“But today I changed my mind, completely,” Ai said. “The West (is) not even (in a) position to accuse China. (They must) just check on their record (of) what they did on international human rights, (their) freedom of speech record.”

    • perestroika@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 day ago

      Ai Weiwei hasn’t been known as a wumao. He didn’t appear out of nowhere, he has some history.

      • whereIsTamara@lemmy.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 day ago

        The West (is) not even (in a) position to accuse China. (They must) just check on their record (of) what they did on international human rights, (their) freedom of speech record.

        Whataboutism.

        • Andy@slrpnk.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          16 hours ago

          No:

          Whataboutism is when you defend bad behavior by trying to justify it based on other bad behavior. The whole point of the article is that Weiwei is pointing out failures in Europe in al the context of criticizing the behavior of the Chinese government. It’s literally the opposite of whataboutism.

          The article explains pretty clearly that Weiwei is a critic of China’s human rights abuses, and has expanded their criticism to recognize the growing human rights abuses among China’s western critics, which has undermined global human rights and the ability of these nations to credibly pressure China to improve.

          Again, I will say: respectfully, I suspect you did not click the link to the article before opining on it.

          • whereIsTamara@lemmy.org
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            14 hours ago

            Whataboutism” or “whataboutery” (as in, “but what about X?”) refers to the propaganda strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of offering an explanation or defense against the original accusation. It is an informal fallacy that the accused party uses to avoid accountability—whether attempting to distract by shifting the conversation’s focus away from their behaviour or attempting to justify themselves by pointing to the similar behaviour (which may be true or false, but irrelevant) of their opponent or another party who is not the current subject of discussion.[1]

            • Andy@slrpnk.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              14 hours ago

              You’re not even responding to anything I said. To repeat: you, me, and Weiwei are all on the same side. We’re all critics of the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights record. No one is engaging in whataboutery in this article.

              You know what would be an absolute Chad move, here? I don’t think this is likely, but if anyone is reading this, take note:

              You can just say, ‘That’s a good point: I didn’t read far enough to get important context and misunderstood. Thanks for the correction.’

              That’s an option. I’ve absolutely misunderstood an article I didn’t fully read and had someone politely correct me. It’s okay and healthy to just own it.

              • whereIsTamara@lemmy.org
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                13 hours ago

                Of course I’m not. When you acknowledge the comment is whataboutism, based on the definition of the word, then maybe we can have a conversation. 🤷‍♂️

          • perestroika@slrpnk.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            edit-2
            23 hours ago

            How did you arrive on that conclusion? I read several UK-based news sites and they criticize the government on a daily basis.

            • ryannathans@aussie.zone
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              11 hours ago

              Someone told another person to “speak clearly” because they’re deaf and got arrested for hate speech

              Someone was discussing the problems of immigration in public and was arrested for the same

              Thousands have been arrested for opposing genocide in Gaza under terrorism laws

              • perestroika@slrpnk.net
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 hour ago

                Thousands have been arrested for opposing genocide in Gaza under terrorism laws

                Do you have a source for this claim?

          • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 day ago

            They don’t lol, they censor the hell out of their Internet, the netizens have to use proxies and anti detect browser just to bypass the firewalls.

                • Andy@slrpnk.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  14 hours ago

                  I feel like this comment section is primarily made up of dril and Ken M. tweets.

                  There are so many comments like the one you’re replying to that just make no sense except as absurdist humor.