But why would any legitimate app ask for a permission for which there is practically no legitimate use? I thought Rednote was a social media thing, not a Caller application, so why does it need to make and manage phone calls on my behalf?

What else is it doing that it doesn't need to ask permissions for? Please think critically.

And yes before someone mentions It, yes this can be used for getting a phone number automatically, but It can just prompt for my phone number (which it doesn't need anyway, unless you post), no legitimate need to ask for such a broad permission.

More to the point, why tf are y'all so chill about this? Surely this is like literally a sign of malware 101? Like I'm only a compsci & cybersec grad so what do I know, but this to me is equivalent to opening "not a virus.exe" from "veryrealmoviedownload.com". Literally first malware I got as a kid on Android was like this.

I thought awareness of this was pretty commonplace. The below image is literally a Facebook-tier meme that even grampa probably knows.

Are y'all just that desperate for a win? Sorry, good things don't actually happen in our hell world.

Is this a normal thing for apps to do these days? I don't use any other SM apart from Lemmy and only F-Droid FOSS apps so i'd legitimately like to know. Does tiktok also prompt for making and managing phone calls?

Thousands of people download this shit too.

Chinese Rednote users actually seem to have a relatively utopian view of the US. I'm seeing alot of posts asking if it's true that most Americans can afford to own a house and being corrected by americans in the comments; stuff like that.

Also they really like Luigi Mangione lol, even before americans came into the app.

I'll look around to see if I can find those show segments online, but as for 'are they panicking?', mass media has a vested interest in influencing public opinion (that's effectively the only reason a private business bothers with news) and therefore control over public opinion. If the people who own the show and the channel give orders, the writers and actors probably won't risk getting fired. (oh, and obligatory quick clip to demonstrate what ownership looks like, for those who haven't seen it: "This Is Extremely Dangerous to Our Democracy")

So, with that in mind, recall the reactions of almost all mass media to the UnitedHealthcare assassination: consistent critique and denouncement. Surely this wasn't how all the news anchors felt, given how positive general opinion was! The people with ownership and executive power over these media channels obviously don't want the idea of citizens shooting the dangerously rich and powerful to get popular, so we saw their ideas echoed in all the news.

Compare that to here: media channels outside of China don't really want that counter-narrative to gain traction. It goes against their inherent interest of influencing public opinion, it's a competitor which all the biggest media companies can agree to call bad news. So I have no doubt this unexpected and surprising turn would make them panic.

edit: the clips I found from Colbert and The Daily Show were a surprisingly mixed bag. For example, this Daily Show clip comes off more as a satirical jab at the US than any panic.

As of at least 2023, Chinese public attitudes towards the LGBTQI community continues to become increasingly favorable.

Literally all that "article" says is that China has its issues but is making progress in the right direction.

The important thing is that LGBT people in China can and do currently live free, safe, and open lives, and that the state is consistently moving towards providing queer people with further right and protections.

Yeah they have a long way to go like most of the world; wish they'd just copy Cuba and the GDR on that.

Also you'd be better served with a specific documentary like this one instead of just lazily linking to wikipedia.

A crowd sourced encyclopedia is only as trustworthy as the editors that control the page. I wouldn't trust wikipedia for anything to do with geopolitics or current affairs any more than I would trust any other mainstream media source.