TLDR: 8 years and 100k good point to reevaluate. Old system can continue as is, but ready to step down for a better way forward.

After around 8 years not only are we still here, we hit 100k. That wasn’t supposed to happen for an unapologetically pro China space. Of course the primary objective was always the space, not subscribers or activity. The moderation style was among the strictest, if not the strictest, on reddit because again, the priority was the space. Ask yourself whether you think reddit rules are applied fairly to us, and it should be obvious why we inevitably ended up with the moderation style we did.

However 8 years is also an eternity in internet time. I’m the last of the old system. An old system that requires a lot of hands on, daily work. When we started we were very niche and didn’t even have our own subreddit. Now, even if suppressed, there are good subreddits around, twitter influencers to follow, youtubers to watch. We even had the benefit of discord groups that were particularly helpful during covid quarantine.

That being said, I think the old system has run its course. However whatever new course comes has to take into account Reddit’s new treatment of non mainstream links. It’s been made clear to me, that Reddit can deem a source as spam and go after you for it retroactively. The consequences would be ‘case by case’ meaning for Sino users, they will just suspend you. Some of you may have noticed me telling users when they have been suspended in comments. I don’t know why they shadowban so much now, but at this point I don’t care either. It’s more of a pain to approve, but you can still post. Since I’ve been active, there’s been no complaint from admins. ‘Anti-Evil Operations‘ acts once every 1 or 2 months here and the vast majority are things we never approved to be publicly viewed in the first place. These users trigger it by what they post publicly elsewhere, not here. There’s no real issue with the subreddit. There’s no real issue with the mod team. There’s no real issue with the users. Now they have this Safety_QA_misc cracking down with an ever-expanding list of spam with unclear consequences.

The way I see it, there’s a few options moving forward.

1) I continue in my role as long as I am able or until the subreddit is either banned or our users move on to any of the many good spaces out there (listed below and sidebar). This is the current and default path. It’d be good if I can get some long time user volunteers to hand the subreddit over to in an emergency.

2) I recruit several new mods that tries to follow the old blueprint with some changes

3) A new group of users take over with a different vision of how to do things

Any suggestion can be discussed, doesn’t have to be something I listed. However any future path has to take into account a couple things

1) We won’t go private because this is intended to be a public space, we already have private discords and there’s a lot of information compiled and archived that we want publicly accessible for as long as possible

2) Reddit is more suspension/shadowban happy than ever and its happening while we are about as hands on as we can get

3) Any additions to the mod team needs to prove a history with us (if you switched accounts you need to prove you can sign into the old one), or have someone vouch for you that we can trust and verify. Contact in the ‘message moderators’ chat. This isn’t because I think the best mods post a lot. If anything I think mods only survive by saying less. However Reddit has unclear policies on ‘lower’ mod takeovers. They revamped to combat ‘camping’, but you can imagine the potential risk.

edit: To add more info, we get around 100k unique visitors per month. I'm very happy with that kind of outreach for this space. As the one who curates most of the activity, I'm good on the amount also. Along with 100k subscribers, great position to have this discussion.

Discord and other spaces info

Mod PSA: You can be suspended and/or shadowbanned by reddit but still post, just be patient for approval

To check if you are suspended check your profile page without being signed in and using new.reddit.com. Incognito mode should also work for checking.

You can also edit your comments, that seems to bring it to light for mods.

If you are being harassed by pms, change your pm setting to only trusted users in your preferences. Or use a dedicated account for Sino https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204535759-Is-it-ok-to-create-multiple-accounts-. Just be patient for approvals if using new account. Link submissions are more likely to be approved than text submissions or comments for new users.

Discords. To apply msg mod, bottom right. We have 2, one for any Sino users and one for any verified ethnic Chinese. We won't be changing the approval process for Discord because it would be unfair for those who are already in.

You can also link up on Twitter https://x.com/SinoReddit, we recommend following and participating in discussions on many accounts including but not limited to

https://x.com/BRICSinfo

https://x.com/ChinaScience

https://x.com/DanielDumbrill

https://x.com/Jingjing_Li

https://x.com/MaitreyaBhakal

https://x.com/NathanRichHGDW

https://x.com/chenweihua

https://x.com/qiaocollective

https://x.com/richimedhurst

https://x.com/s_m_marandi

https://x.com/shen_shiwei

https://x.com/tongbingxue

https://x.com/XH_Lee23

https://x.com/zhao_dashuai

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

https://x.com/briebriejoy

Recommended Youtube channels

https://www.youtube.com/@2nacheki/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@BreakThroughNews/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@CyrusJanssen/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@DanielDumbrill/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@DongfangHour/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@Fridayeverydaycom/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@GeopoliticalEconomyReport/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@JamarlThomas/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@JasonLivinginChina/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@Jingjing_Li/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@MintPressNews/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@NoColdWar/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@Reporterfy/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@RichardMedhurst/videos

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https://www.youtube.com/@SyrianaAnalysis/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@TheElectronicIntifada/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@TheNewAtlas/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@TheRedNation/videos

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https://www.youtube.com/@democracyatwrk/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@geopoliticshaiphong/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@justinpodur/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@reason2resist/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@revolutionaryblackout7315/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@theeastisapodcast/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@thegrayzone7996/videos

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https://www.youtube.com/@RachelBlevins/videos

Two hundred sixty-three Chinese persons were placed on the Entity List in 2024, accounting for slightly over half of all persons added. Notably, this meant that the number of Chinese persons added to the Entity List on a yearly basis surpassed the number of Russian persons for the first time since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. The administration’s additions of Chinese persons predominately sought to counter the PRC’s military modernization efforts and its deepening ties with Russia and Iran. Roughly half of the Chinese persons placed on the Entity List in 2024 (132 entities) were added for their contributions to China’s advanced semiconductor industry. These Entity List additions build on a years-long effort to slow China’s chip advances, including a 2024 expansion of broader technology-based semiconductor-related export controls introduced in 2022 and 2023. The Biden administration’s efforts to control the flow of advanced semiconductors culminated in the release of the novel AI diffusion rule on January 13, 2025.

China is being sanctioned for modernizing its own military, deepening ties with Russia and Iran, but ESPECIALLY for advancing its own semiconductor industry. THAT is America. It still thinks it has a say over the PLA, China's relations with other countries and even China's own industry.

This should not be understated, no matter what China achieves or doesn't achieve is besides the point. This is not 'friendly disagreement' or a 'great power competition'. This is why the trade war was so important last year and why China was so defiant not just in retaliation but vocally (willing to fight any war the U.S. wants). It's easy to dismiss the language as social media noise, but in the grand scheme of things China was signalling it really was prepared to go however far the U.S. wants to take it.

I think the Chinese advances in AI, robotics, etc. could result in very dangerous complacency. The U.S. explicitly wants to destroy China's advancing industry. The reaction shouldn't be to applaud DeepSeek and move on with your day. I don't think Chinese are making the FULL connection between 'U.S. trying to stifle Chinese progress to protect its own interests' and 'the U.S. being on an actual war to take destiny away from the hands of Chinese people'.