14 comments

  • _bxg1 1683 days ago
    "Here's the question: a bunch of young people in Hong Kong are standing up to their government, at terrific personal risk, to fight for basic human rights. Will a bunch of Twitter employees, at far less risk, stand up to their CEO and refuse to be used as a weapon against them?"

    If anyone here works at Twitter, please, stand up for what's right.

    • Leary 1683 days ago
      Does anyone with knowledge of Twitter's terms of service know which rules are being broken?
      • shakna 1683 days ago
        I would expect a few from the Rules [0] _could_ apply. Depends a bit on exactly how they're phrasing things.

        > You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease

        > You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so.

        > You may not use Twitter’s services in a manner intended to artificially amplify or suppress information or engage in behavior that manipulates or disrupts people’s experience on Twitter.

        [0] https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-rules

      • marak830 1683 days ago
        They came for me, but hey, the TOC was covered, so let's ignore it.
      • seppin 1683 days ago
        Maybe Twitter's TOS was flawed from the start and shouldn't the bar for judgement now?
      • EpicEng 1683 days ago
        Why does it matter?
    • sieabahlpark 1683 days ago
      This goes for Google, Facebook, and Twitter. They're all just chasing ad money.
      • lern_too_spel 1683 days ago
        And especially Apple, who handed over iCloud keys [1] and an iMessage keyserver to a company in the direct control of the Chinese government, allowing unfettered surveillance of Chinese users' email, calendars, documents, and even non-Chinese users' iMessage communications [2] with Chinese users.

        Yahoo! was once raked over the coals for being a tiny fraction as evil. [3]

        [1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple-privacy...

        [2] https://www.lawfareblog.com/iphones-fbi-and-going-dark

        [3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/nov/14/news.yaho...

        • ajxs 1683 days ago
          Let us not for a minute forget Google's Dragonfly Project. It's actually quite concerning that Google has refused to work on DoD projects but continues to work in China.
          • lern_too_spel 1683 days ago
            Dragonfly could hypothetically launch at some point in the indefinite future, assuming Google's employees don't continue to protest it. Apple has already given the iCloud keys to the PRC without a whimper from any Apple employees. Both are bad, but one is many orders of magnitude worse because it is already actually implemented and causing harm.
    • devoply 1683 days ago
      Let's call out Jack Dorsey for not being as progressive as he claims.
      • klyrs 1683 days ago
        Lol progressive. Imagine Dorsey holding Trump accountable to the same TOS everybody else is supposed to follow.
      • seppin 1683 days ago
        His loyalty is to his company. Why would you expect anything else?
        • Balgair 1683 days ago
          Which one? He's the CEO of Square too.
    • coldtea 1683 days ago
      And why would those Twitter employees be able to judge what's the better option in a foreign sovereign affair (especially given the quite low knowledge most Americans have of world affairs)?
      • RavlaAlvar 1683 days ago
        Question: why should Chinese government be allowed to spread propaganda on Western media freely while vice versa is not .
        • coldtea 1683 days ago
          According to the story, they don't spread it "freely". They paid for the ads.

          As for the real answer, so that Twitter and co can give a resemblance of being neutral international internet service, as opposed to being "Western media" company tied to regional interests.

          • EpicEng 1683 days ago
            "free" as in speech... obviously.

            There is no "neutral" here; one side is a wealthy government, the other is an informal assembly of citizens.

            Do you also believe that political contributions should be unregulated? Wouldn't that be fair and "neutral"? Of course it wouldn't; it would heavily favor the side with the most money.

      • adventured 1683 days ago
        Because basic human rights are in fact an objective value, not subjective.

        You don't need to be inside of North Korea to be able to judge that the South Korean approach is superior in all regards.

        If 100% of the people in a country believe state slavery is ideal, that no human rights is ideal, all that means is that 100% of the people in that country are wrong.

        Vaccines are also not a subjective value, speaking generally, and the morality of Hong Kong vs China in terms of human rights and systems, is every bit as clear of a matter as whether vaccines are good or bad. One is better than the other and it is very easy to prove in numerous obvious ways.

        If 100% of Americans believe vaccines are bad, that doesn't mean they're right. A proper human morality stems from what best provides for a high quality of life for humans. The basis of a proper morality is what human life needs to flourish and we can test and track and prove it out. We've already figured this out in fact and it isn't the repressive Chinese authoritarian model (it's a lot more like Canada, Denmark, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Austria, etc).

        • coldtea 1683 days ago
          >Because basic human rights are in fact an objective value, not subjective.

          Well, wars that killed tons of people were supposedly fought for "basic human rights" and "democracy" too, so there's that.

          >If 100% of the people in a country believe state slavery is ideal, that no human rights is ideal, all that means is that 100% of the people in that country are wrong.

          And whose to say? Some other country based on its own culture, and treating it as some some of universal laws of physics?

          >Vaccines are also not a subjective value

          That's neither here, nor there, because vaccines are the subject of scientific study, and results can be measured.

          Preferred way of government, laws, ethical questions, etc, are cultural, and should be up to the people.

          • adventured 1683 days ago
            > Well, wars that killed tons of people were supposedly fought for "basic human rights" and "democracy" too, so there's that.

            That's not a meaningful statement. It doesn't matter what something was supposedly fought for (Iraq was supposedly fought for WMDs). It matters what it was fought for (Iraq wasn't fought for WMDs).

            > And whose to say? Some other country based on its own culture, and treating it as some some of universal laws of physics?

            The people in Hong Kong or Japan are not so biologically different such that what causes their humanity to thrive, is entirely different from what causes the humanity of North Korea to thrive. Culture is a bogus excuse, there is nothing special about it that justifies oppressing people.

            You answered your own question with the last part. We can easily prove out what is best for humanity, under what conditions humans best thrive. Yes, it in fact can be measured and easily demonstrated. We've already figured this out. It's no different than understanding that humans don't thrive when they're suffocating or starving or lacking water.

            > That's neither here, nor there, because vaccines are the subject of scientific study, and results can be measured.

            And that's where your entire premise falls apart. A human morality can be judged by its outcomes, very clearly. This is night & day in many cases, such as Cold War West & East Berlin, or current North & South Korea.

            The actual outcomes of an applied morality can plainly be measured in numerous obvious ways. We do it all the time: we know for a scientific fact (yes, scientific fact) that the approach Denmark uses is vastly superior to the approach North Korea uses. We have measured the outcomes, we know what works. We have dozens of metrics of human life that we can measure it based on, such as life expectancy or access to basic healthcare. Morality is not entirely subjective: someone strangling an innocent person to death in murder isn't a matter of opinion as to whether it's good or not. That's a simple, obvious, baseline example proof that morality is not always subjective. Someone having an opinion on something doesn't mean it's right or wrong by itself. Whether a morality is good or not, requires one simple starting question: does this approach improve human existence; does it lead to demonstrably increased happiness and well being. The surveys of the happiest countries that persistently come out with eg Scandinavia on top, are not a fluke.

            From basic foundations you can determine objective morality issues to build a society on, including whether eg murdering innocent people is proper to a society flourishing or not. We can measure how humanity survives, thrives, or fails under various conditions and create approaches that utilize rules of morality that are best to spur positive outcomes.

            If this weren't true, the best outcome countries would all be scrambled, it'd be nearly entirely random. Sudan would be right up there with the Netherlands. You'd have repressive slave states routinely with hyper GDP per capita figures, low work hours, top notch welfare states, and leading all the happiness surveys world wide. Of course that's not the common outcome at all, it's exactly the opposite.

            • keiferski 1683 days ago
              While I agree with you entirely on the authoritarian vs. free state issue, your comments here are deeply, fundamentally ignorant of pretty much the entire field of ethics and philosophy.

              In fact, this sort of oversimplification is itself dangerous, even if it is for a “good” cause, simply because it lends ammunition to your opposition, subsequently helping the exact people you are fighting against.

            • coldtea 1683 days ago
              >That's not a meaningful statement. It doesn't matter what something was supposedly fought for (Iraq was supposedly fought for WMDs). It matters what it was fought for (Iraq wasn't fought for WMDs).

              It was fought for control and oil, which is even worse.

              >You answered your own question with the last part. We can easily prove out what is best for humanity, under what conditions humans best thrive. Yes, it in fact can be measured and easily demonstrated.

              Only with the measurement tools (criteria) of those doing the measuring.

              This method has historically been used to justify all kinds of oppression itself.

              E.g. how Native Americans, after being exterminated for the most part, had to be "schooled" in education camps to really "thrive". Or how colonialism and enslavement of billions of people was for their "own good" (the "white man's burden" to civilize them, and give them railways and prosperity).

            • amaccuish 1683 days ago
              Surely the fact that China has taken millions out of poverty, has increased life expectancy massively runs disproves your argument that we can "scientifically prove" this?

              Also China is not North Korea.

          • pimmen 1683 days ago
            > And whose to say? Some other country based on its own culture, and treating it as some some of universal laws of physics?

            The UN Convention of Human Rights. Which China recognizes, that's why it got Taiwan's seat at the Security Council.

            I posit being in a position to judge and enforce human rights, and then violating the rights you recognize for your own gain, is immoral.

            > Preferred way of government, laws, ethical questions, etc, are cultural, and should be up to the people.

            That doesn't work, which is why we have the UN Convention. There were more non-Jews than Jews in Germany, a party only resonating with the majority population could then harness that to murder the minority. To make sure minorities are safe the International community is trying to make human rights universal in spite of what a local majority thinks.

            • coldtea 1683 days ago
              >That doesn't work, which is why we have the UN Convention.

              We have the UN Convention because some top-dog nation states pushed for it, as a means to influence lesser states in a faux-democratic way [1].

              https://www.cgdev.org/publication/linking-us-foreign-aid-un-...

              When the UN doesn't vote or suggest something they like, they can simply veto it or ignore it:

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._ratification_of_the_Conve... (not ratified by US)

              https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/23/politics/un-security-coun...

              https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/43-times-us-has-used-veto...

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty#...

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Elimination_... (not ratified by US)

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Non-ratificatio... (not ratified by US)

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Internat... (not ratified by US)

              So much for "making minorities safe" -- they also have to be the minorities (or majorities) certain top dogs care about.

              [1] And this is not a new Trump-era thing: the US has pushed UN votes its way through this and similar means since Kissinger times

              • NeedMoreTea 1683 days ago
                Long before that, it goes back a long way. First I'm aware of it was the approach taken by Harry Anslinger - he of the racist reefer madness and swathes of faked evidence to support his moral crusade. A crusade for outlawing hemp, not just cannabis, at the League of Nations and inserting it in international opium treaties. Then again after being appointed as US representative by Kennedy in 61, for the sustained pressure at the UN that eventually led to the global war on drugs. Took a while to achieve global compliance there - as other countries had different approaches that had worked very well.
              • pimmen 1683 days ago
                I’m not going to argue against that the UN has been used by the permanent Security Council members to push their political agenda.

                But, you’re making the claim here that the convention on human rights was a tool to influence nations in a faux-democratic way. Could you tell me what in the human rights convention makes the world a less democratic place? And why is it bad to have some framework in place that for example covers the human rights abuses China is comitting against the uighurs? And what would be the alternative, just letting countries violate minorities who pray for other countries to do something?

                Because, again, we’re talking about China here, a permanent member of the Security Council. It’s supposed to uphold these values of human rights across the world, but it violates them instead because it wants to, is that not something other countries should condemn then?

        • tcxqy 1683 days ago
          The fact that "human rights" are an objective value doesn't mean that every country has to necessarily abide by them.

          >A proper human morality stems from what best provides for a high quality of life for humans.

          Ah, morality. What a can of worms are you opening to justify your beliefs!

          What's funnier is that these arguments always come from leftists... the very same people who are always so quick to shoot down imperialism. But cultural imperialism, where you use your military power to shove your "morality" up everybody else's butts, now that's okay. Because it's "human rights" and stuff. Yeah.

          • yellowapple 1683 days ago
            > The fact that "human rights" are an objective value doesn't mean that every country has to necessarily abide by them.

            It does, however, mean that the countries which do not abide by them deserve to be - and if history is any indicator, will be - overthrown and replaced by countries that do.

            • tcxqy 1683 days ago
              Will they? I mean there are dozens of countries where "human rights" are continuously being violated and nobody cares.

              The West is too afraid of China for one simple reason: it's not led by retards, which means it's actually flourishing. That does not compute for them, because they seem to think liberal values are integral to a nation advancing. Well, wrong. Sorry.

              • yellowapple 1683 days ago
                You're substantially overestimating China's political and economic stability. Large authoritarian regimes like China's simply do not have a track record of lasting long. Tibet and Taiwan and Hong Kong are just the beginning; the harder China squeezes the sand, the faster it will slip through its fingers. Don't believe me? Ask the Soviets.

                Come to think of it, the PRC is right around the same age the USSR was when it collapsed...

                • coldtea 1682 days ago
                  >Large authoritarian regimes like China's simply do not have a track record of lasting long.

                  Compared to what? There have been millennia old authoritarian regimes. Compared to those, democratic states are a flash in the pan.

                  Heck, China itself (pre communism) has lasted and prospered for 5-10 times the duration of most modern nation states, while authoritarian.

                  Not to mention that this "authoritarian" is overblown as it concerns the ordinary billions of citizens. They might persecute religions minorities, but as far as the average Joe and Jane is concerned they never had it better (and they get richer in each generation that their parents, something many places in the west can't say). P

                  Then they see Trump, Macron, Salvini, and co, and don't really get what the fuss with western democracy is all about...

                  >Tibet and Taiwan and Hong Kong are just the beginning

                  The beginning of what? Taiwan is where the non-commies went (and it was a dictatorship of its own, for most of its life, not to mentioned founded by a guy who murdered a million people or so, which while not Mao level, is not shabby a track record). Hong Kong got used to another level of autonomy, especially for elites and businesses (though itself was purchased back in the day by a colonial power that had devastated the main land, yay for democracy). As for Tibet, it's like China's Puerto Rico or Hawaii, only at least they had a slither of a legitimate historical claim to the place.

                  >Come to think of it, the PRC is right around the same age the USSR was when it collapsed...

                  If wishes were horses...

                  • yellowapple 1680 days ago
                    > There have been millennia old authoritarian regimes.

                    At the risk of moving goalposts, I probably should have specified "lasting long after the 1700's". Countries in relatively-modern times are generally more likely to move from authoritarian to democratic than the other way around. Once the proletariat has tasted actual freedom and self-determination, going back to being ruled under an iron fist ain't (usually) something done voluntarily.

                    Also, I specified large authoritarian regimes. Small nations can more easily be authoritarian (interference from large democratic nations aside) because it's easy to keep a small population under control. That gets much harder with a large population, and China's population certainly ain't getting any smaller. It's impressive (in a "wow that took a lot of effort" sense, not a "wow that's pretty cool" sense) that a nation as large as the PRC has been able to maintain such an iron fist on such a large population, but it's also pretty young, and time will tell if it'll actually buck the trend of China constantly fragmenting and reuniting over and over again. Speaking of which:

                    > Heck, China itself (pre communism) has lasted and prospered for 5-10 times the duration of most modern nation states, while authoritarian.

                    "China" has a history of constantly fragmenting and reuniting over and over again. It also has a history of expanding and contracting over and over again (though in fairness that had a lot to do with the Mongols and Huns). China's currently in the "large and unified" part of the cycle, but - if history is anything to go by, and I posit that it is - a contraction and/or fracture is inevitable. It probably would've happened already (i.e. during the series of nationwide protests that included the Tienanmen Square protesters that China "didn't" massacre), but China had enough propaganda and censorship tools up its sleeve to sweep all that under the rug (we'll see how long that survives here in the Information Age; China can beef up its Great Firewall all it wants, but people will continue to poke holes in it, making it harder and harder for China to assert its official narratives as the "truth").

                    > as far as the average Joe and Jane is concerned they never had it better

                    Sure, until the Communist Party decides Joe and Jane don't have enough social credit to be allowed to meaningfully participate in society, and then they're screwed.

                    > and they get richer in each generation that their parents

                    For now, and only because they've transitioned from "complete and utter poverty" to "almost at basic Western standards of living". China's growth is already slowing down (at least as far as numerous economists with way more knowledge than I've got have assessed), so this is decreasingly-guaranteed to hold true for future generations.

      • goatinaboat 1683 days ago
        Twitter and its employees were very quick to claim credit for the “Arab Spring”. They have a history of supporting insurrectionists against repression. Just not in this specific case, for some reason.
      • newsgremlin 1683 days ago
        If they are not sure, then surely not having a role in making or displaying the ads is a neutral one?
  • guerrilla 1683 days ago
    This reminds me (in kind, not degree) of how the Yellow Vests were treated by the French state and corporate media. They were literally labeled "breakers" (as in vandals) across the board, the word "violence" was incessantly repeated in as many contexts as possible surrounding protest days, video of blatant human rights violations would often be ignored in coverage while vandalism or looting replayed nearly non-stop, etc.
    • sidibe 1683 days ago
      I dont even think it's similar in kind. Even during the violence everyone, even Macron and French state media gave lip service to their grievances and went to great lengths to at least pretend to sympathize while China is hostilely mischaracterizing HK protestors and encouraging mainlanders to hate.
      • coldtea 1683 days ago
        >Even during the violence everyone, even Macron and French state media gave lip service to their grievances and went to great lengths to at least pretend to sympathize

        The SWAT police had hit an eldery woman badly, and Macron said to the press "I hope this teaches her a lesson".

        I think that's enough of the sympathising and faux-grievances...

      • guerrilla 1683 days ago
        This difference does not negate the similarities that I listed which make them of the same kind. The French state doesn't get a free pass on its human rights abuses and propaganda because its figurehead negotiated with the other side.
    • Kuinox 1683 days ago
      I don't remember that they were labeled as "breaker". Yes, sadly there were blatant human rights violation. "breakers" are here at every protests, they doesn't care about the movement itself but are here only to break things.
    • pluma 1683 days ago
      Incidentally, a lot of Chinese twitter "bots" (or rather accounts that spread Chinese propaganda, whether they're manually run by actual humans or not) reply to tweets about the Hong Kong protests with sensationalist articles about the yellow vests and how France is "collapsing".

      That said, there are interesting takes on the yellow vests that are still critical of them without simply painting them as vandals. For example one article pointed out that the yellow vests are overwhelmingly white and their treatment is noticeably tamer than that of equally or less violent protesters in previous years who were predominantly people of color.

      As an outsider the yellow vests movement (especially now that it has been copied internationally) seems like it has a few legitimate concerns but they are swamped in a confusing mix of everything from anarchocommunists to ecofascists. It doesn't help that some of the international copycats are obviously far-right (because nazis seem to love co-opting populist movements for their own purposes).

      • guerrilla 1683 days ago
        Russia and Iran use the same tactic you mention. RT/Ruptly would make huge spectacles of Yellow Vest protests, which I think was obviously to distract from or justify their own operation. Every chance RT gets, they point out how Europe is "collapsing."
        • coldtea 1683 days ago
          Or, you know, some of us actually like to point the hypocrisy regarding the Yellow Vests (including millions of people in France who support the movement), and apparently anyone with any different opinion is considered some kind of agent...
          • guerrilla 1683 days ago
            Yeah, I'm the person who did that and wrote the comment you're responding to as well, turns out.
        • baud147258 1683 days ago
          I think RT was also using the treatment of the Yellow Vest from the French police to point the supposed hypocrisy of the French gov who was calling out Russia's government treatment of their political opponent.
        • rjf72 1683 days ago
          Russia is very much in support of a multi-polar world and so of course they're going to actively report on activities that paint our global hegemony in a negative light. But at the same time much of the 'western' world's media tends to be vehemently in favor of said hegemony, and consequently tend to actively report on activities that paint the 'outsiders' in a negative light.

          But let's consider the yellow vest protests, in terms of scale and consequence, for just one moment. At their peak they attracted hundreds of thousands of people and have resulted in thousands of injuries largely at the hands of police violence. There have been numerous blindings due to police intentionally firing 'nonlethal' weapons at protesters' faces. Others have been mutilated or lost limbs due to police using tear gas canisters that are occasionally laced with explosives to deter protesters from simply throwing them back at police.

          This [1] interview from the Guardian shows what said 'tear gas' can do. There have also been numerous deaths. Most have been tangential (vehicular related) but one was quite dystopic. An 80 year old woman who was killed after being hit by a police gas canister. She was not involved in the protests. She was killed while at her window after being struck by a tear gas canister. [2]

          Biases in what is reported on by either ideologies media does not mean what is being reported on is fake, nor does it mean that what either group chooses not to report on is not relevant. If something of an identical scale to the Yellow Vest protests was happening in mainland China, with comparable consequences, it would be being reported on 24/7 by the 'western' media as an example of China engaging in systemic violence against people just seeking 'freedom'.

          And that is simply if it was of the same size. Now imagine you scale up something to proportional size based on population. China has ~ 21x as many people as France. Such a protest there would involve millions of protesters, tens of thousands of injuries, and hundreds of deaths. Same proportions and consequences, but it now sounds so different doesn't it?

          [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoYFjryuFjs

          [2] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-46429930

          • guerrilla 1683 days ago
            > Russia is very much in support of a multi-polar world

            Russia is very much in support of Russian interests, as all states are self-interested

      • baud147258 1683 days ago
        > their treatment is noticeably tamer than that of equally or less violent protesters in previous years who were predominantly people of color

        I hadn't felt that their treatment, by either the media or the police, was much tamer treatment of previous protests which were predominantly people of color.

  • 07d046 1683 days ago
    You might as well just read the Twitter thread that the article links to https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/1162711159000055808
  • rm--rf 1683 days ago
    It's interesting to watch the comments for this article on endgadget. As of rn, there are 17 comments from 9 accounts. 3 accounts are pro-china, one of which has 7 comments/replys in that thread, and the activity for all three is solely within the comments of this article, which also has multiple 'leader' (high usage) accounts all of which have commented in support of the protesters.
  • markonen 1683 days ago
    A relatively simple way of (partially) dealing with this would be to just completely disable ads for specific hashtags.

    It would sidestep a lot of the issues around banning a specific (powerful) advertiser.

  • notaimbot 1683 days ago
    I really hope ppl get to see both sides of what goes on in HK, not that I don't support the HK protesters but how the western media portrays the protests is extremely biased.
  • aembleton 1683 days ago
    Clicking the link forwards me to https://guce.advertising.com/collectIdentifiers?sessionId=3_...

    I guess that would then redirect me to the article but I block that domain at the dns level.

  • wiggler00m 1683 days ago
    I quit Facebook a while ago, but recently have been increasingly frustrated by Twitter's advertising, promoted tweets, and curation. I'm done. Goodbye Twitter.
  • 1023bytes 1683 days ago
    For extra context, the author of the quoted tweet wrote this blogpost a few days ago: https://idlewords.com/2019/08/a_walk_in_hong_kong.htm

    Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20712762

  • provolone 1683 days ago
    Twitter is also promoting ads from Xinhua-Travel. They suggest that all is well in Xinjiang and Tibet.

    Say what you will about Twitter's political stance elsewhere. Twitter is all too happy to be complicit in spreading propaganda about an actual current genocide.

    • powerapple 1683 days ago
      maybe Twitter is trying to suggest a slight possibility for people to go to see the place before they suggesting it as "actual current genocide".
      • provolone 1683 days ago
        >possibility for people to go to see

        Yet it is impossible to visit either region without being a part of a government controlled tour group or otherwise being accompanied by government minders. The actual locations where abuses are taking place are prohibited areas.

        • powerapple 1682 days ago
          It can still be better to see the place though. the place of 'actual current genocide' can be interesting to see. Not for this topic, it can still be interesting to see other part of world.
    • echevil 1683 days ago
      They probably should forbid all Western media as well, as they has been spreading propaganda against China, without doing basic fact checking and actually got people like you to believe that there is "actual genocide"

      https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-specific-examples-of-medi...

      • 07d046 1683 days ago
        Why do people keep posting this link in this thread? It's a terrible answer because it uncritically accepts the claim that a static rally at a venue that doesn't hold more than about 20,000 people had hundreds of thousands. Basic fact checking. Do it.
  • ajxs 1683 days ago
    In my eyes this is particularly damning in light of their upper management's milquetoast, flaccid response to recent allegations of political bias. This is the same company that would have us believe that they are responsible and morally righteous enough to wield the enormous power it has without requiring any form of regulation or government intervention. I commend Tim Pool for how aggressive yet fair and level-headed his interview with Vijaya Gadde and Jack Dorsey on the Joe Rogan show was. Vijaya Gadde left an incredibly bad impression on me from that interview. Striking me as incredibly duplicitous, disingenuous and dishonest. Jack Dorsey came off looking like a moron. We've seen this same issue with Google recently as well. Both of these companies are happy to pay lip service to moral stances against the Trump administration, presumably on the basis of moral outrage against nationalism. But then they prove with their actions that they are more than willing to assist the Chinese government in cracking down on the civil liberties of their own citizens.
  • decoyworker 1683 days ago
    Why is there such a disconnect between the tech elite and the generally well-intentioned and helpful people of this site? What happens between fighting to make your way in the tech world and becoming a cynical fuck-the-world jerk like Dorsey, Thiel, or Zuck?

    Is it really that hard to benefit humanity and do the right thing?

  • katakuchi 1683 days ago
    Will someone please tell me what the purpose is of this article being published? Is it to criticize the Chinese government for producing Fake News? Is it to blame Twitter for it's lack of activism to stand for the free folk of Hong Kong? I'm guessing there's more than one side of this story..

    Media will always be used as a tool to combat other media in order to sway public opinion. Why are we not constantly talking about Tibet anymore or police brutality and #BlackLivesMatter in the US? There seems to be a different motive, and for the average reader that consumes media, it becomes increasingly harder to form a coherent self-thought opinion by themselves and reach out of this echo chamber.

    It seems like every article I read about HongKong in -Europe & the US- is amped up on anti-Chinese sentiment whilst a large part of the people that demonstrate are doing so because of dissatisfaction on living conditions and purchasing power. They live in a city with wild inequality, and they could also care less about economic disruption and incurred costs by the aviation/hospitality sector. It seems to me they're just "pissed and want things to change". Fueled by the international media-attention. However blatantly simplistic that might sound.

    • Nasrudith 1683 days ago
      That is an incredibly stupid accusation and you should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking it. Listen to yourself - the whole fucking point is human rights to not be snatched away in the middle of the night to show trials! Purchasing power is a fucking stupid thing to accuse as their real motive as if they wanted to change that they could move onto the mainland.

      The point is how China has persistently tried to delegitimize it doing things like disrupting /overseas/ protests. That isn't normal and shame on all who try to normalize it.

      • katakuchi 1683 days ago
        I'm not quite sure if I should answer to your reply, as it seems you've wrote it in quite an angry spur of the moment. Did you perhaps take the time to read my whole post? Or was the last alinea enough to make you drop your panties and throw insults and swears around?

        The spokesmen of protesters are demanding the extradition law to be upheaved indefinitely and Carrie Lam to be dismissed, one of which has happened already. Four months back there was absolutely no traction for any massive protest like this, not to mention the flares of violence. Even though this law has been in the making for years and published in March of this year. Can you think of any other legitimate reason the overall population is demonstrating so fervently other than dissatisfaction about the way their current government is running their city into the ground?

        You speak of moving onto the mainland as a solution to purchasing power but I don't think you have any idea what it means to uproot your existence in a city which you consider your home. Especially when you're living from paycheck to paycheck and can barely afford the housing anymore. It's not as stupid to the majority of the inhabitants working in the service sector in Hong Kong and the fact that you see this as an 'accusation' to protest instead of a right to demonstrate is quite telling.

        • Riverheart 1683 days ago
          "Even though this law has been in the making for years and published in March of this year. Can you think of any other legitimate reason the overall population is demonstrating so fervently other than dissatisfaction about the way their current government is running their city into the ground"

          Because it takes time, energy and a sense of urgency to mobilize people to action even on issues they should be concerned with?

        • whamlastxmas 1683 days ago
          Personal attacks are against guidelines for HN. Please stop
    • notaimbot 1680 days ago
      I totally agree with you. It saddens me seeing supposedly 'free speech' western media showing only one angle of the protest, not too different from the censored media in china.