In this article on baidu, there is a gap between 1988 and 1999, why is there nothing about some kind of protest that everyone keeps telling me about?

Edit: Thank you for responding, you have taught me a great deal about the usage and necessity of propaganda, counter-propaganda and censorship in a Marxist-Leninist state like China. Although some relied upon lies and insults as a means of trying to win an argunent, I got actual contentful theoretical education out of this, thanks.

  • @[email protected]English
    5•1 year ago

    Counter-propaganda runs the risk of putting protest front of mind in the people because you’re talking about a protest. It requires constant work to keep it up. And it can engender suspicion more than censorship. In a situation where people are already indoctrinated like in the US, you have to do counter-propaganda, reeducation, or cultural revolution to clear certain things up. But it’s a lot easier to not need to do that in the first place, and that’s what censorship can sometimes accomplish.

    Like Covid, if enough people take the bait and a meme begins to spread, censorship can stop working. In this case counter-propaganda can become the preferred strategy. Something similar happened in China where Covid became so contagious that zero-Covid became too expensive or difficult to keep up. Containment was breached such that it became untenable. In the case of Covid the result was about a million deaths in China. In a lot of cases, these are not small consequences. Moving on from censorship is likely seen as too risky with not enough upside, although this is only my speculation.

    • Better Red Than DeadOPEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      So in short words, propaganda makers are lazy, want to work more efficiently, so they censor. Problem is China’s image in the liberal west, they use this again as propaganda. endless circle…

      • @[email protected]English
        4•1 year ago

        It’s not just a question of laziness IMO. Censorship can also take a lot of bureaucratic work. But it has a reliability advantage that counter-propaganda does not.

        Plus, the domestic situation is more important than what some liberals in the global north think. They will always find a way to hate China if the geopolitical situation calls for it, including funding terrorist organizations to stoke a proxy war to help destabilize China and then blaming China for carrying out a successful and relatively humane counterterrorism campaign. There’s no winning with these people. All you can do is your best.