China's new plan review system

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-plans-every-single-reviewed-083048209.html

Last edited by SkinnedWolf on 23 Jun 2022, 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'd imagine publishing them makes it appear more transparent, although the anger is a pretty universal thing. Facebook and other social media users in the west often seem to get outraged over pretty minor stuff like having posts deleted for using racial slurs or distributing disinformation.

Will this apply to you posting here?

Not at all.

China does not have a "universal" censorship system in operation. It only requires that platforms operating in China comply with Chinese laws.
Each platform operates its own review system.

Ok so twitter, Tik Tok and facebook?

Tiktok is a Chinese company. The part in China is of course censored by the Chinese version. And the overseas version is not - but why are the Chinese keen to use that?
I'm not very sure about Facebook. But twitter censors Chinese who do not hate China...
But there is something absolutely crazy about Twitter's Chinese language area. So yes, they are completely free from Chinese law.

Ok so what is new then? does it mean the CCP have the capability to review any social media post but they will likely only audit/sample 1 in 1000 due to the cost of reading every single social media post or scanning for key words?

”CCP“ doesn't care about specific social media content. They only manage publications.

They just ask the platform to review the content itself - different platforms decide how to implement it. It is the private Internet companies, not the government, that really recruit censors.
However, if the content deemed inappropriate on some platforms starts to have a significant impact, the platform will be legally liable. So the platform is very enthusiastic about doing this.

Foreign platforms will obviously not be punished by the Chinese government - so it has nothing to do with them.

Ok so is this an extra layer of moderation of content?

No, They are trying to define more clearly what Chinese platforms should do - although they seem to have secretly asked Chinese platforms to do so a long time ago.

Give me an example?

It's hard to say. Because my most commonly used platform is machine review, which means there is no delay.
Moreover, because I pay attention to my words, I have never been disturbed by the machine review - only when I am not cautious, I will be deleted the published content and accept the account credit penalty because of manual review. Sometimes this even happens two years after I publish a certain content.
I am not sure what triggers the latter. Being reported is certainly one thing, but it may not be all.

A friend of mine often uses a platform that is too diligent/lazy in review, so that comments often need to be published an hour before they are really displayed. So when they argue on that platform, they will choose to use another link to switch to another platform to argue. This is funny, and this kind of platform is not common.

There are also a few platforms that take a rather sly form. In your own opinion, your comments have been published. But it was not seen by others until the audit was completed. If the manual audit thinks it is inappropriate, it will never be seen by others.

This is not always driven by some kind of "CCP conspiracy". Some platforms censor remarks that insult their company's boss or philosophy.

Although political topics will certainly be monitored by more censors, for the vast majority of people, censorship has nothing to do with politics. The most frequent restrictions are porn and dirty words - porn is the reason why the platform my friend uses is more and more restricted.

Last edited by SkinnedWolf on 23 Jun 2022, 10:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

So what are the end outcomes? will there be a higher chance a post will lead to censorship and/or losing one's account?

I think it's very likely that this new clause will not change anything - it just gives legal support to what has happened.

But with a small probability, more platforms will become like the one my friends use. Although this seems to mean that certain types of platforms will kill their own profits.

This seems very representative of the book NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR by George Orwell.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Worldwide. yes.

Moreover, the experience of people in Chinese Mainland is that freedom of speech in Singapore is less than that in China.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/13/singapore-tightening-screws-speech
But the two have attracted disproportionate attention.


I noticed that when describing China, Westerners are more likely to add more imagination.

Even though other East/Southeast Asia even Indians actually have more criticisms against China, those criticisms are closer to the actual situation rather than ideological condemnation or myths - this is obvious in a truly international exchange platform rather than an "international" platform almost limited to the West world.
I mean, after all, East Asians have never been keen to condemn ban abortions in Poland or some parts of the United States or anywhere else. Or use our imagination on these things.