Informational hegemony is not about persuasion. It is about pre-structuring reality itself.
https://x.com/nxt888/status/1999803626790006970
This is one of the most accurate descriptions of power in the digital age I have seen on this platform.
You are right on the core point:
Informational hegemony is not about persuasion.
It is about pre-structuring reality itself.
Once you control the architecture of attention, communication, encryption, and credibility, you no longer need overt repression.
People police themselves.
Resistance dissolves before it coheres.
Dissent becomes noise.
This is precisely why the idea of "private ownership" of social media is a fiction.
Platforms are not neutral tools.
They are strategic terrain.
Which is where the China–U.S. contrast matters.
The United States allowed informational infrastructure to be captured by nominally "private" actors, then fused those actors with intelligence agencies, defense contractors, data brokers, and security law.
The result is what you described: a soft panopticon that masquerades as freedom.
China drew a different lesson.
China concluded early that information space is no less critical than airspace, seaports, or energy grids.
Outsourcing it would be equivalent to outsourcing sovereignty itself.
That is not paranoia.
That is statecraft.
When Western commentators call this "authoritarian," what they are really saying is that China refused to allow foreign platforms, foreign intelligence ecosystems, and foreign capital to mediate its internal reality.
The irony is that the U.S. model is far closer to what you describe as total control.
Because in the American system:
Surveillance is privatized and therefore deniable.
Narrative enforcement is outsourced to algorithms.
Censorship is framed as moderation.
Compliance is incentivized, not ordered.
And yes, the X rebrand fits perfectly into this logic.
"Rogue platform" aesthetics are cheap.
True loss of informational hegemony would trigger immediate, open confrontation with the state.
What we see instead is managed turbulence.
Your point about AI is the key one.
AI is not just a productivity tool.
It is the next layer of reality definition.
Who trains the models.
On what data.
With which constraints.
Under whose legal jurisdiction.
This is why the race is existential, not commercial.
And this is where China again differs fundamentally.
China is not trying to pretend AI is neutral.
It is trying to integrate it into a coherent civilizational strategy, one that treats information as power and power as responsibility.
The U.S. still pretends this is a market problem.
It is not.
It is a sovereignty problem.
Carsten, you are right: informational hegemony is decisive.
The issue is not whether informational hegemony exists.
The issue is who admits it, and who hides it behind myths of freedom while exercising it anyway.
China chose to name it.
The U.S. chose to deny it while perfecting it.
posted by Satish Sharma at
02:10
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