The “Great Translation Movement” is dedicated to exposing the brainwashing propaganda tactics of the Chinese Communist Party internally and externally. Recently, their subreddit “real_china_irl” on the American platform Reddit was banned. Despite following Reddit’s instructions and making multiple requests, their accounts were also shut down.
The editor, Mr. Tan, of the platform revealed to reporters that the subreddit existed before the Peng Zaizhou incident in Beijing and had gathered about 100,000 followers. In 2022, their platform “Surfing TV” with tens of thousands of followers on Reddit was banned. Following that, the subreddit “Free Xinjiang,” which provided a Chinese communication platform for Uighurs in Xinjiang, was shut down due to numerous malicious reports.
Two years ago, the Great Translation Movement garnered attention from mainstream American media but faced severe suppression from the Chinese Communist Party. It is reported that over 40 of its members in China were arrested and detained. Mr. Tan himself flew from Hong Kong to the United States this year to seek asylum and was recently granted bail from immigration detention.
One of Mr. Tan’s associates, Fragile Jun, who is under 20 years old, also fled to the United States from Hong Kong not long ago. He told reporters that the banned subreddit was originally created to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda on Reddit.
Fragile Jun expressed that Reddit has many communities that support the CCP and claim that China and the US are equally bad. Members of these communities aggressively target individuals who dare to speak out against the CCP, and he noted that while these platforms still exist, their anti-CCP subreddit no longer does.
Reddit’s ban notification stated that the subreddit was in an “unmoderated” state, meaning there were no moderators managing violations of platform policies. Fragile Jun mentioned that when the forum was established, there were moderators, and there were no notably egregious incidents. The comment section was also free of advertisements or harassing messages, leaving them puzzled as to what went wrong.
Despite this, they submitted posts requesting moderation rights as per Reddit’s requirements. Fragile Jun, being an active member of the forum, received significant support from others who believed he was fully capable of taking over the community following the rules. However, their posts seeking control of “real_china_irl” were promptly deleted, and other members attempting to contact were met with account bans.
Mr. Tan expressed frustration, saying, “We tried to lodge complaints through proper channels, but either got no response or continued bans on those who spoke up.”
Reddit’s management also responded, stating, “We have reviewed your request, unfortunately, your request will not be approved.” Reddit claimed they couldn’t disclose specific reasons for the ban, citing several possibilities including unauthorized sexual content, lack of adequate moderation, creation of subreddits to circumvent restrictions, and repeated violations of moderator guidelines.
Fragile Jun shared screenshots showing the ban. He remarked, “We exhausted all legal complaint channels, only to be ignored by them, which I find outrageous. I never expected to receive treatment in the US reminiscent of China: being shut down and targeted for opposing the CCP.”
Founded in San Francisco in 2005, Reddit is a global platform. In 2019, the company announced $300 million funding in Series D, with $150 million coming from Tencent. Tencent is one of the major tech companies involved in building China’s internet censorship surveillance mechanism, leading to concerns that its stake in Reddit could jeopardize international freedom of speech.
According to Fragile Jun, since the ban of “Surfing TV” two years ago, numerous anti-CCP discussion forums on Reddit have been shut down. Only what they call “eunuch” discussion boards, which are dissatisfied with the current state but hold skeptical views towards anti-CCP discussions, have managed to survive.
“We are people pursued to the ends of the earth by a national regime. How can you treat us like this?” Fragile Jun expressed indignation, questioning Reddit’s contradictory actions against the values it thrived upon as an American company rooted in free speech.
Reddit, known as an aggregation platform, ranks among the top ten globally in website traffic and fifth in the US according to Similarweb. As per Business Insider, their monthly active users reached 850 million in 2023, with weekly active users at 340 million as of June this year.
Democratic activist Yang Xiao, a lawyer at Chen Chuang Law Firm, believes Reddit’s repeated bans reflect a crucial aspect of Chinese infiltration into the US. She remarked, “Private media do not inherently emphasize freedom of speech, thus the CCP utilizes US laws to gradually intervene and control the content accessed by Americans and global audiences. Interfering with media is essentially interfering with people’s minds. Reddit is constructing America’s ‘Great Firewall’.”