Okay this debate has been way too tiring for me. I am not going to explain to another rich western kid why you are more fortunate than my friend who have been separated from her activist dad for decades.

If you don’t believe western privilege is real and you are as oppressed as the numerous dictatorships across the world… Good for you I guess, and I will not entertain this topic further.

As for ways to learn, I prefer to learn through peer-reviewed literature; high-effort investigative journalism; and people who have worked decades in the field, and specifically hired to research and teach.

In principle yes, but it is in general dangerous to think that social media can be a learning moment and people should use whatever pushed to them to guide their behavior.

The content is eventually controlled by several monopolies and will serve their own good. As social media are natural monopolies, it is also really hard to build ethical platforms that competes with the ones backed by capital.

Westerners are priviliaged to have a diverse and free news/media landscape, non-profits pushing for truthful and accessible knowledge, and world-class educational institutions. I, as a Chinese, have never experienced such when growing up.

Yet, I see people insist a giant Chinese tech monopoly is their best learning experience, instead of resorting to more time-proven, unbiased, and trust-worthy ways to learn. Doesn’t this sound dangerous to you?

I don’t know though. CCP certainly love their alt-right cousins, and they probably spent and will continue to spend a huge amount of money to get them elected in the western world.

Given CCP more data and means to produce such influence might not be the best of ideas.

You would honestly believe a giant media conglomerate and one of the most influential tech monopolies in this hyper-capitalistic world shows people completely unbiased news, just out of the goodness of their heart? For their unconditional love towards the vulnerable underaged population that they intentionally attracted?

If TikTok has the power to “turn” youth into pro Palestine, they can also turn the youth pro China when China invades Taiwan.

TikTok is in its expansion phase so it need to show its good will, but as soon as it is large enough, it will seek to do whatever make them the most money, like everyone else.

Time and time again, big-tech controlled social media have intervened and will continue to intervene with public opinion, Meta, Xitter, TikTok, all in their own ways.

If government decide to ban meta tomorrow, will you object as hard as banning tiktok?

This might sounds surprising to you, but all big tech monopolies love money more than their users.

They will push whatever agenda that makes them more money, and this is exactly what got every social media into the current enshittified stage.

Keep kissing their ass, then they will turn around and send your lips straight to Trump.

I am only on mastodon and lemmy, yet I have only seen things from pro-palestan standpoint.

Believe it or not, building a ethical platform will encourage ethical news on there. Unethical platform might sometimes push ethical news, but eventually will only prioritize its own agenda.

Don’t you need to learn these at school?

I certainly didn’t have proficient english after I graduated college 🥲…

Thank you, many of your point is very valid, I might not have made every point in my original comments sufficiently clear.

So I would imagine most folks considering this aren’t starting from zero with English skills.

As most language learner might know, professional fluency is far from “not zero”. I have near perfect mark in English for my high school entrance exam in China.

Yet, I spent almost all of my three years of high school to learn English, to be accepted by a U.S. college. And I only started writing decent professional English couple years after I graduated.

I am certainly not the most talented language learner, but I believe achieve fluent professional English not a goal that can be easily achieved in a year, especially with a 9-5 job.

Besides the money point, this is true of any emigration, yet millions do it from countries around the world.

You are right, this is also why a large majority of person do not immigrate. I am certainly not suggesting people do not immigrate. I just think that there are many realistic barrier to immigration, to Chinese and to people from other countries as well.

Many people vowed to immigrate if Trump is elected in 2016, yet many failed to do so. I imagine the real barrier to immigration might play a role in these decisions.

Are you saying the CCP has been revoking passports at this new scale and against the same targets for the same reasons for at least a decade?

No, I am saying public worker needing to submit passport is not new. Here are some Chinese source:

• https://www.zhihu.com/question/582316284
• https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_26669534
• https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/487193115

I am not saying that they are not expanding the scale of the program.

Because of the language barrier, people typically needs years of preparation to leave the country. Imagine finding a H1B job with zero connection in the U.S. and subpar English, that is literally impossible.

Even said person are willing to pay the high tuition fee in U.S. or Europe, it would take a Chinese at least a year of intense language learning to achieve reasonable fluency in a language, that is acceptable in universities.

Not to mention, leaving China also means leaving everything they know behind, friends, family, way of life, and especially money, like the other post suggests.

In fact, confiscating public workers’ passport has been practiced for at least a decade; partly for control, partly for security. And that did not spark mass exodus, slightly expanding the program likely will not change much as well.

Finally, most people in China choose public work for job security, hence they are usually averse to change. These crowds are the least likely to react to policies like this.

I think a even better solution might be to not unnecessarily waste energies 😉