Date of 4 June remains one of China’s strictest taboos, with government using increasingly sophisticated tools to censor its discussion

There is no official death toll but activists believe hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed by China’s People’s Liberation Army in the streets around Tiananmen Square, Beijing’s central plaza, on 4 June 1989.

The date of 4 June remains one of China’s strictest taboos, and the Chinese government employs extensive and increasingly sophisticated resources to censor any discussion or acknowledgment of it inside China. Internet censors scrub even the most obscure references to the date from online spaces, and activists in China are often put under increased surveillance or sent on enforced “holidays” away from Beijing.

New research from human rights workers has found that the sensitive date also sees heightened transnational repression of Chinese government critics overseas by the government and its proxies.

  • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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    19 days ago

    “Never forget” is great and all but from a German perspective it seems to not be enough. It is much more important to make sure the same or very similar things do not happen again, not by China and not by any other nation. Otherwise you end up like we did here in Germany where decades of “never forget” lead to very similar sentiments being expressed by a new major party but since things are slightly different (e.g. the “never forget” was always phrased to be about Jews, this is more about foreigners in general) people seem to allow themselves to ignore them.

    • wewbull@feddit.uk
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      19 days ago

      “Never again”:

      • ❌ “We must never do what we did to the Jews in WW2 again”.
      • ✅ “We can never allow what we did to the Jews in WW2 to happen again to anyone”.
            • confusedbytheBasics@lemm.ee
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              15 days ago

              You’re asking how two of the same thing are similar? Very strange. They share the same definition. They are similar in the ways that things with that label are similar.

              Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.

              All of that is similar.

                • confusedbytheBasics@lemm.ee
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                  10 days ago

                  Happening in different times, to different groups, in a different region… there are millions of differences down to being named Siwar Jamassi instead of Anne Frank.

  • Timoruz@lemm.ee
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    18 days ago

    Was genuinely thinking of walking in front of Trump’s military parade.

  • CatDogL0ver@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    This is just my personal experience:

    ~I was talking to a few young Chinese. They were after born after the massacre happened.~

    “Why are Hong Kong people are so full of themselves and rebellious? They think they are better? (Derogatory comments…”, cheating among themselves, happily.

    I couldn’t help and interrupted, “Some young promising Hong Kong students were murdered, beaten and kidnapped under the mainland China. You can’t blame them for not being defensive.”

    Immediately they resorted to their memorised response, “Do you have any resources to back up what you said? The official death count was zero.”

    Of course there was no “official” news resources. China suppresses the news media.

    "It is the same as Tiananmen massacre. You won’t find any “official resources " but everyone knows people were killed.”

    Another one retorted, “The official number is zero. What official resources you have to backup your claim?”

    It was useless to talk anymore at that moment. I left. My encounter probably would be on their “report.”

    • KuroiKaze@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      I find it pretty rare to meet Chinese people like that. Most of the ones I meet know that stuff happened isn’t that the government covered it up but they don’t think that the government covering things up is all that unusual or newsworthy.

  • unphazed@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Meanwhile Oklahoma telling kids the 2020 election was rigged under state law.

        • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
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          18 days ago

          Whataboutism is literally the appeal to hypocrisy fallacy. It’s a fallacy because the appeal is done in place of a proper argument that addresses the original issue. The very purpose of this fallacy is to distract from the original issue and to dismiss criticism without ever addressing it by bringing up something irrelevant to the topic at hand and accusing others of hypocrisy.

          • Corn@lemmy.ml
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            18 days ago

            The point isn’t to distract, it’s to provide context so the accuser can’t create an inaccurate framing. The atomic unit of propaganda isn’t lies, it’s emphesis.

            If every week, a right-wing German posted about how many gays Britain murdered, imprisoned, or castrated during the 40s, it would be borderline deceitful for other lemmy users not to provide the full context of what Germany was doing to gays at that time (and what West Germany continued to do until the 1970s).

            Same deal when we get the occasional zionist talking about the plight of gay Palestinians. Yes, they have their own struggle, but there is a very specific and obvious purpose behind a zionist bringing it up.

            • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
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              18 days ago

              You’re being dishonest. You didn’t provide any context or made any remark regarding framing or context. In fact, you made no argument at all. You just brought up an entirely irrelevant subject for the sole purpose to distract from the original issues and dismiss the criticism being brought up by appealing to hypocrisy. It’s literally the textbook definition of the fallacy.

              Same deal when we get the occasional zionist talking about the plight of gay Palestinians.

              This is a good example, you’re exactly like them in this case.

              • Corn@lemmy.ml
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                18 days ago

                The subject is “whataboutism”, or when people bring up similar, but far worse things done by liberal institutions in response to supporters of liberal institutions accusing communists of doing bad things to show that the supporter of the liberal institution doesn’t actually give a shit about the event they’re crying about and is simply using it as a pretext to justify hostility against that communist state, victims included.

                • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
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                  18 days ago

                  That’s a wild assumption you just made up based on literally nothing. But the fact that you need to make up such assumptions is ironic, because it shows that yourself are a hypocrite. You support these atrocities and the regimes who committed them and so you perceive people calling out these acts as unjustified “hostility” rather warranted criticism. Since you’re admitting that you don’t actually care about the atrocities being committed, that means the only purpose you would bring up anything to do with “liberal institutions” is to be fallacious, which is exactly the case here.

                  The entire purpose of bringing up entirely irrelevant subjects is to distract from the original issue and dismiss criticism. There’s no context, there’s no argument, there’s no point. You’re simply mad that the regime you support is being criticized and as a desperate attempt to divert attention away from the criticism, you bring up irrelevant topics and accuse people of being hypocrites for their criticism of the original topic… even that doesn’t negate the validity of their criticism whatsoever.

                  When people call you out on your fallacious argumentation, they’re telling that the logic you’re using is inconsistent. If you’re actually ignorant enough to not understand what the fallacies are or why they’re bad then that’s a different issue, but if you’re aware what they are and why they’re bad and still choose to be annoyed then that means you’re disingenuous. It means you’re arguing in bad faith from the get go, which is an indication that the beliefs you are trying to defend are flawed to the point where you can’t defend them on their own merits.

        • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
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          18 days ago

          Ah yes, the state is paying me to call out idiots on Lemmy for using fallicious argumentation and inconsistent logic. Which state is paying me? Who knows, but that’s the fun of making up random baseless accusations when you have nothing of value to provide.

  • GoodOleAmerika@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    Let’s not forget Faris Odeh

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faris_Odeh

    A picture of Odeh standing alone in front of a tank, with a stone in his hand and arm bent back to throw it, was taken by a photojournalist from the Associated Press on 29 October 2000. Ten days later, on 8 November, Odeh was again throwing stones at Karni when he was shot in the neck by an Israeli soldier.

        • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
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          18 days ago

          And your assumption is wrong. If you read the article, you’ll see that his parents were alive and well at the time, and so were his 8 other siblings. Apparently this kid developed a habit of doing dangerous stunts like this, and father used to severely beat him many times as a way to deter him from doing more stunts in the future. Shockingly, physical abuse didn’t work, and he ended up being killed by doing another dangerous stunt in the future.

        • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
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          18 days ago

          Actually if you read the article, you would see that this is in fact false, but that won’t stop you from spreading misinformation

  • Jhex@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Maybe I’ll take Taiwan’s word on this one…

    Whatever the US says, you just know it’s posturing hypocritical bullshit

  • Deflated0ne@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Love the propaganda around this. Its very dramatic and all. But here in the west its held up as some big thing. The rest of the video never gets played.

    • lud@lemm.ee
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      17 days ago

      You should(n’t) see the gruesome pictures. China is likely very happy that the tank man picture became famous when there were LOADS of other horrible images .

        • lud@lemm.ee
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          17 days ago

          That video is really low res. Do you have any sources that prove that the moving object is a tank and that the people are students?

          But honestly it doesn’t really matter because running over people because they are protesting a dictatorship is fucking gruesome.

          • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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            17 days ago

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre

            Demonstrators attacked troops with poles, rocks, and molotov cocktails; Jeff Widener reported witnessing rioters setting fire to military vehicles and beating the soldiers inside them to death.[178] On one avenue in western Beijing, anti-government protestors torched a military convoy of more than 100 trucks and armored vehicles.[179] They also hijacked an armored personnel carrier, taking it on a joy ride. These scenes were captured on camera and broadcast by Chinese state television.[180]

            Good old peaceful demonstration strikes again. Luckily those students were not doing anything violent such as holding up a Palestine flag. Then the US media would tell us how violence against them is fully justified

            • kshade@lemmy.world
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              17 days ago

              Nice use of selective quoting, the situation had already escalated at that point. From your source, one paragraph before yours:

              The advance of the army was again halted by another blockade at Muxidi, about 5 km west of the square. After protesters repelled an attempt by an anti-riot brigade to storm the bridge, regular troops advanced on the crowd and turned their weapons on them. Soldiers alternated between shooting into the air and firing directly at protesters. Soldiers raked apartment buildings with gunfire, and some people inside or on their balconies were shot.

              And, from the beginning of the section:

              At 9:30 p.m, this army encountered a blockade set up by protesters at Gongzhufen in Haidian District, and made an attempt to break through. Troops armed with anti-riot gear clashed with the protesters and began firing rubber bullets and tear gas, while the protesters in return threw rocks and soda bottles at them. Other troops fired warning shots into the air, which was ineffective.

              • lud@lemm.ee
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                17 days ago

                Who could’ve guessed that people turn violent when you start shooting them 😱

              • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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                17 days ago

                My argument was related to the APC. Which is factually true.

                Your quote however is very selective.

                On the evening of 2 June, an accident occurred in which a PAP jeep ran onto a sidewalk, killing three civilian pedestrians and injuring a fourth. This incident sparked fear that the army and the police were trying to advance into Tiananmen Square.[159] Student leaders issued emergency orders to set up roadblocks at major intersections to prevent the entry of troops into the centre of the city.[160]

                On the morning of 3 June, students and citizens intercepted and questioned a busload of plainclothed soldiers at Xinjiekou. Isolated pockets of soldiers were similarly surrounded and interrogated.[161][56]

                The soldiers were beaten by the crowd, as were Beijing security personnel who attempted to aid the soldiers. Some of the soldiers were kidnapped when they attempted to head for the hospital.[160] Several other buses carrying weapons, gear, and supplies were intercepted and boarded around Tiananmen.[160]

                At 1 pm, a crowd intercepted one of these buses at Liubukou, and several men raised military helmets on bayonets to show the rest of the crowd.[162] At 2:30 pm, a clash broke out between protesters and police.[163][160] The police attempted to disperse the crowd with tear gas, but demonstrators counterattacked and threw rocks, forcing them to retreat inside the Zhongnanhai compound through the west gate.

            • lud@lemm.ee
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              17 days ago

              Has anyone claimed that the protests were entirely peaceful? Of course some turn violent when you roll in with your army and riot police gun blazing.

              And thanks for confirming that it wasn’t a tank.

              There really are no excuses for the killing of dozens if not hundreds of civilians and protestors.

              And the protests were entirely peaceful to begin with but of course China couldn’t let that continue.

              The censorship of the event also speaks a great deal about who’s fault it is.

              • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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                17 days ago

                The protesters on the square did not get shot. The Western media confirms nobody of the peaceful protesters on the square got killed.

                Violent rioters who stoned and burnt police did get killed. On day4. There weer already multiple police killed on day3. Even Western media acknowledges all of what I am saying happened.

                The censorship of the event also speaks a great deal about who’s fault it is.

                The amazing amount of misinformation being spread here says a lot more about how insane the Western brainwashing machine is.

    • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      17 days ago

      in china they censor it on internet searches. thats why alot of thier netizens use proxies and anti-detect browsers.

  • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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    17 days ago

    Oh is this the terrible bad country we shipped our entire industrial base to?

  • selkiesidhe@lemm.ee
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    17 days ago

    The US won’t “forget” unless China pays the Dipshit-in-chief some payoff money. He’ll then EO that it never happened.