
Top search result for “Tiananmen Square” on China's top search engine Baidu - ddxxdd
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2011-07/14/content_12898720.htm
======
ConfusedDog
I remember when I was a kid in China, school showed us a clip announcing the
man stopping the tank as the 'robber' who was trying to rob a tank. I was like
wtf you got to be kidding. I was like 12 and I felt that my intelligence was
insulted... that's probably why I no longer live in China.

~~~
yogenpro
My guess is that you misunderstood the original word they used "歹徒", which is
more like "gangster, villan".

And the clip you referred to, I think was the "tank man" video being aired by
CCTV on 1989/6/5, with voice-over as:

"稍有常识的人都会看出，如果我们的铁骑继续前进，这个螳臂当车的歹徒，难道能够阻挡得了吗？摄像机拍下的这个画面，同西方某些国家的宣传恰恰相反，正好说明了我们的军队，保持了最大限度的克制。"

which roughly translates to:

"Any sane person can see that, if our 'iron horse' keeps marching, this
'gangster' wouldn't stand any chance, just like 'a mantis trying to stop a
chariot'. In contrary to some western media had claimed, this clip showed that
our troops remained utmost desciplinary."

So I would say the clip was used to reinforce CCP's official tone on the
tragedy, which is something like "some gangsters colluded with foreign
influences tried to overthrow Chinese government".

I know sometimes CCP's propaganda sounds dumb, but definitely not that dumb as
"tank man was trying to rob the tank".

~~~
ConfusedDog
Sounds familiar. My 12 year-old self probably did misunderstand 歹徒。 After
hearing the first part of the sentence, I remember being pissed for them
showing me this ridiculous footage with that righteous tone of voice - I
couldn't even remember hearing the second part.

I think I was fed up with this type of footages that just don't explain what
actually going on. Same negative emotion arises when 新闻联播 started every night
about who visit XYZ, did whatever great job, blah blah blah BS.

I don't have that kind of emotional reaction to these types of footages
anymore. Benefit of no longer being a teenager, I'm used to ignoring useless
information. Fox news and some other mainstream media in the states are not
doing much better TBH, but at least they are very competitive, and there are
some useful information can be derived from their biased views.

------
ihon
When i was younger i believed the tank crushed the man who was blocking the
tank. Many years later i saw the complete video. The man walked away,
persuaded by bystanders. Did a google search and found this: Tank Man full
footage:
[https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1134582926325104641](https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1134582926325104641)

~~~
hajile
My understanding is that the men who dragged him away were plainclothes police
officers. To my knowledge, nobody has ever shown any evidence he was seen
alive after the incident.

------
moate
I think this is the best part:

>>The best expose of what happened can be found in a detailed 1998 report from
the Columbia University School of Journalism titled "The Myth of Tiananmen and
the Price of a Passive Press". Prepared by Jay Mathews, a former Washington
Post Beijing bureau chief, it notes how the Western media's pack instinct
created the false massacre story.

Here's the link for the article they're quoting:
[https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_myth_of_tiananm...](https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_myth_of_tiananmen.php)

Pull quote: A common response to this corrective analysis is: So what? The
Chinese army killed many innocent people that night. Who cares exactly where
the atrocities took place? That is an understandable, and emotionally
satisfying, reaction.

I guess they're just really hoping nobody actually reads the article, and
instead just goes "oh, false narrative. case closed"

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jdgoesmarching
I'm sure running that search or opening that page is not advisable in China.
That's not a database you want your IP address to end up in.

------
adriantam
Oh yes, no one killed on Tiananmen Square. Because they are killed around the
square or one nearby roads. So like a murderer arguing that "I didn't kill
that guy, it's the bullet from my gun did it".

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AFascistWorld
>From Overseas Press

"Overseas press" that are regularly quoted on Chinese media: Europe Times,
World Daily, Hong Kong Ta Kung Pao, Hong Kong Wen Wei Po (present in Chinese
libraries), American Multimedia Television USA (Chinese name "All America
Television"), and a lot more are either controlled or influenced by the party.

------
gvhst
PSA: The article is from 2011. This isn't a new publication for the 30th
anniversary as I initially thought.

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non_sequitur
Interesting how quickly this fell off the front page (saw it earlier, then
came back to find the link and it was already off the first 3 pages). Is that
due to a large number of up/downvotes in the same time?

~~~
tempguy9999
Interesting, innit. Is there any downloadable info on HN voting patterns over
time, per article or per comment?

It would make an interesting project to have such an aggregate over time.

When I see certain types of comments I check the poster's previous posts. Not
so uncommon to get a long trail of obvious bias, often in the form of crude
criticism of the US. Some members on slashdot, they could hardly be more
obvious.

~~~
AFascistWorld
From my understanding, HN doesn't like politically sensitive threads regarding
China.

~~~
fouric
"HN" meaning users or mods?

------
mimixco
This is the canary in the cage for those of who still live in something
resembling a democracy. This kind of censorship, whether from governments or
tech giants, is already starting to take hold in the US and Europe.

~~~
nickthegreek
Where is this happening in US & Europe?

~~~
kangnkodos
1) Build public support against hate speech.

2) Create laws to ban hate speech. This puts the government in charge of
defining exactly what is and what is not hate speech.

3) The government tweaks the definition of hate speech slowly over the years.
Eventually, hate speech includes anything which is against the official
government line.

4) Profit. Err... Control of the country, which could be very profitable.

~~~
manfredo
> 2) Create laws to ban hate speech. This puts the government in charge of
> defining exactly what is and what is not hate speech.

At least in the US, this is not possible without a change in the 1st
Amendment. Hate speech is protected by the 1st Amendment.

While I am troubled by what I consider to be an attempt to expand the
definitions of hate, _ism, and_ phobia for political gain, freedom of speech
entails allowing people to advocate for limiting freedom of speech. Also, I'm
not sure why it is reasonable to say that China's actions are a canary in the
coal mine for the US and Europe. These are different continents with very
different histories and cultures. What happens in one is not necessarily going
to happen in the other.

~~~
freeopinion
It has always intrigued me that in the U.S. hate modifies the category of a
crime.

It's one thing to assualt somebody; it's another thing to assault them out of
hate.

It's one thing to kill somebody; it's another thing to kill them out of hate.
If you can somehow prove that you didn't hate the person you intentionally
killed, you face a lesser penalty.

Also, under fascism, speech may be protected in government contexts, but if
the government turns over large swaths to corporations, and the corporations
aren't required to protect speech, that's not the government's problem.

~~~
Nasrudith
It is a matter of the larger injured party as opposed to mere hate. Lets use
Martians as a detached from real world context.

* If you crucify someone you are a depraved murderer who killed the victim.

* If you crucified say a martian over say how often they mowed their lawn it would be hatred related and psychopathic but not a hate crime.

* If you crucified a martian and wrote "Go back to Mars!" in their blood then you not only murdered them but also threatened the entire Martian community and that would be a hate crime. That is why it is a separate crime on top of it.

~~~
freeopinion
It intrigues me that murder, even pre-meditated murder, is more tolerable than
hateful murder.

We only need to add the stiffener because we actually tolerate pre-meditated
murder. But we draw the line at hateful murder.

------
sneakernets
When propagandists discovered you can turn enough of the populace against the
press (specifically the free press) as a whole, you don't even need to censor
anymore. China could start unblocking all evidence of the massacre happening,
but counter it with the brainworms of "fake news", "whataboutism", and "FUD"
\- then it doesn't matter how loud the truth screams, more and more of the
populace willingly calls it a lie regardless.

It sure saves money on having to find each bit of truth and stamp it out. It's
brilliant.

~~~
cat199
or, alternately, buy out the entire media and claim that the global level of
implicit spin injected into everything is 'objectivity'...

this is a 2 edged sword which cuts both ways

------
archgoon
The submission seems to have been removed from the front page; is it being
flagged?

------
randyrand
Could someone post the text? backup link?

~~~
Gaelan
Gregory Clark, a former Australian diplomat who specializes in Chinese
affairs, wrote an article in Japan Times recently, saying the Western media
forged the so-called Tiananmen myth. Excerpts: The recent WikiLeaks release of
cables has helped finally kill the myth of an alleged massacre in Beijing's
Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3-4, 1989. But how did that myth come to
exist in the first place? Several impartial Western observers in the square at
the time, including a Reuters correspondent and a Spanish TV crew, have long
insisted, and written, that they saw no sign of any massacre. So whence the
story of a Tiananmen Square massacre? A lurid BBC report at the time was one
important source. Other reporters may then have felt compelled to chime in
even though none of them, including the BBC, had actually been in the square.
The best expose of what happened can be found in a detailed 1998 report from
the Columbia University School of Journalism titled "The Myth of Tiananmen and
the Price of a Passive Press". Prepared by Jay Mathews, a former Washington
Post Beijing bureau chief, it notes how the Western media's pack instinct
created the false massacre story. Mathews traces much of the problem to a Hong
Kong newspaper that immediately, after the 1989 disturbance, ran a long story
under the name of an alleged student protester. He claimed to have been
present at the square when "troops arrived with machine guns to mow down
students in the hundreds". Distributed around the globe, the article was seen
as final proof that the original BBC and other massacre reports were accurate.
But the alleged author of that report was never located, and for good reason:
The article was almost certainly planted - one of the many black information
operations. Black propaganda was, according to an Australian researcher into
the topic, Adam Henry, "the strategic placement of lies and false rumors",
while gray propaganda was "the production of slanted, but not fictitious, non-
attributable information". According to Henry, it played a key role in helping
justify or downplay one truly dreadful postwar massacre in Asia, namely the
slaughter of up to a half a million leftwing Indonesians in 1965. The fact is
that for seven weeks the Beijing government had tolerated a student protest
occupation of its iconic central square despite the disruption. Some then
leaders even tried to negotiate compromises, which some of the student leaders
later regretted having rejected. When eventually troops were sent in to clear
the square, the demonstrations were already ending. But by this time the
Western media were there in force, keen to grab any story they could.
Ironically, the Western media, which barely noticed the massacres in certain
countries, still go out of their way to paint a false picture of "a brutal
Chinese government willing to march in and massacre its protesting students in
the hundreds, if not thousands". An April 17 review in this newspaper of
Philip Cunningham's book, Tiananmen Moon: Inside the Chinese Student Uprising
, - whose blurb on Amazon still manages to talk about a Tiananmen Square
massacre - provides a clue. It quotes one of the student leaders, Chai Ling,
as having said that creating a "sea of blood" might be the only way to shake
the government. If frustrated students leaving the square carried out those
petrol bomb attacks on troops, then the anger of the government becomes a lot
more understandable. But I doubt whether any of those responsible for the
original phony story will get round to details like that. Tiananmen remains
the classic example of the shallowness and bias in most Western media
reporting, and of governmental black information operations seeking to control
those media. China is too important to be a victim of this nonsense.

~~~
jandrese
Sounds like they've been taking notes from Holocaust deniers.

------
tempguy9999
No-one got killed. Everyone got bubble bath and cake.

Years ago the Chinese had a reputation for subtlety. Anyone remember that?
Article has less nuance than a Michael Bay Transformers film.

~~~
i_am_proteus
The cake is a lie.

