this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2026
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People in this thread having a normal one, predictably. Like even if (or especially if) you genuinely believe that China is the evil monster you were raised to believe, wouldn't you be at least a little bit curious to get a window into their online culture? Don't you want an opportunity for more interaction between Chinese and US/Western netizens?
As an American I've been using billibilli for a long long time as I consume a lot of Chinese media.
Billibilli is dog shit, the company is awful, the platform is cancer, and the entire thing makes YouTube and Google look like fucking saints.
Like holy fuck. I do not give one fucking flying piece of shit about china bad america good or any of that nonsense.
The fucking Chinese bullshit that people have to put up with on billibilli is outright nonsense. I just want to watch my fucking silly videos and dramas.
And all that said YouTube is ALSO dog shit with out any saving graces. It's all fucking awful.
So... what? You're against this becoming more accessible outside of China?
I'm not the commenter you replied to but I read their view more along these lines. That no large online video provider gives a good experience and while this is more competition for YouTube it's kind of like comparing two piles of shit - both stink.
Which idk never used it but yeah China has its own brand of suck compared with the West. Still, I agree it'd be good to have more cultural exchange - that's the sort of thing that over time leads to better relations between nation states and decreases the likelihood of war.
You know the older I get, the lesson of "there are no good guys" really keeps getting hammered home. This is just a reminder of that.
These reactions just seem a little overwrought to me. I'm sure everyone commenting watches plenty of YouTube, but the mere mention of a Chinese platform brings dire warnings and energetic condemnations. Like maybe it does suck, but most people here wouldn't really know! That's my point-- that it's crazy to have such strong opinions about something that you have no experience with.
I get it. There's a lot of propaganda out there (that goes both ways) about China.
For better or worse they're going to lead the charge into the 2100s, this is the dawn of the new Chinese century and the USA is busy handing them the reins as we implode our country.
I think China is a little friendlier overall in their foreign relations and while freedom of expression is important I would not say their society as a whole is better or worse than all the rest of the world. It feels like sometimes, from what I've heard and seen, China is "more" free in certain aspects compared to the USA (and definitely less free in others)
On the one hand, Chinese companies get an unfair advantage domestically. On the other, I would love to see Google sweat.
Literally every company is given a domestic advantage in their home country? Subsidies and visibility etc in home turf is not a new concept China has invented for their products.
How many foreign films are allowed into China per year?
What is an unfair advantage?
Hell ignore that, Google helps to write us trade policies. Do people really think there's an open free market system in America or Europe for that matter? Look at Donald Trump's inauguration. The Peasants were kept out but all the tech bro CEOs were there. Y'all are dreaming if you think that things are fair right now. Especially if you don't think it's a two-way street.
Being blocked is one I think
I just dislike the traditional framing of things like "unfair" in contexts like this. It's always been used by dominant powers to destroy any domestic capacity. In this example, if China had never put up any barriers to foreign tech, they would have none of their own at all by now.
What I believe is in freedom of the internet. As in everyone should be able to access it and no one should be able to police what is on it. Complete free flow of information. Reddit should exist in the state that it does and lemmy should be there to counter balance it and no nation state should be able to say "no, we only allow one of these". This doesn't undermine any existing legal frameworks mind you. For example: distribution of underage pornography is still a crime almost everywhere and those who operate such sites are fair game for prosecution.
I get this may be too radical of an idea for some, but I truly believe education is the key to information literacy, not censorship.
This just means rich individuals decide what people see instead of states. It doesn't result in education.
No they don't. If I don't want to see what Reddit wants me to see, I just switch to Lemmy instead. Reddit cannot ban Lemmy. But if the state had censorship powers, they could ban Lemmy.
I think its the same problem with the press on TV and print form. Rich individuals can buy up all press outlets and control the narrative. Its hard (and restrictive) to broadcast on TV and print. On the internet, at least the freedom to publish and access information has a low barrier to entry. A rich individual may buy one lemmy instance, can they buy them all? Can they buy its successor? The lower barrier and less restrictive nature of the internet (or how it should be) is too fast moving for them to compete imo. All the states need to do is educate people on how to consume media correctly.
Yes, easily. Additionally, they can control the search engines which lead there or not, the commonly used platforms for code sharing so that development is more difficult, and so forth. They have an incredible advantage through economy of scale. The barrier to entry for putting any information on the internet may not be very high, but making it findable and accessible has a very high barrier, and relies on corporate-controlled platforms.
I think the better question is will they be able to buy them all. Buying implies the other party is willing to sell.
Its true that this information will be harder to access if not indexed properly, but word of mouth is a good backup for that. I didn't find lemmy from google, someone (non corporate entity) posted a link to it somewhere. Now, that 'somewhere' may be corporate controlled and ban certain links but I'd argue that will just split the internet into two (a corporate side and "free" side) with little cooperation between them and I don't think anyone will be able to keep people from either side - as long as the internet remains neutral.
I think its just too hard to completely control information unless you are a nation state (and even then).
This isn't a new idea though, it was the "hacker" ethos of the 90s. Most nerds believed in that. But it was wrong because we do need to limit hate speech. Because racist speech is racist recruitment. And we do need to limit the influence of plutocrats and corporations on information.
I also believe neoliberalism is a failed and genocidal ideology that should similarly be banned like advocating for fascism.
Like the other commenter pointed out the other problem is the massive power imbalance. They have billions and they crush us. It doesn't matter if something is right or wrong if billions are spend to hire the smartest sociopaths to craft an ad or PR campaign to emotionally manipulate the masses.
And the truth matters. We have a fundamental human right to reality. Constantly amplifying bullshit for revenue makes the actual flow of important information and ideas impossible.
OK?
You can already get a VPN for ingoing traffic to China and "experience" it.
I'm missing your point. I started interacting with Chinese people on XHS.
It's not for us to decide that. CCP is literally holding Chinese hostage and even if this platform comes to the west the Chinese will never be allowed to mingle with us.
I think chinese internet is very interesting and wish China would be part of global internet one day but until autocrats change their mind it's not happening.
You can literally just make an account on Xiaohongshu and chat with normal people in China.
I routinely swap recipes, talk about video games, new tech, swap cleaning tips, chat about restaurant recommendations and fashion. There's a big cultural difference, sure, but Chinese people are, on the whole, incredibly friendly and hospitable and they're curious about breaking down the myths they've heard about America and happy to break down the myths we've heard about China. We think they have a social credit system and they think a dishwasher can afford a huge "villa". Though now that it's opened up a bit they talk about a poverty "kill line" where if you fall below a certain income you are pretty much doomed to die. Which is exaggerated, but has some basis in reality, like most of these myths.
The one thing I think is a huge barrier is that they can't understand why we drink cold water, even in the winter. So many conversations I've had have been about drinking cold water and asking "don't you get dampness???" Honey, I've either never had dampess or I've been damp my whole life so I don't know.
Either way, they're just, like, people. And thanks to the magic of the internet, you can just talk to those people.
Literally none of what you said is true. Chinese people regularly interact with people of other countries on the global internet. its Literally impossible not to run into Chinese netizens on any major social media site.