Does my phone want me to hate China?

I don’t even like Pandas anymore. All I see are videos of how stupid, and unfertile they are…
Am I being hornswagled?

You brainwashed your phone. It thinks you want to see hateful things about China. And probably everyone else.

China is pretty horrible. When one of the party leaders rapes a tennis star and she posts a “me too,” they make her disappear for a while and then she returns to social media and said she made the whole thing up. China is pumping HORRIBLE industrial waste into its groundwater on a massive scale and could be royally fucked going forward. China is building large numbers of apartments that are falling apart and will likely always remain vacant because it wasn’t ever about the housing, but about the value of the investment. Likewise there are electric cars being built and dumped in fields as well as bike shares that are completely out of control. Apparently they’re even painting grass green to fool the environmental inspectors. They also torture and then eat dogs (I’ll keep quiet on the horrific details), as well as eat eggs boiled in the urine of little boys.

It’s not all bad though. China has incredible history, art, culture and remarkable, generous people across a massive geography.

Why am I not seeing “Hate China” posts l?

@Dutchess_III – you need to start watching serpentza like @gorillapaws, and the algorithm will take over.

It’s media hype. It’s also based on the truth that the Chinese one party system is deeply flawed, and these flaws often make entertaining stories, like when they paint the desert green or put up visual barriers to stop people from seeing horrible things happening, instead of helping, or claim developing nation status to get us to subsidize their shipping costs, or arrest people for watching porn.

The reasons why you see so much on your phone are that advertising is losing effectiveness and large companies still need you to provide them revenue, so whenever they think they know what you will be receptive to, they inundate you, basically so that you buy what they are advertising, or turn into a person who buys what they are advertising.

If you keep clicking on and reading articles about China you will keep getting sent more of them. Even pausing to read a headline can result in more articles sent to you.

Disabling “push notifications” for news on your phone will help cut that down.

Algorithms. Exactly @Smashley. I get Nat Geo and Nature stuff because that’s what I zoom in on.
So, as I said, the OPs phone isn’t brainwashing him, he’s brainwashing his phone.
(Good to see you!)

I have issues with the way they treat animals, including ocean life.

It’s your phone.

China is a tragedy. It’s a place of wonder, rich culture and diverse people being completely destroyed by the worst aspects of communism and capitalism brought together as a toxic chimera that is destroying it from within. Their economy is crumbling, and their population is in collapse. They probably will invade Taiwan because their megalomaniac dictator realizes they have limited time to do so.

Yes. Your toaster will be telling you this also next week.

Dutch/all. I primarily pursue things online about acoustic guitars (my guitar is made in China, I love it,) canoe/kayak saltwater fishing, LV Raiders, Detroit Pistons, firearm maintenance/info, philosophy, astronomy/quantum physics, and outdoors stuff.

I usually read whatever is on my Google news, which I try to sculpt to my interests. Mainly, I try to avoid things about Trump, Christianity, homeopathic stuff, and really just Luke reading about things like vertical farms, The Line, space exploration, anything JWST related, (or Hubble,) some video game news, and I usually want to know about bad things like natural disasters or wars.

I spend 98% of my time on my phone watching music on YouTube. All day. I even listen to music while I sleep.

@janbb I am not very good with computers, but I try. I think I saw a setting like that, but won’t that stop it from sending me stuff I do like?

I have no real political leanings. I don’t vote. I do like looking at new military tech. I feel like that’s a possible issue, because most American military stuff is currently being designed with China as a potential adversary.

Something about an inevitable invasion of Taiwan, and major shifts in Chinese military spending.

And of course, I watch funny animal videos on occasion too.

I used to have plans of trying to travel there to see a few natural wonders. I never search for anything specific to China.

Your phone does spy on you…especially if you’re using an android phone!!! Google tracks EVERY move you make. They also turn on your microphone & listens in when you’re meeting with friends. They track who you are meeting with in person & checks their phone to see what they follow. My BFF is a rabid right winger. We meet for lunch once maybe twice a month. After our meeting, I’m suddenly inundated with right wing emails for several days. I simply mark them as junk & they stop until the next time that we meet for lunch. She also gets different search results from her Google search than I do when I use the exact same search phrase.Youtube is owned by Google now, so you’re NOT safe on Youtube either!!!

The good news is that you have the power to CHANGE what you do & it changes what Google does!!! One thing that you can do to slow down most of your “China problem” is to install a Duckduckgo search app & STOP using Google’s search. Ddg doesn’t keep a record of what you search & Google can’t track it either. I find that I get better search info than when I use Google!!! How Google just knows the answer, I have NO clue. They know if you’re right or left & you get completely different results depending. They also know if your race & you will get completely different results when doing a search for available housing.

I’ve NEVER owned an iPhone, so I have NO experience with what or how they do their spying.

@LadyMarissa I’m with you.
That’s really what this thread is about. My phone spying on me, and maybe trying to influence me.

I can prove it listens to me. That I’m aware of.

Blocking content, is how I currently try to control it.

I don’t want to turn off everything on China, because they’re actually doing some amazing things with cold fusion, space, and physics. They are REALLY smart. And I am fairly confident that most scientists are non-partisan, and really aren’t political.

So DDG is an app? I do have an android…

This is an interesting conversation.
Maybe your provider can help?
But yes. Your.phone is.out to get you! Sleep with a knife under your pillow!

^I have a. 45 Long Colt right by my pillow. That’s just to get me to a better gun, to get me to my real gun…

If it didn’t know before, my phone knows it now.

I’m way ahead of this though. I explained some truth, to my phone. If something bad happens to me, this old phone will be recycled. Murdered.
It’s best chance at survival is to keep me safe and healthy.

China wasn’t such a bad place when I last visited pre Covid but the news from China isn’t so good these days. The economy isn’t doing well and younger people in particular are finding it hard to get jobs. The property market is having a particularly bad time and as that is where many Chinese invested their money the government is losing popularity. You would know none of this by watching the news in China which is state controlled but people can see what is going on around them.

China is a fascinating country and I’m actually going back there tomorrow.

^Have you ever been to the place that Avatar was based off of? Apparently, there’s actually a mountainous area, that looks like the floating forest in the movie (minus actually floating.) The footage I saw was stunningly gorgeous. Unfortunately it was VERY crowded, with selfie-stick welding, brightly dressed tourists. Someone like me, might try to hike in to avoid crowds. I don’t want to end up in a Chinese prison…
I know it’s a huge country. Lots I’d like to see before I die…

If you wouldn’t mind some sort of brief update about your travels, I would be interested.

Me too.