The nature of Chinese censorship makes it difficult to provide hard numbers, but it really is worse. America's handling of censorship is certainly not the best, and it has gotten worse recently, but it is not on the level of China.
At least the Chinese have the courtesy to be obvious about it. The American and European powers pretend we’re free and open societies while actively undermining public speech that it doesn’t like.
Your links (at least the ones I could translate) seem to describe a system very similar to a Credit Score like you have in Western economies. At least it seems very different from the propagandized version of a score that tracks your every action and determines "how good of a citizen are you".
You're completely right, it is very similar to the western style credit score, and is often either accidentally or deliberately misrepresented. That being said, it covers behaviors not covered by western credit scores that does have elements of tracking "how good of a citizen are you".
I think this article from Beijing University does a great job of highlighting some of the issues.
I agree that the American understanding of the Social Credit System is flawed, but to suggest it doesn't exist is an extreme overreach.
Furthermore, it clearly is a system that is important to the CCP and has an effect.
From the Baidu page:
建立社会信用体系是保持国民经济持续、稳定增长的需要
Establishing a social credit system is necessary to maintain sustained and stable growth of the national economy
Certainly Mainland China does need a credit system, and undoubtedly the Social Credit System will and has helped in that regard, but it does have legitimate flaws with regards to privacy.
Its goals extend beyond ensuring creditworthiness to
社会信用体系具有揭示功能，能够扬善惩恶，提高经济效率；
The social credit system has a revealing function, can promote good and punish evil, and improve economic efficiency;
And its integration with the National Healthcare Security Administration, and other government and private entities extend its reach far beyond what the Western credit systems do.
there's a paper that compares both when it comes to promoting organized political action (which is the only type of censorship that is not morally justifiable under any semblance of democracy) and both countries scored the same low points.
both got high passing grades on allowing meaningless complaining about government.
Here is a list of items that matter for an American. It is much worse if you are from Hong Kong or Taiwan.
1. Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter (basically all major American social media platforms) are not accessible without a VPN. Some major VPN providers have also been banned as well. The counter argument is that many Huawei products are also banned. But I actively use Harmony OS on my Huawei smart watch. I can view Bilibili content, XiaoHongShu, QQ, and other platforms on any device without issue.
2. State media propaganda. My first time seeing state movies was shocking how in your face the propaganda was. It is completely blatant. From talking with locals about it, they recognize it as propaganda (although the Chinese word for propaganda doesn't have the same negative connotation as in English). I haven't watched state sponsored news to get a feel for their bias, but from the amount I have seen they are certainly selectively with their content. Everything focuses and the achievements Xi JinPing has recently achieved. The idea of a media outlet reporting on something silly the president has done is absurd.
3. The surveillance infrastructure in China surpasses even the UK. The number of cameras almost looks like a gag. Once again, the nature of how opaque the government is means it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty what they use the data for, but they certainly collect a lot.
speech is heavily, heavily restricted in the united states, in particular on American social media platforms.
there are a massive number of subjects which cannot be spoken about on social media without risking massive deboosting and the blacklisting of your accounts.
this censorship is directed by "former" CIA agents working at all major American social media companies. In other words, this is direct government censorship of private citizens' speech.
What is “deboosting”? If I own a social media site wouldn’t you argue that I should be able to control what content I “boost” in the first place? Am I forced to compulsory “boost” your content? In which case wouldn’t that mean I am “censoring” the PoV of the social media company?
Can you share the topic contents that are subject to your accusations? If you’re able to share them here without fear of government reprisal then I would argue that’s not censorship.
A current example would be Tiktok artificially boosting ice related challenges.
Why? Because it makes searching for immigration and customs enforcement content much more difficult to find. It lower the social temperature and stops it from metaphorically boiling over.
Is crowding out content censorship? Who knows. If tilting feeds in one direction and away from another has the same effect and isn't censorship because of a definitional technicality, does it really matter?
> If I own a social media site wouldn’t you argue that I should be able to control what content I “boost” in the first place? Am I forced to compulsory “boost” your content? In which case wouldn’t that mean I am “censoring” the PoV of the social media company?
That sounds cool as long as you forfeit your Section 230 rights since at that point you’re more of a newspaper than a social network.
Yes, I know all social networks do this currently which is why they should all lose their Section 230 rights.
>If you’re able to share them here without fear of government reprisal then I would argue that’s not censorship
I mean, the definition of censorship is far larger than just that, and what you're talking about is it's more extreme form.
Moreso you ignore all the modern subtlety and nuance of modern censorship. The government doesn't need to attack you directly, they just tell the large companies that contract with the government they can't do business with companies that do certain things. Or they tell payment processors that businesses that are 'high risk' need to be audited more and will invite more government intervention in which the payment processors just drop said businesses.
I mean, if you were on a corner protesting, then the government came in and closed the roads and routed all traffic around you so no one saw you, it would be really sus, right?
I think we are starting to see that under the current administration, yes. But the question was - does it rise to the level that Chinese have? I argue no.
I also worry about some sort of policy where a site “must” carry content. That has its own risks as well, which should be obvious.
In China, dissent is caged because it still has teeth. In the US, free speech is allowed because the teeth are all gone. We parade the animal about, saying, "Look, we still have free speech", but it has no ability to bite.
I don't know what's worse, being trapped in a cage or de-fanged and let loose. I've only ever lived without teeth, so the idea of biting sounds almost beautiful.
The last time it had teeth was the 60s into the 70s with the protests for Civil Rights and against the Vietnam War.
But angry crowds can still remind them that the threat exists -- witness Josh Hawley fleeing the capital when the angry mob broke through (the irony being that the mob was in service of his boss, Trump).
It seem by all account imaginably worse in China, particularly in Xinjiang. I might also call to attention the disappearance from western social media of a prominent Chinese maker. I'm also unaware of anyone in the US being sent to prison for political speech online.
What exactly did he say online that got him accused of espionage? I seem to remember the issue being that he was accused of conspiring with Manning to release classified documents, and possibly gaining unauthorized access to congressional records via an exploit in the systems access controls. I don't like the idea of the US government hounding journalists who work with leakers, but Assange was always tiptoeing up to and possibly just past laws unrelated to speech. I not a simple and straightforward case and does not prove that the US is like China in terms of censorship. You can be jailed in China for simply talking about the Tienanmen Square massacre or implying Taiwanese sovereignty, nothing comparable happens in the US.
This is a really disingenuous comment. I have correctly pointed out that Assage, who was not a US person or residing in the US and not jailed int he US was credibly accused of illegally accessing government data. I have also noted that I do not like the US government prosecuting journalists, which is the opposite of what you are claiming that I am saying.
This is wholly different from locking someone up for political speech. The US factually is not disappearing citizens for political speech.
That statement is still incorrect. China censors directly and heavily, eg "pooh bear"
In the US you are still very much free to insult the president, etc but if you post things deemed to be pro-terrorist or against what the Government wants to promote on social media, it won't go anywhere. Firearms or vaping content during the Biden admin as an example.
The current admin has heavily gutted the federal funding and workforce that backed these efforts and issued bulletins to private industry, but I suspect there is still pressure from pseudo-government "advocates".
