Reddit and China

People suck.

People suck a thousand times worse when they are on anonymous social media like Reddit.

I used to follow many subreddits (sub) about China and Taiwan, but I have removed them from my subscription list. Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tries very hard to equate the party and the nation, all discussion ends up being political. It has spent billions of dollars on anti-Western propaganda, social media disinformation campaigns, and mass censorship worldwide. There is no way to discern whether a commentor is just pro-China, a CCP agent, or a paid shrill. If you look on Reddit, the biggest sub on China is /r/china. The population seems to be mostly ex-pats and they generally have a negative impression of the CCP. I get the sense that many enjoyed their time in China but hate what it has become under Xi Jinping. It also attracts a bunch of anti-Asian racists, wannabe commies, and people that usually post in /r/sino.

Sino is a strange sub. I cannot browse that sub for more than five minutes without getting angry or physically sick to my stomach. About half the posts praise the CCP by reposting media from China state owned media, and the other half are just anti-America rants. As a Chinese American from Taiwan, the entre sub is offensive to me. Their tagline is “News, Information, Discussion on all things China and Chinese Related” but any user that is slightly critical of the CCP is immediately banned. Just like the CCP.

There is a website called Map of Reddit where most subs are shown with lines connecting to other subs with similar posters. Here is an explanation from the creator:

Each dot is a subreddit. Two dots within the same cluster are usually close to each other if multiple users frequently leave comments on both subreddits.

Interestingly, if you look up /r/china and /r/sino, they are located in very different areas and connected to very different subs.

From the maps, it appears that /r/china posters are somewhat interested in East Asia since they also post to /r/taiwan, /r/japan, and other related subs. However, /r/sino users appear to be just a bunch of communists and socialists. I guess they only have a small passing interest in China. Since Chinese state media agrees with their worldview, they gather to feel good about communism and to shit on America. Just remember that if you are trying to get news about China from Reddit.

I tried reading some posts from /r/china recently and I think I will still continue my self-imposed ban on new and commentary from China.