Reposted from elsewhere.
- wikileaks published a private diplomatic cable stating that no one was killed in the square itself, although a smaller number of people did die in clashes elsewhere in Beijing, consistent with China’s own official account. (Here’s a Telegraph article on the cables).
- a spanish film crew was in the square all night and filmed people peacefully leaving the square in the early morning, singing the Internationale, here’s footage of a Hong Kong news report that includes the spanish film crew footage, which never appears in western reporting).
- one of the main organizers of the protest, Hou Dejian, states that no one died in the square and calls out other organizers for lying I Interview where Hou Dejian, a Taiwanese national and one of the leaders of the Tiananmen protests, says he was in the square all night and saw no one killed here is a twitter thread covering testimony by various organizers, including Hou Dejian).
- Numerous western media sources have stated that no massacre occurred in the square. (This article links to multiple western sources, including James Miles, attesting that no one died in the square.).
- various western massacre reports cite wildly different death figures, usually with little or no justification for the number.
- An attempt to collect all the names of the massacre victims ended early when they only found 155.
- CIA and NED goons were known to be present in Beijing and involved in the protests. (Here is an article from the Vancouver Sun in 1992, showing western intelligence involvement was known in the west decades ago).
- during most of the protest, protesters were calling for a return to stricter communism, not for liberal market reforms. These were Marxists. Their signs showed Marxist figures and slogans. (This article shows some images of the protesters displaying Marxist slogans and iconography and discusses it a bit — careful linking this site though, some of the articles are pretty dumb).
- tank man: the tanks in the video are leaving the square (you can see this in the uncropped footage) and it is broad daylight, whereas the main violence occurred at night.
- the first violence was against troops, not civilians. On June 2, 1989, two days before the June 4 incident when the main violence occurred, multiple unarmed Chinese troops were burned alive and their corpses hung from nooses in public. ((CW: gore) here is a thread of photos showing dead and wounded troops, some being rescued by civilians. Multiple men were burned to death, others were beaten. Some protesters stole guns from the army and can be seen brandishing them.).
- the violence against troops was uncharacteristic of the previous tone of interactions between troops and protesters in the preceding weeks. Troops and protesters had peacefully coexisted, singing songs and sharing food together. (Here’s an article that goes into it a bit)
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I had a more baity title initially, but sadly it didn’t result in any interaction. People probably thought it was just a lib trying to post some shit
both videos are deepfaked
my source is that I made it up
checkmate, tankies
Any comrades know anything about creating an easily searchable database to make it easier to respond when folks bring up clear misinformation? I get that wikipedia and prolewiki are things, as well as wonderful comments by other comrades, but they aren’t too easy to query or search through for specific information.
There isn’t a granularity to the searches which makes it difficult to find relevant info quickly when searching. SQL and the like are convenient, and something like Wikibase allows for annotation of data, are there any other tools or methods anyone knows about?
It’s sadly a bit of a toughie. I know a lot of jexbear users have made effortposts on quite a lot of subjects, so my first go to is to search thru Hexbear for effortposts with good sources. It’s sadly not ideal. I know the user u/robinn2 has made a carrd on Xinjiang, which is often used. you could consider making a carrd on another common subject and help that way. While that does not help you, it helps the next one
Ah, the cards are a good idea. If I could ask about your experiences to get a better idea of a potential solution:
- Is searching through lemmy/hexbear preferable due to the interface, or how the information is presented?
- Did you go to hexbear first due to your familiarity with it or because it was what first came to mind?
- Do you usually look for this info on your phone?
- Is some info good but you’d have to reformat it so you don’t end up using it?
- Do you ever put stuff that’s good in your own words?
- Do you find the formatting (headings, subheadings, bold, etc.) to be helpful in navigating and finding the stuff you are looking for when you have like a huge effortpost?
- I usually both search on Google withe site:hexbear.net and on Hexbear itself. On Google I am moreso looking for keywords. Hexbear weights upvotes more, and oftentimes a good effortpost has received a lot of upvotes, where Google gives more of everything, but both needs a lot of finagling to be useful.
- Hexbear due to familiarity.
- I’m usually posting from phone, so unless it’s an effortpost I stay there. For a good infogathering it’s on pc tho.
- Most info needs reformatting (adding linktext for example) so it’s rarely something I think of. When it’s just a quick message I just link the person to the thread. I always rephrase if I’m making a new effortpost.
- If I make new effortpost yeah, otherwise I usually just repost the info as is - with minor tweaks.
- Yes! Good formatting is a lifesaver
I just keep extensive notes and collect quotes, comments, and articles to refer back to
it’s not ideal, I agree with you we need some kind of database with a powerful search function
and yeah, like Egon I also search hexbear when I need to respond to someone
If google wasn’t ad-ridden and folks weren’t focused on SEO marketing… :(