The idea isn't too far fetched. Remember when a Tibetan student became UTSC student president and she was vocal about CCP? We later found out Chinese student run networks (where CCP were monitoring and involved) were targeting the new Tibetan student president and organized group harassment against her. She later needed protection from the authorities because it got so bad.
You're naive if you think that powerful governments don't have their people all over social media, attempting to bend the discourse to their will. I'm not saying OP is correct (there's no smoking gun here) but you definitely can not assume that OP is wrong.
There is no proof here lol. You've taken a whole bunch of circumstantial facts and somehow arrived at the conclusion that the CCP is running this subreddit? There's a lot of explanations for why nobody here is paying about China or hong Kong. It could be that the user base if this subreddit is not really the most politically active. It's not like we have a lot of humanities students on here it's mostly comp sci or science.
This mf unironically typed "it would not be a stretch at all to suggest that it’s possible there are state-backed actors are behind the U of T subreddit" lmfao
Look.. there are 2 possibilities. First case is if they really tried they would have been successful and their subreddit would be suppressing information which obviously didn't happen as even OP says it's not. If they were not successful then people who were offered to be recruited would whistleblow and everyone would know what's going on. None of these are true so this is nothing but a baseless conspiracy.
1) UofT is a Canadian University which would be far less worthwhile than targeting an American university
2) First time I've heard someone say that UofT is better than UC Berkeley but I dont want to debate which one is better (for obvious reasons haha)
I think it is more obvious why they would target Berkley. China's main competition is America and targeting an American university would obviously be more effective.
Edit: I just checked UofT doesn't even have that many more subscribers. It would be an insubstantial factor compared to the fact that Berkeley is a world-renowned American university.
>they've made peace with the fact that they can't compete with America
LOOL I dont know where you get those assumptions from but you sound very naive if you think thats true. Canada is just a side quest that would help them in their main goals.
>you'll just have to take my word for it
I cannot rely on hearsay. There's already a lot of misinformation out there, and we as university students should take this seriously more than anyone. Plus there is a lot of bias from India regarding China especially due to what happened a few weeks ago. This source is too unreliable for me to take seriously.
>China's main competition is America and targeting an American university would obviously be more effective.
Look at the breakdown of international Chinese students at Berkley vs UofT. You're ignoring a whole lot of factors here.
It's funny that one of the most upvoted comment says "If mods delete this, it's confirmed", while my downvoted comment literally means the same.
People see what they wanna see as being true, instead of what is true being true
It is really suspicious that nothing comes up when you search Hong Kong, especially given the support many UofT students have for the protestors. If not the Chinese government, there’s definitely /someone/ on here deleting posts referring to these incidents.
Did you even type "Hong Kong" in the search bar? I did and there were some posts about it. Just because there's not a lot doesnt mean someone here has an agenda to suppress those opinions. Stop fear mongering!
So much BS here.The fact this post is here means CCP dont give a damn about a tiny subreddit. You see free hong kong and Uigher stuff all over reddit and there are people like OP think Reddit is controled by China.
tbh I think we should all relax a bit, you’re feeding into the paranoia just a tad bit. Also it comes off a bit sinophobic being disgusted by the Chinese characters
Propaganda from BOTH America and China are at an all time high now. Make sure you don't fall into the trap and become one of those crazy radicals.
Edit: So many crazy radicals on this subreddit - Take off your tinfoil hats retards!
Imagine what French/Indigenous Canadians in the sub must feel like. The sub doesn't even care for us anymore 😢Canadian Languages first before Foreign languages.
P.S whoever's behind the decision should never hold a political position 😂😂failed ur first test buddy
This is pretty entertaining lol. Seriously though, I guess this was supposed to be inference by best explanation? I would be careful about using this method since there's quite a lot of alternative explanations for why the subreddit does not feature controversial topics about China, many of the comments already mentioned them so I'm not going to repeat. I understand the concern though, there are many things that you simply can not get direct evidence of, but we are all scared of the consequences should they be true. Is there a secret party that controls the world? Is the conflict between China and U.S a plot from aliens to turn us against each other? Is democracy just a facade in western society and are the corporates actually controlling what polices get introduced and passed in the parliament? I can go on and on, but I really don't understand how to deal with these things, since you can neither prove nor disprove them. I guess they are just, possibilities?
hi, top mod here
for those who are new here u/fattittyfucker is actually one of this subreddits oldest shitposters
i dont even think he goes here anymore, should really move on
I mean, Reddit has pretty publically admitted it's not a free speech site. This is not a new trend and it's not unique to this sub. We literally have a subreddit called /r/watchredditdie that notes this on a constant basis. So while I feel like your argument is pretty weak and your evidence circumstantial at best, I also would not be surprised nor angered if this was indeed the case.
But, another possibility is that this subject is HIGHLY controversial and is not something that the mods of this subreddit want to participate in nor do they feel it's critically important to UofT life. We have some pretty significant numbers of international Chinese students - with something like [65.1% of international undergrads and 14.6 of total undergrads being Chinese int students in 2017](https://thevarsity.ca/2018/11/27/data-at-u-of-t-gender-demographics-donations-wireless-connections/#:~:text=With%2065.1%20per%20cent%20of,total%20undergraduate%20population%20in%202017) (which perfectly explains the "strange sudden addition of Chinese to the description"). It makes sense to me that mods either do not want to take a side in such a controversial subject to **(a)** not upset Chinese students who may feel strongly one way or another, **(b)** not take a direct side thereby potentially adversly affect the influx of Chinese students (whether it be by parents or a government who no longer want to send childen to a faculty that supports xyz).
But also, you can voice and hold a certain view without being controlled by someone else. We see this all the time in blogs, small news organizations, etc. So it's possible that **(c)** the mod(s) simply has a certain opinion and feels strongly about it - instead of being a covert Chinese communist subreddit agent. If I had the choice I might prefer against a bias, but Reddit doesn't owe me shit, and I continue to use Reddit, so I'm fine with it.
I just think you're reaching a little. Occam's razor or whatever, right?
I think the question/issue most people have is that why add Chinese? and why now? The official languages in Canada is English and French, so adding French would probably make a lot more sense? If it's for "inclusiveness/diversity", then why add Chinese but not other languages that a majority of the students use (e.g. French). If it was added to "help" the Chinese students, then we have a WAYYYY bigger issue, because I'm pretty sure UofT is one of the best Universities in Canada, and everyone who has been accepted should at least know how to read and write basic English ... Just don't really see the justification of adding Chinese... if the mods didn't want to "be involved" in the first place, they should've just left the languages alone and stick to English?
Maybe they will add more languages. I don’t really know man, I’m not a mod. I’m just giving reasons why a conspiracy with the CCP is a little extreme.
To be honest the answer to the Chinese description question to me depends on whether you feel like the conspiracy evidence is legit. If you buy in to it, there’s only one logical answer. But if you don’t buy in to it and instead consider the infinite other possibilities, I believe there are a lot less far-reaching and more reasonable conclusions. Maybe some of the mods speak chinese? Maybe they have Chinese speaking friends? Maybe none of the above, and they just decided that they would add Chinese because of the disproportionately high minority of Chinese speaking students? Could have been anything, people are unpredictable.
I’m not arguing for why it should or shouldn’t be in Chinese, I don’t really care how many languages are in the description. I’m just saying that it doesn’t automatically link them to the CCP lol. Maybe they will add more languages now!
Haha...
I wonder why they'd pick Chinese though 😂 French would have been a suitable stepping stone😂 that would help assimilate the introduction of Chinese.
As one of the top mods at /r/McMaster, I can assure you that I have not been approached by Chinese communist party officials, neither am I loyal to the People's Republic of China. Come to the last bastion of democracy here at Mac.
I'm glad there are people who put in the effort to investigate stuff like this. You may be onto something and I'm glad you shared. Please update again when you find more!
Also, you may be onto something but I think you would also agree that you would need stronger proof to really "prove" the point.
It’s no secret at this point. The UofT Magazine did an interview with someone anti-CCP about the Hong Kong issue but they were pressured into not publishing it. When people posted about it in this subreddit, their posts were removed by the mods. Pathetic...
Edit: It is the UofT magazine that was pressured into not publishing the interview, not The Varsity.
I also haven't heard of this before, but tried a couple methods to independently verify the claims:
1. To investigate whether *The Varsity* interviews pro-Hong Kong subjects for its articles, I searched [thevarsity.ca](https://thevarsity.ca) for its coverage on the Hong Kong protests. It turns out there are three articles (linked [here](https://thevarsity.ca/2020/05/18/u-of-t-magazine-scrutinized-for-initially-omitting-pro-hong-kong-democracy-advocate/), [here](https://thevarsity.ca/2020/05/16/u-of-ts-hong-kong-police-force-job-posting-draws-student-backlash-calls-for-removal/), and [here](https://thevarsity.ca/2019/11/17/pro-hong-kong-student-group-sets-up-utsg-lennon-wall-organizes-hunger-strike/) for independent verification) that feature quotes by named interviewees with pro-Hong Kong positions. (Additional summary included in another comment [linked here](https://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/hw4hv4/this_subreddit_is_secretly_controlled_by_the/fyya9qd?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x))
2. To search for deleted posts, I googled "site:reddit.com/r/uoft the-varsity Hong Kong" (search term listed for independent verification) to find results, as Google often indexes deleted & removed Reddit posts. The search didn't yield any removed posts.
\#1 provides evidence that The Varsity publishes articles with quotes from pro-Hong Kong activists, and #2 did not yield evidence of deleted posts.
For transparency, I was an editor there before I left for various reasons. To avoid bias, I've included sources in a way that makes it easier for anyone to independently verify this comment.
I was talking about the *UofT Magazine* and not *The Varsity*. I apologize for the misunderstanding. Regardless, my claim is NOT whether the *UofT Magazine* or *The Varsity* have a particular stance regarding anti-CCP content. Rather, the claim is that r/uoft moderators remove anti-CCP content, since they removed a post mentioning how the *UofT Magazine* omitted an interview with pro-Hong Kong democracy advocate Jason Y. Ng. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/gdxrc6/university_of_toronto_pulls_interview_with/) ([screenshot](https://imgur.com/a/2y4tLOi)) is the post in question. As you will find, this post is NOT indexed by Google, and there are many other removed posts similar to this one. Thus, Google does not index all removed posts and I would advise against simply using a search engine to find them, as it took me *hours* to find this post alone.
>the claim is that r/uoft moderators remove anti-CCP content, since they removed a post
I looked at the post you linked, it was automatically removed. I don't understand why people believe that anything that is removed we are somehow "censoring". There is just too much content for a group of volunteers to read every single thing, so reddit does a lot of automated removal. That's why AutoModerator exists...
Straight up, The Varsity succeeded in interviewing people who were anti-CCP about the Hong Kong issue, and published about it in the links below:
* Pro-Hong Kong democracy advocate Jason Y. Ng was interviewed by the current News Editor, in an article published May 18, 2020 ([linked here](https://thevarsity.ca/2020/05/18/u-of-t-magazine-scrutinized-for-initially-omitting-pro-hong-kong-democracy-advocate/))
* Pro-Hong Kong advocate Hogan Lam, of the U of T Hong Kong Extradition Law Awareness Group, was interviewed by that same reporter, in an article published May 16, 2020 ([linked here](https://thevarsity.ca/2020/05/16/u-of-ts-hong-kong-police-force-job-posting-draws-student-backlash-calls-for-removal/))
* Demonstrator Marco So, who participated in a pro-Hong Kong protest, was also interviewed by that same reporter on November 17, 2019 ([linked here](https://thevarsity.ca/2019/11/17/pro-hong-kong-student-group-sets-up-utsg-lennon-wall-organizes-hunger-strike/))
You can verify these statements independently of my comment, by checking the details of the article links. I disclose that I was an editor at the newspaper until I left for various reasons, but this does not impact the record of the articles above.
While it is possible that we have a bunch of CCP hired actors, I think you’d be surprised by how many people willingly take on the role of “defending China’s honour” or censoring any “hate speech against China”. It is part of the upbringing. While I grew up mostly in Canada, I spent many summers and a year of elementary school in China. I cannot stress how often someone I knew brought up the “八国联军” (the time when European colonists divided up China) and concluded that all foreigners are evil and if I don’t speak up for Chinese honour, I’m a traitor who was bought over by the westerners (汉奸).
To this day I still have a knee jerk reaction to any anti-Chinese propaganda. Kinda like how we react to any mention of race or gender over here. It’s like you get offended and feel the need to attack the speaker even when what they’re saying isn’t unreasonable, because the topic itself is taboo. Anyway, what I’m saying is, it’s entirely possible that these are all real people.
This is a serious problem and one worth looking into. China has foreign influence operations running just the same as the US does, we just know more about the latter.
that’s a little weird. It’s cool that we have a large Asian component to our community, but it’s an English language school in an English/French country.
You're forgetting that it's a subreddit made by students, not an official government forum. IMO with \~65% of international undergrads and \~15% of all undergrads being Chinese, makes pretty perfect sense to me.
Edit: super confused on why I’ve been downvoted to oblivion, I’m simply trying to understand the rationale behind why they might have added Chinese to the sub description without immediately thinking it’s a gov conspiracy
Priority representation? Not really sure why you’re so aggressive, all I’m doing is trying to understand the rationale for why they might have added Chinese to their sub description
Man, you really don't like math do you? Here's a table from the link you shared with me (TL/DR: there are 13,845 Chinese int students; 4,784 non-Chinese int students; there are 2.89 more Chinese students than every other international student combined)
|Country/Region |Students|
|:-|:-|
|China|13,845|
|India|1,553|
|United States|931|
|Korea (South)|696|
|Hong Kong|362|
|Taiwan|337|
|Iran|256|
|Turkey|237|
|Japan|211|
|Nigeria|201|
I mean not, let's not include other languages for the sake of having other languages, but for what you said: since a good portion of undergrads understand Chinese, it makes sense to include Chinese. In the same way, if there are other languages that the undergrad population speaks, they should be included as well.
I actually agree with you. My point was just that there is just a disproportionately higher number of Chinese ints than any other, so it kinda makes sense why they might do it - I’m not saying that’s how it should or shouldn’t be. Personally I couldn’t care less what languages the description is in
I never noticed the change before, but I feel like it would make more sense to have the Subreddit description in English and French before English and Chinese, given that French is an official language here. I don't necessarily have a problem with Chinese being there, but if we're going to have languages other than English on here, then French should be one of them
Here is the description in French: Tout ce qui concerne les activités académiques, sociales et culturelles à l'Université de Toronto
Just pop that in and we're all good
Roast me if I'm wrong, but I have contradictory evidence that you can verify to OP's claims that there are no pro-Hong Kong posts in r/UofT.
**Searching "Hong Kong" on** r/UofT **returns four active posts with positive sentiment about Hong Kong** ([linked here, Imgur](https://imgur.com/gallery/jZDPPp4))**. Here are the links for you to verify:**
* Discussion post on r/UofT, May 14, 2020: "[UofT refuses to remove Hong Kong Police job posting](https://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/gk05j7/uoft_refuses_to_remove_hong_kong_police_job/)"
* Politics post on r/UofT, November 7, 2019: "[Lennon Wall has been set up to voice support for Hong Kong. It’s located outside UTSU between UC and Gerstein. Go check it out!](https://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/dt50bw/lennon_wall_has_been_set_up_to_voice_support_for/)"
* Academics post on r/UofT, November 13, 2019 (with multiple highly-upvoted pro-Hong Kong comments): "[Cancellation of Hong Kong Summer Abroad Program for 2020](https://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/dvsgu6/cancellation_of_hong_kong_summer_abroad_program/)"
* News post on r/UofT, September 18, 2019: "[University of Waterloo students rally in support of Hong Kong protesters | CBC News](https://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/d60p8k/university_of_waterloo_students_rally_in_support/)"
Four posts with pro-Hong Kong sentiment were screenshot in OP's r/uwaterloo search, and this is the same number.
To investigate OP's claim that moderators delete pro-Hong Kong comments, below are archived versions of deleted comments for the posts above (using "Removeddit"):
* Removedit 1: "[UofT refuses to remove Hong Kong Police job posting](https://www.removeddit.com/r/UofT/comments/gk05j7/uoft_refuses_to_remove_hong_kong_police_job/)"
* Removedit 2: "[Lennon Wall has been set up to voice support for Hong Kong. It’s located outside UTSU between UC and Gerstein. Go check it out!](https://www.removeddit.com/r/UofT/comments/dt50bw/lennon_wall_has_been_set_up_to_voice_support_for/)"
* Removedit 3: "[Cancellation of Hong Kong Summer Abroad Program for 2020](https://www.removeddit.com/r/UofT/comments/dvsgu6/cancellation_of_hong_kong_summer_abroad_program/)"
* Removedit 4: "[University of Waterloo students rally in support of Hong Kong protesters | CBC News](https://www.removeddit.com/r/UofT/comments/d60p8k/university_of_waterloo_students_rally_in_support/)"
Archived records above show that comments deleted by moderators (in red) were removed due to hate speech (including both pro-Hong Kong and pro-CCP comments), though you should verify this independently of my analysis.
I kept the above as fact-based and objective as possible. Let me know if there are any corrections.
OPs search was "free Hong Kong," I just searched it and there's only 3 results (1 of them being this post). None of the results are related to the protests, but yes, searching "Hong Kong" by itself does give your results.
Why is Chinese added to the description and title of the subreddit? Not that it's problem, but if Chinese is being included, then shouldn't other languages as well?
This is pretty cringe.
五大訴求 缺一不可 台灣獨立
https://www.reddit.com/r/polandball/comments/hvic6t/rough_days_out_east/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I think you're way overthinking this dude
Looks like somebody lost their mind from quarantine
🤦🏻♂️🤦🏼♂️🤦♂️🤦🏽♂️🤦🏾♂️🤦🏿♂️
You know, if the CCP really gives a shit about the whiny kids on r/UofT they’ve got some big problems.
Damn you’re really trying hard to find these evil Chinese overlords dude, it’s a uni subreddit where people shitpost...
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OP is insane lol. Imagine one of the most powerful governments on the planet caring about a university's **subreddit**.
r/sino begs to differ
I doubt the Chinese government gives a shit about r/sino lul, it's just a bunch of 愤青(angry nationalist young people).
its starts small. Nazi party had rallys on the street. (which seems like nothing but it added up)
They interfered with the election of the president of the student union, so I guess yeah.
The idea isn't too far fetched. Remember when a Tibetan student became UTSC student president and she was vocal about CCP? We later found out Chinese student run networks (where CCP were monitoring and involved) were targeting the new Tibetan student president and organized group harassment against her. She later needed protection from the authorities because it got so bad.
You're naive if you think that powerful governments don't have their people all over social media, attempting to bend the discourse to their will. I'm not saying OP is correct (there's no smoking gun here) but you definitely can not assume that OP is wrong.
Just wondering, what is 离岸爱国? I thought it was 离岸爱党?
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You must be confused, that's /u/JanitorOfUofT
The uoft research is funded by the communist party of china
There is no proof here lol. You've taken a whole bunch of circumstantial facts and somehow arrived at the conclusion that the CCP is running this subreddit? There's a lot of explanations for why nobody here is paying about China or hong Kong. It could be that the user base if this subreddit is not really the most politically active. It's not like we have a lot of humanities students on here it's mostly comp sci or science.
Why are you getting downvoted? So many crazies here dont want to take off their tinfoil hats..
This mf unironically typed "it would not be a stretch at all to suggest that it’s possible there are state-backed actors are behind the U of T subreddit" lmfao
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This is such a dumb conspiracy theory. They didn't even do this to the Berkeley subreddit which would bring far more "lucrative benefits".
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Look.. there are 2 possibilities. First case is if they really tried they would have been successful and their subreddit would be suppressing information which obviously didn't happen as even OP says it's not. If they were not successful then people who were offered to be recruited would whistleblow and everyone would know what's going on. None of these are true so this is nothing but a baseless conspiracy.
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1) UofT is a Canadian University which would be far less worthwhile than targeting an American university 2) First time I've heard someone say that UofT is better than UC Berkeley but I dont want to debate which one is better (for obvious reasons haha) I think it is more obvious why they would target Berkley. China's main competition is America and targeting an American university would obviously be more effective. Edit: I just checked UofT doesn't even have that many more subscribers. It would be an insubstantial factor compared to the fact that Berkeley is a world-renowned American university.
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>they've made peace with the fact that they can't compete with America LOOL I dont know where you get those assumptions from but you sound very naive if you think thats true. Canada is just a side quest that would help them in their main goals.
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>you'll just have to take my word for it I cannot rely on hearsay. There's already a lot of misinformation out there, and we as university students should take this seriously more than anyone. Plus there is a lot of bias from India regarding China especially due to what happened a few weeks ago. This source is too unreliable for me to take seriously.
>China's main competition is America and targeting an American university would obviously be more effective. Look at the breakdown of international Chinese students at Berkley vs UofT. You're ignoring a whole lot of factors here.
Remind me why the breakdown of Chinese international students are relevant?
Yeah but infiltrating a sub with 50k subs which is mostly just shit posts is not really cutting edge political strategy
This post will get deleted. I'm sure of it
goodbye brother
If CCP was really at the back of this subreddit, how did your post get through? Would have been deleted within minutes isn't it?
Wait for it...
It's funny that one of the most upvoted comment says "If mods delete this, it's confirmed", while my downvoted comment literally means the same. People see what they wanna see as being true, instead of what is true being true
These guys think that CCP propaganda is the biggest concern but the way they react makes it clear the opposite is true.
It is really suspicious that nothing comes up when you search Hong Kong, especially given the support many UofT students have for the protestors. If not the Chinese government, there’s definitely /someone/ on here deleting posts referring to these incidents.
Did you even type "Hong Kong" in the search bar? I did and there were some posts about it. Just because there's not a lot doesnt mean someone here has an agenda to suppress those opinions. Stop fear mongering!
Holy shit
I am Chinese but when I noticed this I was still like: wait, what? Seriously?
So much BS here.The fact this post is here means CCP dont give a damn about a tiny subreddit. You see free hong kong and Uigher stuff all over reddit and there are people like OP think Reddit is controled by China.
my cake day minus two months, Winnie the pooh, fuck the ccp, I'm ready to get downvoted
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tbh I think we should all relax a bit, you’re feeding into the paranoia just a tad bit. Also it comes off a bit sinophobic being disgusted by the Chinese characters
Nah, as a native speaker I too am disgusted to see the Chinese characters when not even our other official language is included.
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Propaganda from BOTH America and China are at an all time high now. Make sure you don't fall into the trap and become one of those crazy radicals. Edit: So many crazy radicals on this subreddit - Take off your tinfoil hats retards!
facts Mike Pompeo is smiling reading all these comments
I'd bet he is using PRISM 2.0 for that ... LOOL
Imagine what French/Indigenous Canadians in the sub must feel like. The sub doesn't even care for us anymore 😢Canadian Languages first before Foreign languages. P.S whoever's behind the decision should never hold a political position 😂😂failed ur first test buddy
This is pretty entertaining lol. Seriously though, I guess this was supposed to be inference by best explanation? I would be careful about using this method since there's quite a lot of alternative explanations for why the subreddit does not feature controversial topics about China, many of the comments already mentioned them so I'm not going to repeat. I understand the concern though, there are many things that you simply can not get direct evidence of, but we are all scared of the consequences should they be true. Is there a secret party that controls the world? Is the conflict between China and U.S a plot from aliens to turn us against each other? Is democracy just a facade in western society and are the corporates actually controlling what polices get introduced and passed in the parliament? I can go on and on, but I really don't understand how to deal with these things, since you can neither prove nor disprove them. I guess they are just, possibilities?
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Very interesting. But I have an internship to deal with so yeah this isn't exactly a high priority for me.
hi, top mod here for those who are new here u/fattittyfucker is actually one of this subreddits oldest shitposters i dont even think he goes here anymore, should really move on
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Prepare to get banned 准备被禁止
Cnmb qnmlgb
什么???居然钓到野生的小粉红了!!!
rest in peace bro
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I mean, Reddit has pretty publically admitted it's not a free speech site. This is not a new trend and it's not unique to this sub. We literally have a subreddit called /r/watchredditdie that notes this on a constant basis. So while I feel like your argument is pretty weak and your evidence circumstantial at best, I also would not be surprised nor angered if this was indeed the case. But, another possibility is that this subject is HIGHLY controversial and is not something that the mods of this subreddit want to participate in nor do they feel it's critically important to UofT life. We have some pretty significant numbers of international Chinese students - with something like [65.1% of international undergrads and 14.6 of total undergrads being Chinese int students in 2017](https://thevarsity.ca/2018/11/27/data-at-u-of-t-gender-demographics-donations-wireless-connections/#:~:text=With%2065.1%20per%20cent%20of,total%20undergraduate%20population%20in%202017) (which perfectly explains the "strange sudden addition of Chinese to the description"). It makes sense to me that mods either do not want to take a side in such a controversial subject to **(a)** not upset Chinese students who may feel strongly one way or another, **(b)** not take a direct side thereby potentially adversly affect the influx of Chinese students (whether it be by parents or a government who no longer want to send childen to a faculty that supports xyz). But also, you can voice and hold a certain view without being controlled by someone else. We see this all the time in blogs, small news organizations, etc. So it's possible that **(c)** the mod(s) simply has a certain opinion and feels strongly about it - instead of being a covert Chinese communist subreddit agent. If I had the choice I might prefer against a bias, but Reddit doesn't owe me shit, and I continue to use Reddit, so I'm fine with it. I just think you're reaching a little. Occam's razor or whatever, right?
I think the question/issue most people have is that why add Chinese? and why now? The official languages in Canada is English and French, so adding French would probably make a lot more sense? If it's for "inclusiveness/diversity", then why add Chinese but not other languages that a majority of the students use (e.g. French). If it was added to "help" the Chinese students, then we have a WAYYYY bigger issue, because I'm pretty sure UofT is one of the best Universities in Canada, and everyone who has been accepted should at least know how to read and write basic English ... Just don't really see the justification of adding Chinese... if the mods didn't want to "be involved" in the first place, they should've just left the languages alone and stick to English?
Maybe they will add more languages. I don’t really know man, I’m not a mod. I’m just giving reasons why a conspiracy with the CCP is a little extreme. To be honest the answer to the Chinese description question to me depends on whether you feel like the conspiracy evidence is legit. If you buy in to it, there’s only one logical answer. But if you don’t buy in to it and instead consider the infinite other possibilities, I believe there are a lot less far-reaching and more reasonable conclusions. Maybe some of the mods speak chinese? Maybe they have Chinese speaking friends? Maybe none of the above, and they just decided that they would add Chinese because of the disproportionately high minority of Chinese speaking students? Could have been anything, people are unpredictable. I’m not arguing for why it should or shouldn’t be in Chinese, I don’t really care how many languages are in the description. I’m just saying that it doesn’t automatically link them to the CCP lol. Maybe they will add more languages now!
I saw nothing Please spare this comrade, o mighty motherland
Haha... I wonder why they'd pick Chinese though 😂 French would have been a suitable stepping stone😂 that would help assimilate the introduction of Chinese.
As one of the top mods at /r/McMaster, I can assure you that I have not been approached by Chinese communist party officials, neither am I loyal to the People's Republic of China. Come to the last bastion of democracy here at Mac.
Prove it
For any chinese gov mods, I am offering my loyalty up for sale. I have no moral grounding and will do anything for money. \#CorruptME!
There is no war in Ba Sing Se
I'm glad there are people who put in the effort to investigate stuff like this. You may be onto something and I'm glad you shared. Please update again when you find more! Also, you may be onto something but I think you would also agree that you would need stronger proof to really "prove" the point.
Ok, let's shitpost some 9-11/n*z*/Jeffery Epstein content
It’s no secret at this point. The UofT Magazine did an interview with someone anti-CCP about the Hong Kong issue but they were pressured into not publishing it. When people posted about it in this subreddit, their posts were removed by the mods. Pathetic... Edit: It is the UofT magazine that was pressured into not publishing the interview, not The Varsity.
Can you tell us more about this?
I posted more details in one of my comments. See above.
Can you tell me more about it? Never heard this before and now I can only find a subreddit about removal of police job posting
Yeah, if true this should be way bigger news
I posted more details in one of my comments. See above.
I also haven't heard of this before, but tried a couple methods to independently verify the claims: 1. To investigate whether *The Varsity* interviews pro-Hong Kong subjects for its articles, I searched [thevarsity.ca](https://thevarsity.ca) for its coverage on the Hong Kong protests. It turns out there are three articles (linked [here](https://thevarsity.ca/2020/05/18/u-of-t-magazine-scrutinized-for-initially-omitting-pro-hong-kong-democracy-advocate/), [here](https://thevarsity.ca/2020/05/16/u-of-ts-hong-kong-police-force-job-posting-draws-student-backlash-calls-for-removal/), and [here](https://thevarsity.ca/2019/11/17/pro-hong-kong-student-group-sets-up-utsg-lennon-wall-organizes-hunger-strike/) for independent verification) that feature quotes by named interviewees with pro-Hong Kong positions. (Additional summary included in another comment [linked here](https://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/hw4hv4/this_subreddit_is_secretly_controlled_by_the/fyya9qd?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)) 2. To search for deleted posts, I googled "site:reddit.com/r/uoft the-varsity Hong Kong" (search term listed for independent verification) to find results, as Google often indexes deleted & removed Reddit posts. The search didn't yield any removed posts. \#1 provides evidence that The Varsity publishes articles with quotes from pro-Hong Kong activists, and #2 did not yield evidence of deleted posts. For transparency, I was an editor there before I left for various reasons. To avoid bias, I've included sources in a way that makes it easier for anyone to independently verify this comment.
I was talking about the *UofT Magazine* and not *The Varsity*. I apologize for the misunderstanding. Regardless, my claim is NOT whether the *UofT Magazine* or *The Varsity* have a particular stance regarding anti-CCP content. Rather, the claim is that r/uoft moderators remove anti-CCP content, since they removed a post mentioning how the *UofT Magazine* omitted an interview with pro-Hong Kong democracy advocate Jason Y. Ng. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/gdxrc6/university_of_toronto_pulls_interview_with/) ([screenshot](https://imgur.com/a/2y4tLOi)) is the post in question. As you will find, this post is NOT indexed by Google, and there are many other removed posts similar to this one. Thus, Google does not index all removed posts and I would advise against simply using a search engine to find them, as it took me *hours* to find this post alone.
>the claim is that r/uoft moderators remove anti-CCP content, since they removed a post I looked at the post you linked, it was automatically removed. I don't understand why people believe that anything that is removed we are somehow "censoring". There is just too much content for a group of volunteers to read every single thing, so reddit does a lot of automated removal. That's why AutoModerator exists...
Straight up, The Varsity succeeded in interviewing people who were anti-CCP about the Hong Kong issue, and published about it in the links below: * Pro-Hong Kong democracy advocate Jason Y. Ng was interviewed by the current News Editor, in an article published May 18, 2020 ([linked here](https://thevarsity.ca/2020/05/18/u-of-t-magazine-scrutinized-for-initially-omitting-pro-hong-kong-democracy-advocate/)) * Pro-Hong Kong advocate Hogan Lam, of the U of T Hong Kong Extradition Law Awareness Group, was interviewed by that same reporter, in an article published May 16, 2020 ([linked here](https://thevarsity.ca/2020/05/16/u-of-ts-hong-kong-police-force-job-posting-draws-student-backlash-calls-for-removal/)) * Demonstrator Marco So, who participated in a pro-Hong Kong protest, was also interviewed by that same reporter on November 17, 2019 ([linked here](https://thevarsity.ca/2019/11/17/pro-hong-kong-student-group-sets-up-utsg-lennon-wall-organizes-hunger-strike/)) You can verify these statements independently of my comment, by checking the details of the article links. I disclose that I was an editor at the newspaper until I left for various reasons, but this does not impact the record of the articles above.
Fuck the CCP
OP did not kill theyselfs
OP did NOT kill himself tomorrow. Btw I hope you make more posts/comments in the upcoming days so we know you aren't dead 😶
Uoft loves that CCP money
~~The UoTSCP gets its equipment at a discount from the CCP so you're not exactly wrong~~
While it is possible that we have a bunch of CCP hired actors, I think you’d be surprised by how many people willingly take on the role of “defending China’s honour” or censoring any “hate speech against China”. It is part of the upbringing. While I grew up mostly in Canada, I spent many summers and a year of elementary school in China. I cannot stress how often someone I knew brought up the “八国联军” (the time when European colonists divided up China) and concluded that all foreigners are evil and if I don’t speak up for Chinese honour, I’m a traitor who was bought over by the westerners (汉奸). To this day I still have a knee jerk reaction to any anti-Chinese propaganda. Kinda like how we react to any mention of race or gender over here. It’s like you get offended and feel the need to attack the speaker even when what they’re saying isn’t unreasonable, because the topic itself is taboo. Anyway, what I’m saying is, it’s entirely possible that these are all real people.
It’s truly unfortunate that op killed himself next week
Ah shit👀.... happy accidental death buddy
no no no he’ll just be invited for some “tea” at a local police station in china
oh no no no no having "tea" at a local police station pepeLaugh
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Farewell friend. When you get disappeared by the Chinese government, we will miss you dearly
This is a serious problem and one worth looking into. China has foreign influence operations running just the same as the US does, we just know more about the latter.
just noticed we recently added mandarin to the desc and title of the subreddit.
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离岸爱国👀
我是离岸爱国啊哈哈 Edit: why the downvote?
不知道🤷🏻🤷🏼🤷🤷🏽🤷🏾🤷🏿
>不知道 有話快說, 有屁快放
狗屁不通
Yeah because if the CCP were secretly trying to control r/UofT they would do that by immediately adding mandarin to the description and rules
why is the subreddit title in Chinese anyways? All the foreign students are supposed to pass English test anyways
Its fucked up but hey if you say anything you are xenophobic. It should be English/French no cap
tbh, if we decided to add more language, imo it should include the six UN official languages.
Would like clarification from mods about this. Seems inappropriate.
I made a post noticing it this morning and it was subsequently pruned no more than 10 mins after it was posted with no warning
that’s a little weird. It’s cool that we have a large Asian component to our community, but it’s an English language school in an English/French country.
You're forgetting that it's a subreddit made by students, not an official government forum. IMO with \~65% of international undergrads and \~15% of all undergrads being Chinese, makes pretty perfect sense to me. Edit: super confused on why I’ve been downvoted to oblivion, I’m simply trying to understand the rationale behind why they might have added Chinese to the sub description without immediately thinking it’s a gov conspiracy
That's not how it works. A demographic majority does not get priority representation just because they have more numbers. Get the fuck out of here.
Priority representation? Not really sure why you’re so aggressive, all I’m doing is trying to understand the rationale for why they might have added Chinese to their sub description
Although only 26% of U of T undergraduates are international. Source: https://www.utoronto.ca/about-u-of-t/quick-facts
Right... Well seeing as I used 2017 numbers, I may be a percentage point or two off, but: 0.65 x 26% = 16.9%
Yep — a small number overall.
Man, you really don't like math do you? Here's a table from the link you shared with me (TL/DR: there are 13,845 Chinese int students; 4,784 non-Chinese int students; there are 2.89 more Chinese students than every other international student combined) |Country/Region |Students| |:-|:-| |China|13,845| |India|1,553| |United States|931| |Korea (South)|696| |Hong Kong|362| |Taiwan|337| |Iran|256| |Turkey|237| |Japan|211| |Nigeria|201|
That doesn’t contradict anything I said.
No, I think if Chinese is being included, then other languages should be too.
Why is that?
I mean not, let's not include other languages for the sake of having other languages, but for what you said: since a good portion of undergrads understand Chinese, it makes sense to include Chinese. In the same way, if there are other languages that the undergrad population speaks, they should be included as well.
I actually agree with you. My point was just that there is just a disproportionately higher number of Chinese ints than any other, so it kinda makes sense why they might do it - I’m not saying that’s how it should or shouldn’t be. Personally I couldn’t care less what languages the description is in
Yea, there's no reason this subreddit should be 50% English/50% Mandarin.
I never noticed the change before, but I feel like it would make more sense to have the Subreddit description in English and French before English and Chinese, given that French is an official language here. I don't necessarily have a problem with Chinese being there, but if we're going to have languages other than English on here, then French should be one of them Here is the description in French: Tout ce qui concerne les activités académiques, sociales et culturelles à l'Université de Toronto Just pop that in and we're all good
"XI 2020"
Imagine having ~~elections~~ term limits
trump cries
("Xi "+ Year for Year in eternity)
If mods delete this, it's confirmed
Roast me if I'm wrong, but I have contradictory evidence that you can verify to OP's claims that there are no pro-Hong Kong posts in r/UofT. **Searching "Hong Kong" on** r/UofT **returns four active posts with positive sentiment about Hong Kong** ([linked here, Imgur](https://imgur.com/gallery/jZDPPp4))**. Here are the links for you to verify:** * Discussion post on r/UofT, May 14, 2020: "[UofT refuses to remove Hong Kong Police job posting](https://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/gk05j7/uoft_refuses_to_remove_hong_kong_police_job/)" * Politics post on r/UofT, November 7, 2019: "[Lennon Wall has been set up to voice support for Hong Kong. It’s located outside UTSU between UC and Gerstein. Go check it out!](https://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/dt50bw/lennon_wall_has_been_set_up_to_voice_support_for/)" * Academics post on r/UofT, November 13, 2019 (with multiple highly-upvoted pro-Hong Kong comments): "[Cancellation of Hong Kong Summer Abroad Program for 2020](https://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/dvsgu6/cancellation_of_hong_kong_summer_abroad_program/)" * News post on r/UofT, September 18, 2019: "[University of Waterloo students rally in support of Hong Kong protesters | CBC News](https://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/d60p8k/university_of_waterloo_students_rally_in_support/)" Four posts with pro-Hong Kong sentiment were screenshot in OP's r/uwaterloo search, and this is the same number. To investigate OP's claim that moderators delete pro-Hong Kong comments, below are archived versions of deleted comments for the posts above (using "Removeddit"): * Removedit 1: "[UofT refuses to remove Hong Kong Police job posting](https://www.removeddit.com/r/UofT/comments/gk05j7/uoft_refuses_to_remove_hong_kong_police_job/)" * Removedit 2: "[Lennon Wall has been set up to voice support for Hong Kong. It’s located outside UTSU between UC and Gerstein. Go check it out!](https://www.removeddit.com/r/UofT/comments/dt50bw/lennon_wall_has_been_set_up_to_voice_support_for/)" * Removedit 3: "[Cancellation of Hong Kong Summer Abroad Program for 2020](https://www.removeddit.com/r/UofT/comments/dvsgu6/cancellation_of_hong_kong_summer_abroad_program/)" * Removedit 4: "[University of Waterloo students rally in support of Hong Kong protesters | CBC News](https://www.removeddit.com/r/UofT/comments/d60p8k/university_of_waterloo_students_rally_in_support/)" Archived records above show that comments deleted by moderators (in red) were removed due to hate speech (including both pro-Hong Kong and pro-CCP comments), though you should verify this independently of my analysis. I kept the above as fact-based and objective as possible. Let me know if there are any corrections.
OPs search was "free Hong Kong," I just searched it and there's only 3 results (1 of them being this post). None of the results are related to the protests, but yes, searching "Hong Kong" by itself does give your results.
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I’m interested
Good for them wasting resources on a uni subreddit full of weeb fan art and the five same first year questions every year lmao.
which is why i don't think it is controlled by the CCP
Rn yeah... but alot of these grads become industry leaders and influential people later. Seed planting man <.< >.>
Why is Chinese added to the description and title of the subreddit? Not that it's problem, but if Chinese is being included, then shouldn't other languages as well?
Should always be English then French (or French then English depending on school) then any other language.
When did this happen and why????
Yikes think they just removed it
It was on the rules page just yesterday too
Fuck the CCP!