this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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Has anyone else noticed how prevalent Hexbear posters have suddenly become? Maybe sometime last week I noticed nearly every political post had at least one long thread of Hexbear users that do nothing but repeat CCP talking points while waving anyway anything even remotely reliable as Western propaganda. That or getting all excited about trolled libs. The way they tell it, you'd think everything from DW, to Fox, to Propublica, to straight up AP News articles, are all written by the same people.

Not to mention, their info on the Fediverse observer is either straight up wrong or there's some serious botting going on. According to that, the instance is less than a month old, yet somehow they already have one of the largest, most active userbases, along with far and away the most comments of any instance.

Seems to me like Lemmygrad on steroids. Considering we defederated from them, seems like a no-brainer to block Hexbear as well.

So glad this thread could become such a perfect microcosm of why we need to defederate.

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[–] TheCaconym@hexbear.net 60 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The real answer is it is, among other things, an economic tool

The alternative was having the big US techs invade china economically, along with the mass propaganda from capitalist entities (chief among them the US, always pursuing efforts to destabilize China) that would have followed

You don't speak to actual Chinese citizens often, do you ? basically all young people there have VPNs, and nobody cares. Like, at all

[–] awwwyissss@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago (7 children)

No, the truth is the CCP is a violently authoritarian government that needs to control what it's citizens think in order to stay in power.

[–] Parsani@hexbear.net 46 points 1 year ago

No I'm pretty sure they do that by increasing their citizens quality of life. I know, it's a bizarre concept.

[–] AOCapitulator@hexbear.net 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The US Is the most violent police state in the world, not that you actually give a shit

[–] BlueMagaChud@hexbear.net 31 points 1 year ago

lol, the great firewall is protecting you right now from getting bodied by millions of CPC members

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 29 points 1 year ago

Do you think people don't have VPNs?

[–] aaaaaaadjsf@hexbear.net 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I mean, visit any third world country where there's no such thing as a "great firewall" and you'll find western services and corporations embedded in everything to do with technology. WhatsApp has basically replaced text messaging to the point where even banks use it in my country, twitter is basically a PSA and tech support tool, and Facebook is everywhere. This is terrible for sovereignty. Meanwhile China has developed their own stuff such as WeChat and Weibo. So they're not subject to relying on Zuckerberg and Musk for everything from texting to banking.

That's the main economic purpose the great firewall served, it allowed China to develop their own tech industry instead of relying on silicon valley dorks. Not everything is some evil authoritarian communist scheme to oppress everyone. Chinese citizens could just get a VPN if they wanted to find out anything cordoned off.

[–] brain_in_a_box@hexbear.net 28 points 1 year ago

Lol, you're complaining about other people being propagandized while you say shit like this.

[–] Ram_The_Manparts@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

CCP is a violently authoritarian government

The US state has spent the last three-quarter century sending their intelligence and military forces all over the world to violently snuff out any movement that went against it percieved interests.

China did not do that.

So why are you focusing on China? Who is the real "authoritarian" government here?