Puzzle me this - as an employee in the US, for a company paying well above market for your labor, with generous perks and the freedom to speak out against the employer (which is likely absent in China), the response of the Chinese workforce seems rather paradoxical - criticising an accommodating work environment, which, mind you, is only possible because of freedom of speech
Or, the press is out to make a mountain of a mole - most Chinese employees at Facebook are happy despite Zuks' tone against the govt.
> the response of the Chinese workforce seems rather paradoxical - criticising an accommodatung work environment, which, mind you, is only possible because of freedom of speech
You’re questioning, and implicitly criticizing, these workers for exercising their access to free speech, for complaining about an aspect of their employer’s position about their country of origin.
Such an implicit critique undermines the foundations on which free speech stands. Speech is free regardless of the benefits and privileges granted to those who would speak.
Mirror check on 'intense nationalism' - how many Americans supported or still support unlimited US military actions around the globe, not to mention CIA buggery? How has democratic activity slowed this down in any meaningful way in the last 20 years?
You are not as immune as you think to government propaganda, it's just easier to spot when it's another country.
I think everyone here is already well aware of this, considering that some variation on this same comment gets posted repeatedly every time China's human rights issues are in the news.
Hmmm....Government propaganda is one thing. But sending you to concentration camp or prison because you have different views from the government is another.
Not sure what kind of equivalency you are trying to make here.
Obama campaigned as anti-war. So did Trump. Neither of those presidents have lived up to their campaign promises, but it seems clear to me the American people don't want to keep the most insane of US military actions going but feel powerless to stop it. The tricky part is that corporate media on both sides of the aisle never saw a war they didn't love. But that's different than the American people.
You don't know what I think. Personally, I'm not even American, and have criticized the US for the stuff you mention more harshly than the average American by orders of magnitude. That doesn't mean I don't see the infinite difference between the US government sometimes sucking, and the CCP (== no elections, no free press, torture camps, putting down protests over the law being broken with force, dictating to companies what they may post in Western countries, and so on). Yeah, Snowden had to run, but we can talk about Snowden. There's American books by American publishers about American war crimes, Noam Chomsky leads a full, critical life. There's a greater risk that the Chinese government might kidnap or assassinate him, just for saying something they don't like in passing, than the US govt laying hand on him. So to even mention the CCP and the US in one sentence... again, I'm not even American, and even I know all that and more.
The only data point you're offering for what you think about the subject at hand is this "mirror check". Those are a dime a dozen, people pretending to be objective or neutral, and calling it a mirror check -- when the whole point of the exercise them getting away from their own personal stance and responsibility, while creating straw men up about a generic other.
Zuckerberg for actually having a spine when it comes to China, unlike Tim Cook
What spine? Facebook is blocked in China. It costs him nothing to take this stance. If Tim Cook tried the same, China could seize the factories and Apple would have no product to sell.
I'm sure in private Tim Cook would admit that Apple needs to diversify their manufacturing out of China as a hedge against the risk of a hostile government there. That is a process which cannot happen overnight, however, and so in the mean time it's best to tiptoe around the sleeping dragon.
Zuck’s anti China stance has nothing to do with having a spine and everything to do with Facebook’s bottom line. He is merely using China as a very convenient punching bag and foil to deflect attention away from Facebook’s own gross abuses of power.
This is exemplified in his address on free speech several weeks ago - trying to position Facebook as a defender of American values (free speech and human rights) versus big bad China.
Make no mistake, if Zuckerberg actually cared about the values of a free society he would fix his own platform. Don’t applaud him for throwing shade at an even more authoritarian regime.
It should read “Chinese Government”, not China, too.
The Chinese government was not elected by the Chinese, is not in any sense a legitimate representative of the Chinese, and has no more right to rule over China than I do. Conflating criticism of the CCP with criticism of the country that they illegitimately rule is CCP propaganda techniques 101.
Have you heard the news that Mark has learnt Chinese very hard, and even placed Xi's book at his office desk trying to please the visited Chinese officials?
He didn't have any spine, and what he's doing right now just because he failed so have to change the strategy.
It's probably easier for him to do so, given that Facebook is banned in that country. But then again, so is Google, yet they pursued Project Dragonfly.
My understanding is that I’m not allowed to discriminate based upon the country of origin of my employees. As long as they have the right to work, they must be considered equally. Should that be altered for Chinese citizens?
Zuckerberg is quite clearly being critical of the Chinese Communist Party, who by nature of being authoritarian, have no mandate from the people of the PRC. There is no bias against China as a country, or Chinese people. Zuck is merely judging an authoritarian government for it's own actions. Shame on those who would wish to conflate the two.
In order to understand why this conflation is occurring, you need to understand chinese culture. Chinese culture is very different in some fundamental ways that's hard for western countries to understand. First of all, the people in China are trained from a very early age to think of themselves as indistinguishable from their country and their government. There literally is no concept of self in China. People are tauhgt to think of themselves as completely the same as their government. this is a fundamental viewpoint of how the chinese see themselves. This of course allows the PRC to do whatever it wants without any complaints from the people because any thoughts against the PRC is tantamount to being anti-chinese. Thus when chinese people see anything that goes against the PRC they take it as a personal insult to themselves. The PRC has influenced their people to regard any idea that goes against the PRC as racism towards chinese.
Culturally, should a suicide of an employee that comes from a culture that doesn't put weight on suicide really draw more attention to an issue than before?
Beijing's state policy is freedom from religion and that removes most of the mental failsafes preventing suicide.
My anti-suicide talk with some Chinese people has often been prefaced with "oh yeah our culture typically focuses on self preservation and avoidance of suicide, hope that clears things up for you" before explaining how that person's failure has other options. I wouldn't consider myself anti-suicide when it comes to other people's options, I would consider myself to have just strong self preservation skills and can perceive options for myself and other people that are considering an escape hatch.
So I think there is a cultural component to consider here, for western media wanting to cover this.
[+] [-] throwGuardian|6 years ago|reply
Or, the press is out to make a mountain of a mole - most Chinese employees at Facebook are happy despite Zuks' tone against the govt.
[+] [-] thomasjames|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deepVoid|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvgn9q/do-not-discuss-the...
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/facebook-employee-i-was-fire...
[3] https://digg.com/video/qin-chen-facebook-employee-suicide
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...
[+] [-] Spooky23|6 years ago|reply
As the US and China implement different tit for tat policies, relatives at home can be punished for the actions of relatives abroad.
[+] [-] thorwasdfasdf|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mistersquid|6 years ago|reply
You’re questioning, and implicitly criticizing, these workers for exercising their access to free speech, for complaining about an aspect of their employer’s position about their country of origin.
Such an implicit critique undermines the foundations on which free speech stands. Speech is free regardless of the benefits and privileges granted to those who would speak.
[+] [-] davidwitt415|6 years ago|reply
You are not as immune as you think to government propaganda, it's just easier to spot when it's another country.
[+] [-] natechols|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eznoonze|6 years ago|reply
Not sure what kind of equivalency you are trying to make here.
[+] [-] Consultant32452|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PavlovsCat|6 years ago|reply
https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dx8rn0/absolutely...
What would you say is the American equivalent to that? And what would be the American equivalent to this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/d1rp31/are_we_rea...
And that is, all other actions considered, such a harmless and cute clip. Keeping it SFW.
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage/videos/9503534286...
How do you explain this?
> You are not as immune as you think
You don't know what I think. Personally, I'm not even American, and have criticized the US for the stuff you mention more harshly than the average American by orders of magnitude. That doesn't mean I don't see the infinite difference between the US government sometimes sucking, and the CCP (== no elections, no free press, torture camps, putting down protests over the law being broken with force, dictating to companies what they may post in Western countries, and so on). Yeah, Snowden had to run, but we can talk about Snowden. There's American books by American publishers about American war crimes, Noam Chomsky leads a full, critical life. There's a greater risk that the Chinese government might kidnap or assassinate him, just for saying something they don't like in passing, than the US govt laying hand on him. So to even mention the CCP and the US in one sentence... again, I'm not even American, and even I know all that and more.
The only data point you're offering for what you think about the subject at hand is this "mirror check". Those are a dime a dozen, people pretending to be objective or neutral, and calling it a mirror check -- when the whole point of the exercise them getting away from their own personal stance and responsibility, while creating straw men up about a generic other.
[+] [-] umvi|6 years ago|reply
"Zuckerberg’s Anti-China Rhetoric Roils (Chinese) Facebook Employees"
At any rate, I applaud Zuckerberg for actually having a spine when it comes to China, unlike Tim Cook.
[+] [-] chongli|6 years ago|reply
What spine? Facebook is blocked in China. It costs him nothing to take this stance. If Tim Cook tried the same, China could seize the factories and Apple would have no product to sell.
I'm sure in private Tim Cook would admit that Apple needs to diversify their manufacturing out of China as a hedge against the risk of a hostile government there. That is a process which cannot happen overnight, however, and so in the mean time it's best to tiptoe around the sleeping dragon.
[+] [-] mindgam3|6 years ago|reply
This is exemplified in his address on free speech several weeks ago - trying to position Facebook as a defender of American values (free speech and human rights) versus big bad China.
Make no mistake, if Zuckerberg actually cared about the values of a free society he would fix his own platform. Don’t applaud him for throwing shade at an even more authoritarian regime.
[+] [-] larnmar|6 years ago|reply
The Chinese government was not elected by the Chinese, is not in any sense a legitimate representative of the Chinese, and has no more right to rule over China than I do. Conflating criticism of the CCP with criticism of the country that they illegitimately rule is CCP propaganda techniques 101.
[+] [-] taobility|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FussyZeus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Apocryphon|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joeblau|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinzollars|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] christkv|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmpman|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thecleaner|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emergie|6 years ago|reply
https://www.smh.com.au/technology/mark-zuckerberg-snapped-wi...
[+] [-] edwinyzh|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sugarpile|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nailer|6 years ago|reply
Zuckerberg is quite clearly being critical of the Chinese Communist Party, who by nature of being authoritarian, have no mandate from the people of the PRC. There is no bias against China as a country, or Chinese people. Zuck is merely judging an authoritarian government for it's own actions. Shame on those who would wish to conflate the two.
[+] [-] thorwasdfasdf|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] have_faith|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cookingboy|6 years ago|reply
If you have studied Chinese history you'd know the mandate does not come from it being democratically elected, but rather how good it's doing its job.
Democracy is not only a concept that's foreign to Chinese history, it's not even desired by that many people in China.
[+] [-] paganel|6 years ago|reply
At some point you also have to make it about the people, too, after all the Chinese Communist Party is comprised of Chinese people.
[+] [-] pressurefree|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] outside1234|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rolltiide|6 years ago|reply
Beijing's state policy is freedom from religion and that removes most of the mental failsafes preventing suicide.
My anti-suicide talk with some Chinese people has often been prefaced with "oh yeah our culture typically focuses on self preservation and avoidance of suicide, hope that clears things up for you" before explaining how that person's failure has other options. I wouldn't consider myself anti-suicide when it comes to other people's options, I would consider myself to have just strong self preservation skills and can perceive options for myself and other people that are considering an escape hatch.
So I think there is a cultural component to consider here, for western media wanting to cover this.