didn’t turn out to be true. As rich people and corporations have gobbled up an unprecedented proportion of American wealth, they’ve also grabbed up all the land and property, pushing homes out of reach for ordinary workers. When rich people own all the homes, how can poor people own those same homes? Capitalist dogma refuses to acknowledge constraints on resources, refuses to blink as we watch our homes flood, our fields turn barren, our cities begin to suffer water shortages.

The growing dissatisfaction with Democrats’ doublespeak came to a head in 2015. Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders launched a longshot Presidential campaign against pre-selected nominee Hillary Clinton. What happened next shocked political analysts and observers. Clinton came into the race with the support of every major player in the Democratic establishment, every media endorsement, and a billion-dollar war chest. Sanders, conversely, boasted nothing but a straight-talking style, a refusal to accept corporate PAC money, and a few oft repeated talking points about the billionaire class.

Fueled by $27 donations, Sanders’ campaign went on to win 23 contests, but was dragged down by the unanimously hostile response from Democratic insiders, political commentators, media outlets, and, unsurprisingly, the donor class. A party that was interested in winning vs. the powerhouse Trump campaign would’ve taken seriously a grassroots campaign that was able to perform so well with so many disadvantages. Instead, the Democratic party and its Superdelegates repeatedly put its finger on the scale for Clinton, leading to the disastrous first win for Trump in 2016.

Now, finally, I’m getting to COVID.

A big part of the Democrats return to power in 2020 was COVID. That’s not my opinion; that is what exit polls tell us about voters’ decision to turn out for Joe Biden. The top two reasons Democrats had for turning out to the polls in November of 2020 were racial justice issues and the pandemic.

Democrats never seemed to understand how reluctantly the public returned them to power. It wasn’t an, “oh, thank God, Joe Biden is here,” vote. It was a “we have to get this fucking guy [Donald Trump] out of here” vote. A good chunk of the party was still angry at the way Sanders had been treated. Workers were still suspicious that Democrats were promising to represent them during campaign season, then going on to represent donors. But frankly, the country was in crisis.

In November 2020, vaccines were not yet available for COVID-19. The nation was headed into a winter wave that would kill hundreds of thousands. And, importantly, the media didn’t downplay these deaths, it emphasized them. When a hundred thousand died, their names made the front page of the New York Times. The Democrats capitalized on the gore. When 220,000 had died, Biden announced that “no one” who had overseen that kind of death should remain President. 800,000+ Americans have died of COVID during his Presidency, which he has yet to resign.

Yes, yet again, Democrats pulled a bait and switch. Just like with immigration, racial justice, police violence, climate change and indigenous land rights, Democrats cried their crocodile tears right up until the Inauguration, then dried their eyes. AOC famously went and sobbed at a detention center during Trump’s Presidency, which she did not do again during Biden’s term. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer wore Kente cloth and kneeled in solidarity with George Floyd in a roundly mocked photo op before going on and giving the police more funding under Biden. I always thought it was a nice touch that Nancy’s mask was around her chin.

And Biden, Harris, and their spouses held a memorial at the reflecting pool for the 400,000 Americans who died of COVID under Trump the night before their Inauguration, only to never again mention Americans dying of COVID en masse again when they actually had the power to do something about it.

In short, Democrats went Back to Brunch, in a big way. The politicians, the analysts, the media allies, the donors, the pundits, and upper-middle-class Karens, the people with “I’m With Her” bumper stickers on their BMWs, the consultants, the actors, the data guys, the people who don’t notice the cost of groceries, they all together, astonishingly quickly, said thank you immigrants, Black people, disabled people, indigenous people, trans people, we won’t be needing you anymore, and went right back to pretending neoliberal capitalism isn’t about to hurl us all over a cliff.

My focus is COVID. I followed closely as, in the delusional world of the Biden liberal, getting COVID (a virus which damages the brain, heart, and immune system) twice a year became a totally okay and in fact laudable thing. I watched as wearing a mask went from being socially positive, to being socially ok, to being socially negative, as Bidenism reverted from anti-Trump to its true form; pro-capital. To protect capital, people need to accept this new condition of employment: more, repeated sickness, zero protections and ongoing risk of disability.

Their catchphrase for accepting this new, degraded quality of life was “back to normal.”

But while I focused on COVID, this wasn’t the only arena where Democrats pushed people “back to normal”. While Trump was in office, the Democrats succeeded in riling up their base about immigration, climate, and racial justice. As soon as they got power back, they tamped it all back down. As far as Democrats were concerned, Trump was in the rearview. So now everyone could go “back to normal.”

No more crying in front of detention camps.

No more kneeling in Kente cloth.

No more masks, COVID tests, or memorials for hundreds of thousands dead.

Donald Trump won this election because 19 million Democrats who turned out for Joe Biden failed to vote. Everyone has their own opinion about why. To me, it seems that in 2020, the public pushed Democrats back into the White House not excitedly, but reluctantly and conditionally. Instead of understanding that they owed the voters, particularly the most marginalized, this last chance at power, Democrats smugly swaggered back into the Oval Office and slammed the door behind them.

“See ya next cycle!” they called over their shoulder. Is it a wonder they didn’t?

For four years, the Biden Administration and “resistance libs” have been acting as if Donald Trump was a bad dream, fascism creeping across America a bad dream, COVID a bad dream. None of it was “real,” we all woke up and wanted “normalcy”, everything went “back” to what it should be, we all threw our masks away and returned to brunch. But that was never what the voters, who elected Biden in desperation, asked for.

We asked for a party, for leaders, who were ready to confront the crises brought into sharp relief under Trump, not bury them.

So wake up now, liberals. Trump was never your nightmare, Biden was your silly little fantasy. Dark Brandon can’t save us. The donor class can’t save us. Triangulation and deregulation and big legislation with giant handouts for oil companies can’t save us. And anything that can’t save us now, will doom us.

Because normal isn’t coming back. The crisis isn’t over. It’s only getting started.

[marcusrobertobaq]

DBH worldbuilding info u're supposed to know

The collection

US is having major issues with sea level rising quickly, making even the wealthy residents deciding not living right on the coast anymore. Polar ice has melted to an extent that rising sea levels have many states struggling to keep the water out of their coastal towns (Magazine)

CyberLife's intention with complex level humanization was to literally make people welcome 'em home like they're family instead of getting creeped about it (Magazine)

VR games are very common by 2038 (Magazine)

The President Cristina Warren is an ex-vlogger with no experience in government that relied on social media and celebrity status to be elected in 2036, originally a republican representative. There's a "rumor" CyberLife helped she getting elected by corrupt means and that's why they're "too close" (Magazine, Gallery, Cut concepts)

Warren got an approval of only 33% due to the sequence of bad decisions (Magazine)

The world's population is 10 billion by 2038 (Magazine)

Obesity is in a record high in Detroit by 2038 (Magazine)

NATO is divided about the Russia vs US conflict in the Arctic, they think everybody can benefit of the region without war but Warren is totally pushing for a conflict (Magazine)

Rare minerals used in synthetizing Thirium got Russia and US biting each other in the North Pole in recent yrs. Android manufacture dominates both the US and Russian economies (Magazine)

Kamski being the one creating Thirium 310 and biocomponents more than a decade ago suggests other areas with these minerals were already explored, the North Pole being the last one (Assumption)

Police is constantly using marketing data to identify criminals (Magazine)

Dating websites usually have less than 5% of women using it (Magazine)

0.4% of world population holds 94% of global wealth by 2038 (Magazine)

By 2038 there's constant propaganda selling Canada as the true land of freedom (Magazine)

No matter how u play as Markus u gonna eventually have event contexts distorted, including fake news. They're called criminal org and terrorists no matter what u do (Observation)

CyberLife developed a nano-android to help combating cancer and diseases that can extend the human life-span even reaching a semi-immortality status - and it's very promising as it was already succesful in doing its task (Magazine)

US life expectancy is 91 by 2038 (Magazine)

By 2038 US got a aging population but not enough young people to support the economy with the unemployment rate at 37.3%, and the "job" area is dominated by androids (Magazine, Observation)

When the rebellion starts the gov consider bringing retirees back to work as the country lack qualified manpower to deal with the withdraw of androids (Cut dialogue)

Only two countries have android industries that rival the United States: Russia and China, they're also in a space race of sorts (Magazine)

Team sports like baseball got at least 1 android per team (Magazine)

An advanced high speed train was completed in 2038, connecting New York and LA in less than 2,5 hrs and there's a high flux of east coast folks going to LA (Magazine)

Suburban prices there have rose 64% and California folks are worried they gonna get pushed out of the region (Magazine)

Detroit is currently in a Red Ice epidemic with it being the easiest route the poor go, either by selling or using it (Magazine)

There was a Red Ice Task Force from 2027 to 2031 that made major arrests and drug seizure during the first epidemic (Gallery, Articles)

Bees are extinct by 2038 and people expect a global famine. CyberLife is already making partnerships to create bee-robots while other groups try finding new alternatives (Magazine)

Environmentalists say the Earth’s environment is beyond repair (Magazine)

Global rainforests have been reduced by 79% since 2000 and coastal corals by 58% (Magazine)

During the events of the game an earthquake kills 10k people in China (Magazine)

CyberLife has partnership with the Department of Defense in the development and supply of military androids, something that started in the early 30s after it was approved to limit human casualties in the battlefield (Magazine, Observation)

In 2031 the US gov ordered 2 million androids for use in the infantry, mostly SQ800 units already being deployed in 2032 replacing human soldiers.

Michigan also announced the purchase of 5k auxiliary androids to assist law enforcement department but following the 2029 Android Act they can't use weapons (PlayStation Blog)

U.S. Army soldiers are equipped with advanced equipment to keep up with their android "subordinates" (Gallery)

Stock exchange falls 10% on fear of Arctic conflict by 2038 (Magazine)

68% of men prefer sex with an android to a human woman and with 52% of men saying they’ve tried the experience at least once (Magazine)

CyberLife currently got around 120 million androids across the globe and some people suspect they're using 'em to spy on people (Magazine)

There are at least 200k military android units already in service across the US military by 2038 and the gov is buying more for the Arctic conflict, an effort to double the infantry size (Magazine)

The US Army is 60~80% android, with humans mainly as commanders and strategists but they tend to use complex AIs to help with assistance (Magazine)

Sales of android intimate partners are very high as lotta men and women prefer living with an android than a human partner (Magazine)

Birthrate is at record low, population decline is said to be irreversible, marriage is in decline as traditional families become “thing of the past” and the divorce rate only increases (Magazine, News, Observation)

US is currently in an "antidepressant epidemic" due to the constant contact with technology, with people even lacking emotional development (Magazine)

The AX400 price is $899 by 2038 (Magazine)

5% of the music market is produced by human musicians. An android boyband Here4U is favorite to win Best Act, Best Video at global music awards - which are human record awards (Magazine, News)

Scientists found "alien" life on Titan: microorganisms living hundreds of kilometers below the surface, in an ocean of salt water protected by a thick layer of ice. The machine-i-forgot-the-name was sent in 2019 (Magazine)

Lute turtles, polar bears, mountain gorillas, african elephants and several species of tiger are extinct by 2038, with CyberLife now making some sorta android zoos (Magazine)

Canada is an android-free zone they don't sell or have any laws about it there as they don't permit androids inside 'em borders (Magazine)

CyberLife has recently released a tech demo of a quaterback android, something that got the Anti-Android Fan Group pissed (Magazine)

There's some sorta quantum magnet being studied that got the potential of cleaning carbon from the air (Magazine)

The Anti-Automation League and CrowneCars representants are in a discussion about ethical decision-making capability of autonomous cars (Magazine)

CyberLife has made a new quantum supercomputer, capable of one billion billion operations per second used to calculate the probability of mass extinction events (Magazine)

Hackers targeting systems like solar panels for ransom seems to be common thing (Magazine)

NASA announced the launch of a five android crew to explore Io (first time it's a full-machine crew). The journey will last three years (Magazine)

CyberLife is a trillionaire company by 2038, they were already billionaires a decade before (Magazine)

The first android ever officially released by CyberLife was the ST200 Chloe, costing 65k in 2024. By 2027 they already had 1mi androids sold (PlayStation Blog)

[continues on the next reblog]

[dragonsandphoenix]

Thoughts while reading books about Ancient Yaoi

Don't mind me, just word vomiting. Now I'm reading more on the history of homoerotic literature in China and I really can't help linking them to my understanding on danmei written in the modern times. I'm becoming more certain that relationships in BL, especially classic BL are more based on the pre-modern model of male love, where homosexuality wasn't an orientation and homoerotic relationships were normatively ideal between an older man and a pubescent youth. The younger man, of which the modern uke/shou is modeled after is feminized but is thought of as distinct from women. Femininity isn't so much about womanhood but about sexual submission. This was the model of homoerotic relationships that would have been seen in many cultures including Ancient Greece, Ottoman Turkey, Feudal Japan and Imperial China before we entered the modern era. For the past 300 years understandings of sexuality shifted in the West, but it appears they didn't really in China up until the 20th century, after which there was a century of suppression, then China opened up to globalization.

How does all this contextualize danmei? Well a lot has been said that danmei isn't necessarily supposed to be LGBT media, at least not in the same way Western queer media is. The reality is danmei does draw from different influences including anime/manga, Western pop culture and Chinese classical literature among other things. My thought is that I would imagine it would be hard to completely discard the pre-modern understandings of male/male relationships in art, similar to gender roles. After all they have only been suppressed for a century. Which is a long time but relative to China's history, isn't that long. People are still bringing up "cut-sleeve" and that was so 2000 years ago man. That being said, nowadays there are distinct differences between modern danmei and homoerotic literature from back then:

Monogamous relationships are king. No more offering your wife to your bro in exchange for his ass sir.

LGBT identities are a thing. Western cultural hegemony for the win.

A more egalitarian model for relationships. At least compared to back then, age gap relationships with underage boys are not nearly as normalized. Really Bingqiu and Ranwan are a step up, they at least get together in their adulthood. Same goes for class status (at least couples with class differences won't automatically end tragically).

Related to number 3, the popularity of 年下 and tropes like shizunfucker. The overturning of power dynamics based on age and social ranking would have been anathema to the rich literati of back then.

No conclusion to draw here, but imagine how future scholars would view danmei now, and what that says about society.

Further Reading:

The Libertine's Friend: Homosexuality and Masculinity in Late Imperial China by Giovanni Vitiello

The Dragon's Whim: Ming and Qing Homoerotic Tales from "The Cut Sleeve" by Giovanni Vitiello

Was China Part of a Global Eighteenth-Century Homosexuality? by Matthew H. Sommer

The Daoist Art of the Bedchamber of Male Homosexuality in Ming and Qing Literature by Wanrong Zhang

All interesting reads. The last one makes mention of the first recorded fujoshi (or I guess 腐女), who wrote the only complete novel on male homosexuality written by a woman in ancient China, "with 52 chapters and 1.8 million words" (MXTX got nothing on her good god).

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

For Lula, Milei Has Gone From Being a Nuisance to Being a Problem

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has aspirations for regional and global leadership. Standing in Lula’s way is the fact that he cannot even get a meeting with his counterpart from neighboring Argentina, President Javier Milei.

Seven months after Milei’s inauguration, the two leaders have met only once and even then briefly, on the sidelines of the G7 meeting last month in Italy. Otherwise, they have unartfully dodged each other as they have darted around the region and the world promoting their opposing ideological views.

Lula’s global agenda is expansive. He wants Brazil to have a permanent United Nations Security Council seat. He plans for the country to take a leading role in climate change negotiations as he hosts the U.N. COP30 Climate Change Conference in Brazil next year. He has tried to insert himself as a mediator in the Ukraine conflict. And when BRICS—the political grouping that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—moved to expand last year, Lula made sure to bring along Argentina under then-President Alberto Fernandez as one of its new members.

Milei withdrew Argentina from the BRICS expansion process as soon as he took office in December. That’s consistent with his desire to move the country away from China and closer to the United States. Besides that, he has not clearly outlined an international agenda for his country. But Milei definitely has an international agenda for himself. He has portrayed himself as an ally of Israel and Ukraine, a contrast to Latin America’s left-wing leaders who have opposed the former’s war in Gaza and mainly attempted to remain neutral on the latter’s fight against Russian aggression.

Ideologically, Milei is attempting to turn himself into a global icon for free market libertarianism, speaking at conferences in South America, the U.S. and Europe, and meeting with venture capital investors and social media stars. He uses strong rhetoric in favor of capitalism and against any form of what he views as socialism or Marxism. His relatively extreme views, which only appeal to a small minority of Argentine voters who comprise his base, get him wild cheers overseas.

Continue reading.