Drink water anyway 😘

I can only end this by using my tiny little voice to beg. Do not give in to the impulse to overlook the atrocities of the CCP in your rush to punish the US government. The enemy of your enemy is NOT your friend. The Chinese government is not an ally of free speech or liberal values. (17/17)

These apps are not our friends, our gateways to avoid censorship or government control. They are a tool being used by a state actor to get the left off guard and comfortable, so that when the misinformation begins we miss it and are taken in by our own brand of fake news. (16/?)

No matter their nationality, oligarchs (yes, Chinese media has oligarchs and billionaires in charge too) only care about oligarchs. And authoritarian governments only care about maintaining power and control. China's government is stronger when the US is divided and misinformed. (15/?)

Like Russia, China stands to benefit when Americans are most divided. The fact that this one promotes left leaning ideas does not make the platform our ally. Does anyone actually think people like Musk and Zuckerberg actually have the wellbeing of the people on the right at heart? (14/?)

We need to ask ourselves what China has to gain by giving the US access to an app we can't control. I see the conversations. "Tiktok is a method for sharing information the US government can't censor." But why is China providing us a thing they certainly don't provide to their own citizens? (13/?)

So engagement in this space is not neutral. We are most vulnerable to manipulation we don't see. It is hard to be critical consumers of media when we lack context. We on the left like to pretend that fake news is a them problem, but propaganda and misinformation is a problem for everyone. (12/?)

And likewise, they don't know our language. They don't know why we're mad at our government or what we've been told about theirs. And because this conversation is taking place in CCP-controlled internet space, none of these nuances can or will be shared. (11/?)

We dont know the way Chinese citizens have learned to speak online. The topics they know to avoid, words they know not to use. We don't know whether we're engaging with someone who has ever seen media outside the Firewall. Try to ask about Taiwan, the Uighers, the Tiananmen Square massacre. (10/?)