6mo ago

combating the assumptions rule 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

more adventures on rednote mostly because it’s entertaining how mad people get when i talk about it :3 /halfjoke

this was posted 12/31 btw so i don’t think “the mods haven’t gotten to it yet” is a real thing

#le is common in parallel to the anglosphere’s #wlw which i think is adorable

my number one qualm with little red book so far is there is no native translation like tiktok has. lots of google translate is necessary to get the social media to social :P

necessary disclaimer: fuck the CCP and all the real violence and repression they do. just want to give credit given where due, and so far here im just seeing a lot of assumptions with no evidence? so im gonna post what my experience is :) i welcome all to do the same

154 comments

The level of shortsightedness in people is astounding to me again and again. History really seems to always repeat. When will people ever learn that there is no company in the world that is their friend.
"Oh, but it looks fine and i havent had any issue" says the little user that is currently feeding the networking effect of the next platform, that will inevitably fail in exactly the same way as every other for profit social media.
"Oh, but everyone is here and i dont wanna switch again" says the little user that now has the choice between losing all their feeds and follows or staying on a platform slowly being squeezed for money or political incentives.
- When will people ever learn that there is no company in the world that is their friend.
  In my experience people doing this transition are hyper aware and open about not trusting any company, TikTok, RedNote, or otherwise. So I think you are hitting the nail on the head, but coming at the thing from a different angle.
  
  The issue is that lots of people joining, self aware or not, validates the platform in normie users eyes. I know this cant be solved on an individualist level, because humans are tribal creatures, but its still tough to watch every time it happens.
  I frequently see post aroilund here asking "Is service X or website Y trustworthy?" and my thought is always "No, ofcourse not." Anything thats not running on your computer is inherently untrusthworthy.
  
  Do we have a fed version of tik tok yet? We’ve got lemmy for Reddit, pixelfed for Instagram, mastodon for Facebook/Twitter, theoretically bluesky for Twitter (although not exactly federated but can be?)… what’s tik toks equivalent?
From what I've seen, a lot of queer people are afraid to be themselves there. Some may even experience backlash and threats of violence for being LGBTQIA. There's a lot of hostility to us across that entire nation tbh.
On top of that, there is constant scrutiny with mass state surveillance. Queer and POC may be silenced or even face imprisonment for expressing themselves. And don't forget that nation's concentration camps, genocide, torture of political prisoners, and barring people who don't toe the party line from residency and citizenship.
Oh wait, that isn't Red Note. That's the USA and my small town.
- I mean…that’s both vampiric superpowers. China and the US.
  
  There's no such thing as a benevolent state, to be honest. Nations and borders only divide and subject us. Every day, I feel more sure that we need to build communities in spite of states and to do what we can to disrupt and abolish them, so thank you for mentioning this glaring example.
  However, I will say when we in the US point at China, we've got three fingers pointing back at us. Pretty hypocritical of us, and largely racist.
- Oh wait, that isn't Red Note. That's the USA and my small town.
  Damn u got me at the first half ngl
- BWAHA you had me in the first half ngl 😆😆
  
  You might appreciate this.
  This guy asked people on Red Note if it's ok to be gay, and I laughed at the response:
Cringe app
cringe post
cringe everything
- skill issue
  
  That's not what that means...
- Yes I am being payed by the CCP to promote lesbianism
  (sarcasm. the CCP is hatefully repressive to queer identities.)
  
  Suggesting that the CCP is open to letting lesbians live their life seems pretty surreal after what happened to Naomi Wu. It's shocking how quickly the dust settled on that.
  Though to anyone trying to encourage discontent to westerners with socially liberal beliefs, it's a pretty helpful narrative to push.
  
  How do I sign up for that. I’d like to get paid!
  
  (sarcasm. the CCP is hatefully repressive to queer identities.)
  And yet, here you are, making this post.
  Would you be making a post giving trump props if an occasion happened where he was the broken clock that happened to be right that one time? No? Then what are you doing here? (I don't need you response, this is something you should be asking yourself)
I've been getting some major astroturfing vibes around here lately.
- sinophobia so real that people going to see whats going on and reporting back looks like astroturfing to you
  careful homie, i understand your mindset but it can lead dangerous places
  
  As someone who speaks the language (poorly) and has been several times and has family in China, I can concur this post feels a bit cringe.
  China is not a champion of LGBT rights. It's tolerated in the cities, but if that's the thing you care about most then the west in quite a bit farther ahead on the issue in general.
Well whoever said CCP will censor LGBT content doesn't know much about the CCP.
On the other hand try posting anything critical about the Chinese government...
- I'm gay for tiananmen square.
  
  weirdchamp but aight 🤨
  
  i have to admit it is quite magnificent.
- Chinese writer sentenced to 10 years in prison for homoerotic book
  A Chinese novelist has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for writing and distributing homoerotic novels, provoking widespread debate online over the severity of her sentence.
  The female writer, surnamed Liu, but more commonly known by her internet pseudonym Tianyi, was arrested in 2017 following the success of her novel “Occupy,” according to reports in Chinese state media.
  The book was described by police in East China’s Anhui Province as depicting “obscene sexual behavior between males” set to themes of “violence, abuse and humiliation.”
  
  IANAL in Chinese law but I believe it is writing erotic stuff that's illegal in China, gay or not.
  
  He wrote porn, full stop. Creating pornographic content is an offensive, regardless of content or audience. But good work posting a sensationalized version of events that happens to align with us state dept propaganda.
- memes.ml banned me for saying both US and China engage in propaganda. One of the users, which I assume to be one of the moderators, responded as false equivalence because I could not reply the minute after the response. Either that, or because I directly mentioned .ml users in general is tone deaf about China doing its own propaganda.
Is LGBTQ+ content not restricted/shadow banned there? 31 hearts and 1 comment isn't really a lot.
If Twitter took away the restricted flag, would anyone have known typing "cisgender" is blacklisted? Most corporate social media don't publish what is or isn't restricted.
Plus China officially encourages """"traditional"""" gender roles since their demographic crisis will come crashing down soon, with LGBTQ+ centers and clubs being shut down by the government.
- I was wondering this as well and have been incredibly surprised how different the landscape is from my assumptions. Their algorithm very quickly understood my identity and preferences and started mixing in a good amount of wlw content with just an overflow of positive comments and engagement. I was also super happy to see creators that I enjoy being welcomed and praised on the platform - creators which 100% of the time have people leave the most unkind comments on their posts. There's one in particular, a man who showcases and slays in his dresses, which I've yet to see one negative comment towards. Time will tell how long things stay this way!
  
  I got Chappel Roan and Sabrina Carpenter content within like 20 minutes of scrolling I felt so at home
- People are really naive. I bet maos little red book has a special mode for people on the other side of the great firewall. China wants to look good to create soft power, they don’t want us to see all the tofu buildings collapsing they want us to see a girl living to western standards, not how the average Chinese lives
  
  Do you think the Chinese gov planned this and has been preparing for this? Like they couldn't just curate an entire social media sites worth of content just on the off chance that millions of Americans go there out of spite. Spite is rather unpredictable.
  
  Xi just generated millions of AI Chinese to fool the West, what an elegant move!
  Guess you can't see beyond your lifelong propaganda, the truth might hurt sometimes but its necessary
  
  How would they implement what you’re claiming within the matter of days since red book took off?
  A whole lot of this comment is western cope. And I’m not even a CCP fan, I’m an anarchist.
- Good question. Here’s one from the same account with 16k likes. Any restrictions on LGBT content is not significantly worse than we already see from Meta and TikTok.
  Re: the rest of your comment, yeah fuck the CCP as I said in OP. Just giving credit where due and a lot of people (like yourself) make a couple of (understandable) assumptions that are not backed up by any experience I have had yet.
- What’s funny is China did their demo crisis to themselves with the one child policy
"b-b-but corporation bad!"
No shit people, corporations are badbut some are worse and some are better. Not that that is even the topic of discussion, this is clearly about spaces people exist in.
- i wish i could pin this comment 🙃 thx for being one of the people who actually reads the post before commenting
It's going to be so interesting seeing how all of this plays out. Will meta succeed in reclaiming their market share? Will a new app take the throne? Will congress just keep banning any app that is too popular and not under the american oligarchys control? Will trump somehow leverage this into him being the one to save tiktok? Will loops UI ever be good enough to compete? Only time will tell.
What a strange timeline we live in lol
- Will meta succeed in reclaiming their market share?
  Probably not, nobody trusts them especially not z and alpha
  Will a new app take the throne?
  Maybe. Maybe it’s red book?
  Will congress just keep banning any app that is too popular and not under the american oligarchys control?
  100% but they’re slow moving dinosaurs
  Will trump somehow leverage this into him being the one to save tiktok?
  Probably
  Will loops UI ever be good enough to compete?
  Hope so
  
  I agree with all your predictions to my questions lol.
  Though i don't think rednote will actually take the place of tiktok, I think that's mostly a protest migration & something else will take the top spot -- if tiktok actually stays banned. I do think there's a chance trump will choose not to enforce the ban in a meaningful way because he knows it will rally quite a few young and nieve voters into his camp (plus he'd probably get a hefty payoff).
- right! like i know the stakes are high but this new development has gotten me very invested from an almost entertaiment perspective. there’s huge potential here for change and i have no clue if it’s gonna be positive or negative.
  
  I felt similar about Musk buying Twitter. I created an account for the first time after never wanting to use the app before, just so I could watch shit go down. I got banned for dunking on transphobes after a few months 🤣
  
  Same! I think it is nice to have something developing that isn't as overwhelmingly frightening as lots of the things in the works right now. Like this is high stakes and says alot about corruption in America, but like at least it's not something that could potentially put me or my loved ones in harms way.
Out of every lesbian manwha I read all of them were Chinese
obligatory yapdollar
- holy shit first yapdollar reference i have seen on fedi. imagine a universe where pixelfed loops takes off with yapdollar as a leading creator.
  
  What is yap dollar
Hoo boy am I angry about this ..
- 😈 excellent 😈
Ever live I see is a lady reviewing sex toys
- you know it shows what you engage with right 😳
  
  I will not elaborate on my comment
im sorry what the fuck is a halfjoke?
- a joke that’s half serious here’s the definition
how else are they supposed to do it?
It probably would be possible to make an app to translate it, since all the images are sent unencrpted over http, just need to grab all the links using wireshark or something and then open them all in Google lens... until they rate limit you I guess.
- In the time since I made this post, Xiaohongshu has already added a native translate button for text posts and comments.
  Images are less of a big deal since:
  a) Memes and jokes originally written in Mandarin often don’t make sense when translated anyway (i.e., puns, cultural references).
  b) English-speaking users have generally agreed to hold each other accountable so that when they post English content, they include both English and Mandarin subtitles out of respect for the fact that they are “intruding.”
  c) When worst comes to worst, iOS lets you translate text from screenshots natively (it takes a few taps but works), and Android lets you do it instantly with screen-reading translation apps.
So any guesses on whether the OP is paid in RMB or some other currency?
- I was paid $30,000 USD for this post by Mark Zuckerberg himself. He told me he wants every foreign app to be permabanned from the US internet so we all have to move to Threads :3
  
  Hope it was in cash.

154 comments