Fight decades of misinformation on China with official Chinese sources.

  • 65 Posts
  • 263 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: October 16th, 2021

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  • I’ve transferred the community to GrainEater and left the mod team, I will now apply for mod again.

    Here are some reasons why I want to be mod:

    • I’m Chinese, I was born in China, raised in Singapore, studied for a while in Canada, returned to China.
    • I like fact checking, but that doesn’t mean I’m always right or the authoritative source on China.
    • I have some experience with being a moderator.

    Here are some reasons why I might not be suitable for mod:

    • I am not a neutral or impartial third party and will never be one, I side with China not just because of my nationality, but also because I believe China is truly developing Marxism or scientific socialism.
    • While I like fact checking, I didn’t apply it rigorously to every post/comment in /c/China or on China-related posts/comments on Lemmygrad. There are times when I see questionable statements and let it slide because it’s too troublesome to fact check it properly. Sometimes it’s because the content is posted on websites not accessible in China and I don’t use a VPN (unlike others), and alternative front-ends like Invidious (for YouTube) or those for X/Twitter or Reddit may not be working properly. (News sites are fine because of archive services.)














  • It’s almost 24 hours since I posted this, and the overall feeling I get is that this rule is “ok” only because of China’s history, and not because it makes sense.

    Let’s imagine a scenario where the new rule only mentions “Do not promote or put alcohol in a positive light.” What would be the reactions then? Keep in mind that in China, alcohol is legal for adults and can be advertised on national TV, but has the following restrictions: (from the 广告法 Advertising Law)

    第二十三条 酒类广告不得含有下列内容:

    (一)诱导、怂恿饮酒或者宣传无节制饮酒;

    (二)出现饮酒的动作;

    (三)表现驾驶车、船、飞机等活动;

    (四)明示或者暗示饮酒有消除紧张和焦虑、增加体力等功效。

    (DeepL translate) Article 23 Liquor advertisements shall not contain the following:

    (1) Inducing or encouraging the consumption of alcohol or publicizing the uncontrolled consumption of alcohol;

    (2) Showing actions of drinking;

    (3) Exhibiting activities such as driving a car, boat, or airplane;

    (4) Explicitly or implicitly suggesting that drinking alcohol has the effect of eliminating tension and anxiety, increasing physical strength, and so forth.

    Is it unfair to lump all these substances together as though they have similar levels of influence on a person? Maybe it is, because why didn’t I include games that are designed to be addicting, or mention porn, or other forms of escapism?

    Speaking of porn, why can there be a Lemmygrad instance-wide rule 4 of “No porn or sexually explicit content (even if marked NSFW)”, but I have to be met with a possible majority resistance (hexbear users can’t downvote this post due to how their instance works) for anti-promotion (not a ban on mentioning them) of the listed substances in this community?

    Anyway, this discussion post will be pinned for some time until enough consensus has been made on this new rule, and I will suspend the enforcement of this rule 4 in the meantime (not that there has been any violation yet).


  • I don’t think anyone will do so, but they might instead talk about their experiences with such substances in a neutral or positive tone, they might describe the experience as “interesting” or “cool”. While a person might not be intentionally promoting a substance when they talk about it in this way, what will people who are addicted to the substance think about such opinions? If there’s no opposition raised, the substance might be viewed as any other normal item.

    This is not a rule to ostracize people who are addicted to various substances, it’s to clearly signal that these substances are not cool, not interesting, not something to joke about, not something to try out.



  • Some of these substances might indeed have medicinal use, this does not contradict the idea of anti-promotion. The rule can thus be improved by making more clarifications with the input of other comments here, something like:

    Do not promote the use of drugs/alcohol/tobacco/weed/psychedelics/inhalants (for non-medicinal purposes).

    The phrase “for non-medicinal purposes” might be open for interpretation so I am against it, but it can be added if needed. I’d also like to add that online forums without verified experts are not the best places for medical advice. Any scientific discussion should be held elsewhere, or strictly limited to information from authoritative sources without subjective opinions of those involved.

    Note that there can be ads for alcohol in China but not for tobacco, and both substances are legal for adults. This community rule goes further than the current legal situation in China.