With the news that people are moving to Xiaohongshu due to uncertainty about the future of TikTok and the changes to Meta's content policies, and that people are now really interested in learning Mandarin: I would encourage you to check out the active Chinese-language communities right here on the fediverse as well, such as the public forum at https://ovo.st/club/board (@ board @ ovo.st ), and the instance https://m.cmx.im/about. Or, perhaps, you can follow my recent favourite fediverse account, @labor, which collects news about modern Chinese labour issues that you will never find on Chinese social media platforms.
In general I think there is a huge lack of understanding among western users about how much Chinese social media and Chinese tech companies are intertwined with the government, a lack of understanding or engagement with Chinese social issues which are heavily censored on all Chinese social media platforms, and a mistake belief that "well, Chinese social media can't be much worse than the American ones". I had to mute the discourse around TikTok for my own sanity because there was so much complete misunderstanding around privacy, censorship, and the nature of these companies. It's like seeing people say "we don't want to use apps run by (american) fascists, so we will flock to an app that shares all its data with a fascist government, and actively censors all topics unfavourable to that government". It makes no sense.
Of course, I think it is good that people are engaging with Chinese people, finally, as people, and not as just abstractions. I think it is also good that people have an incentive to learn my native language. I just wish people would use that to engage with and listen to the Chinese people who have been posting here, all along.
[#]china #tiktok #xiaohongshu #rednote #socialmedia #fediverse
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