Someone posted a succinct wojak meme of this but it doesn’t even do it justice

Western opinion of other countries is far worse than the reality of the country is.

Chinese (or any non-west) opinion of the West, is always way more favorable than the west actually is.

Even the few anti-western things that Chinese people are exposed to (healthcare costs in US, ineffective trainbuilding in US/UK/Europe) are just material. Chinese people do not know about things like Tulsa, let alone the other 1000 massacres equivalent to Tulsa that even Americans don’t know about

Because of Chinese censorship laws, Chinese do not see the videos of American police officers releasing 50 shots into an unarmed already-detained man because a squirrel farted somewhere nearby

Anti-Western propaganda does not exist. And even a balanced reality of the West does not exist. ALL mainstream viewpoints on the PLANET are pro-western, sometimes even moreso if they DON’T speak english

  • SuperZutsuki [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    3 months ago

    Chinese people on XHS being shocked and horrified by what’s considered normal in the US is very indicative of this. They generally don’t think about us at all. The average Chinese person that hasn’t been to America probably thinks the standard of living must be high because it’s such a “rich” country. It’s amazing knowing that the US is doing anti-capitalist agitation by merely existing and being observed by normal people.

    • MouthyHooker [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      Yeah most of them assumed that because we’re a rich country we have a high standard of living, worker protections, a good social safety net, etc. They are shocked to learn how bad it is. Some of them said they cried when they learned that poor people sell their plasma here to buy food. This one guy just keeps making videos about healthcare costs here like “$30,000 for normal hospital birth?!?! How do any Americans afford to have a baby?!?!”

      • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        Wait other countries you don’t sell your plasma? What about eggs, sperm, blood, etc.? I think the only thing you can’t sell are organs in the US and those all come from people who have already died. Or from family/friends.

        • MouthyHooker [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          3 months ago

          After 4 days on XHS, I am pretty much convinced that our own government might even be incentivizing the Chinese government to maintain the Great Firewall. Because they definitely do not want us talking to Chinese people. They’re all already telling us we need land reform. Like our gov must have known what could happen if we started talking to them directly.

          • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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            3 months ago

            Maybe, but I don’t really think so. The US/CIA’s consent manufacturing infrastructure is just absolutely massive and they have a lot of faith in it. They’d benefit far more from the wall coming down and having an unrestricted ability to pour misinformation into China than the off chance we’re gonna suddenly have a mass class consciousness enlightenment situation. I mean it’s not like xhs is new and there are plenty of countries that are far better off than us (even in Europe) that our ignorance and exceptionalism have kept us from acknowledging.

            • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              3 months ago

              CIA’s consent manufacturing infrastructure is just absolutely massive

              They don’t even need to do it themselves. Most of the time, it’s Americans making shit up and passing it off as fact. When Americans can’t find a source for something, they will invent one. You see this a lot with neo-nazis and incels where they can find evidence of a Jewish conspiracy, so they make sock puppet accounts pretending to be Jewish, then use those as proof. Examples of them getting caught:

              I’ve also noticed they use AI slop to make fake pictures of whatever, then say “these images were trained on real images but (((they))) won’t let you see them.” Again, implying a Jewish conspiracy that scrubs the internet of racist images of Indians or black people or women for…reasons. This content then spreads among reactionaries and is disseminated through places like r*ddit, Facebook, 4chan, etc.

              “Open source propaganda”

              • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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                3 months ago

                No, but there’s Vietnam, Cuba. I mean, a significant chunk of Michael Moore’s career was spent on trying to inform people about Cuba’s healthcare system. The opportunities have been there. Again, XHS has been around for years. But under normal circumstances, the average person has their head too filled with exceptionalist lies and non-stop cultural brainwashing to even consider questioning the hegemonic culture. Don’t get me wrong, I think this awesome, but realistically, it’s probably a flash in the pan. Much like with Bernie or covid, we’ll see some radicalization of a minority splinter off while the rest go back to their LIB illusions. It’s another small step forward of a long process. If there’s anything that really does give me pause, and a bit of hope, is that this is happening amongst influencers. Like, except maybe soldiers, I couldn’t ask for a better skilled group of folks to radicalize at this stage of the struggle than those intimately familiar with gaming the system to get information in front of eyeballs. heart-sickle

      • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        Optics. The Philippines was going to receive free COVID vaccines from China which would have shifted the country’s opinion on China positively which threatens the US’s attempt to alienate China from it’s neighbours. So they ran a huge anti-vax campaign in the Philippines (not just Chinese vaccines, that would have been too obviously American propaganda) so people would think China is trying to poison them.

        Anyway it has signal boosted anti-vax quackery in the Philippines and contributed to unnecessary premature deaths.

  • TheLepidopterists [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    3 months ago

    Honestly I feel it’s a bit of a problem, cops are all over the app now and people there are treating them like heroes who protect their community.

    I told someone that American cops kill Americans every day and they said I must be exaggerating.