sicklemode

Thank you, and you're welcome.

If you ever come across this problem again, this is how you can attempt to resolve it:

Open the image in GIMP > Click "Colors" tab > Click "Color to Alpha" > Choose the color you need to get rid of (in this case, black) > Manipulate the "Opacity threshold" slider until you get the desired effect > Post your newly edited image :)

Here is a small catalog of content to help you compare the Xinjiang in your mind with the Xinjiang in the real world.

1. Western Media's Baseless Xinjiang Claims 外媒的涉疆谎言 Xinjiang Cotton 🇨🇳 Unseen China
2. Western Media's Xinjiang Lies Exposed 外媒新疆谎言大揭露 🇨🇳 Unseen China
3. The Xinjiang they don't want you to see... (CW:Meat {for the vegans})

Should you choose to engage in good faith, further discussion is welcomed once you have reviewed the content.

Living in China is always my go-to, especially for showing liberals the big bad bogeyman they're so afraid of.

I shall remember this going forward

Oof, that's an L for me

Perhaps they should move to Mastodon instead. CIA regulated social media is impossible to use on the right side of history reliably.

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't Chinese phones just as bad for privacy? Since most if not all run on Android. Shouldn't we be de-googling and go for GrapheneOS?

This is something to consider, certainly. What I do know is Huawei has developed its own operating system called HarmonyOS (proprietary, and we know proprietary models are less advantageous than FOSS ones) that it's been integrating into its products (and, from what I understand, shares no code with AndroidOS). I can see other relevant Chinese tech companies doing the same, if not eventually settling on a universal standard. That being said, I would trust a device running HarmonyOS more than a device running AndroidOS. I've not delved terribly deep into mobile operating systems, so forgive me for being a little bit lacking in this area at the moment.

You are absolutely right, though. We should be de-googling and moving to something much more secure (like GrapheneOS). There's always room to improve OpSec.

Do you have any experience with those? I was thinking of getting one of their Kamvas screen tablets on my next payday, probably the Pro 16 4K version.

Not personally, but I've heard nothing but good things from friends who own tablets.

What's Hexbear's hosting status? Presumably the servers live in a country that won't respond to a US/UK/EU court order or subpoena?

This I do not know, hence why I say reasonably sovereign and not completely sovereign. I have been worried about this for some time now. I seriously hope @CARCOSA@hexbear.net and the admin team have contingencies and hosting options to pivot to outside the jurisdiction of all Western countries (it would be total heaven to host from China if we can), because I absolutely see the US empire trying to seize the domain, server hardware, or whatever else sooner or later. I believe China offers some rather cheap hosting, but I forget the exact details about which companies.

De-Westernize your technology as much as possible. Consider going with Huawei or Xiaomi or OnePlus for phones (or stuff like laptops, which there's also Lenovo (seek out a model that is made to support Linux)), Aliexpress for shopping, and Huion for art-related hardware. China's always producing better and better shit, and they very well may extend their satellite mobile and (potentially) internet services to the global market. Keep in mind protectionism is escalating in the West, so expect interference and sabotage at some point.

Those who are on Windows and Mac, consider getting something really cheap like a raspberry pi or dual-booting a Linux distro and slowly developing the skillset to leverage it to your everyday needs, then start carrying your workflow over gradually until the other two are obsolete.

Especially keep an eye out for 100% indigenous Chinese technologies like CPUs, RAM, GPUs, etc etc. Shit the West can't backdoor in the production process because they have no control over it.

Those of us who are already here on Hexbear, which is basically reasonably sovereign territory not controlled by the CIA, are already in a much better position than fucking Reddit.

For videos, consider using something like https://www.bilibili.tv/en/ if you can't afford to host or trust any existing PeerTube instance. Odysee is technically an option too (based on the LBRY protocol, decentralized video hosting), but it's currently full (and I mean full) of chud content (and possibly nsfw shit).

For file hosting I highly recommend something like IPFS if you want to guarantee file authenticity and make it impossible for someone else to censor (you control when and for how long you host the file). IPFS has been used to host a copy of Wikipedia in the past (yes, can host static sites) when the Turkish government (I believe it was?) basically yeeted the site in an act of censorship. The latter is just an example, nobody should ever rely on NATOpedia for anything political or historical, at all.

Those of you who feel are lacking in technological warfare literacy, you can follow the news at https://www.eff.org/ to understand the trends the state has used and is using to undermine the proletariat.

The West wants to be able to easily rug pull you, so make it a big ass fucking chore for them to do so.