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Information operations directed at Hong Kong

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Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#101

Post by jrockway »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #84
isostatic wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN isn’t even blocked in China

Sometimes it is, depends on the main articles

Many years ago, I flew HKG-PVG-NRT. When I was in the lounge at Shanghai I opened up my laptop to relax and peruse HN. I typed in the URL and ... nothing. "Stupid Linux WiFi, sigh," I thought to myself. After a bit more investigation, I realized that it was only HN that didn't work. "Oh yeah..." I realized.

Fortunately, HN was also blocked where I worked at the time, so I already had a proxy set up. That worked fine. How subversive of me!

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#102

Post by ganzuul »

kryogen1c wrote: post #75

This shit is goddamn terrifying. Since when are american corporations the arbiters of accurate, international, and political, information? We just crossed the rubicon. Public, proactive action against a relatively hostile foreign power by a non-governmental entity. If this isnt proof positive we need to either bust these monopolies or completely overhaul our view of the power megacompanies wield, idk what is.

The view is being overhauled, slowly. I scantly believed myself the school presentation I did on Menwith Hill in 1999. My classmates' blank stares were removed by degrees from any understanding of the subject. Today children in school here are being taught to be suspicious of what they read on the internet, and not bully each other through the medium, yet said institution is not willing to relinquish their illusion of authority and demand that the kids think for themselves even though what remains is such a small step.

The TV series Max Headroom explored the subject over 30 years ago in quite some detail. It too was way ahead of its time. It's idea of TV viewership democracy is almost benign, compared to the reality of manufactured public opinion that we are waking up to.

Another easily accessible but rage-teasing production is a three-part documentary called The Century of The Self. I recommend it warmly.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#103

Post by guerrilla »

umvi wrote: post #100
brightball wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not from the government, we call it marketing. :-)

Unless it's from a media outlet in which case we call it "agenda"

Nah, it's still called propaganda. The agenda is what is promoted, not the product nor technique of the promotion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_through_media

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#104

Post by Canada »

kypro wrote: post #62
tmux314 wrote: post #42

Good on Twitter and Facebook. On top of blocking thousands of websites (which includes Facebook, Google, Twitter) China's government employs thousands of government employees just to purge even the most mild criticism of the CCP on Weibo [1]. They also employ tens of thousands to export their propaganda overseas, using sock puppet accounts to push their worldview[2]. And their worldview is fiercely anti-democratic. T…

> The Internet cannot remain free if we allow governments to use their power to control narratives and suppress the truth. US-based Social media companies are not ideal judges, but at least they publish their methodology. Would it be too cynical to suggest the only reason they're doing this is because they don't operate in mainland China? Do you think they would write a report like this if they found the US governmen…

> Do you think they would write a report like this if they found the US government trying to push a pro-democracy narrative into China instead?

Yes, they would. No doubt about it.

> This puts them on the right side of US regulators where as exposing a US propaganda campaign, not so much.

Which regulator do you think would object to such a revelation?

> It's not about truth, or what's morally right, it's about money.

Yeah, that's often true, but if it's true that Hong Kongers living under a system where due process is respected is also what's good for "money", then "money" and what's morally right happen to be aligned this time.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#105

Post by spion »

I can't help but think that shadow-flagging these accounts would be more useful than blocking or deleting them.

Blocking/deletion looks like censorship, like someone is deliberately trying to hide something you're not supposed to know.

Leaving the content available, but flagging it as suspicious and linking to more information why its suspicious seems a lot more effective.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#106

Post by tomatocracy »

rjf72 wrote: post #92
jazzyjackson wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it is certainly a willful misrepresention of the protest movement as a whole, to share the window smashing and say "radical people of hong kong" "complete violent behavior" - the context is peaceful revolution, the context is riot cops showing up and applying violent repression of crowds. You're asking questions of concern without taking a side by the way, suggesting that maybe the mainlanders are right to see t…

I try to not take sides, but rather to simply evaluate evidence. As the evidence shifts in one direction or another, so do my views. To see why judging issues by the groups involved instead of evidence, one doesn't need to go back far. The Iraq war ended up costing hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, trillions of dollars, and helped accelerate a rapid destabilization of the entire Mideast setting the stage of th…

This is a very one-sided view on the media and political environment leading up to the Iraq war, at least from my perspective in the UK. Much of the mainstream media were very much against the prospect of the war from the beginning. The claims of WMD were widely disbelieved or minimised by large parts of the media. It triggered one of the largest demonstrations/marches in recent years.

It was one of, if not THE most divisive and unpopular decision(s) the Blair government made, even at the time.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#107

Post by proaralyst »

isostatic wrote: post #68
davedx wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very curious which entities get blocked by this policy. Fox News? The Telegraph?

it’s in TFA “This policy will apply to news media entities that are either financially or editorially controlled by the state. It has been informed by established academic and civil society leaders in this space. Sources include Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, Freedom House, the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index, the European Journalism Centre’s Media Landscapes Report, the Committee to Prote…

The BBC is financially controlled by the state. The Telegraph has nothing to do with the state, however.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#108

Post by tathougies »

munificent wrote: post #76
kelnos wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt HN is even on the CCP's radar. Not only are we a low-value target, we're much harder to subvert.

> we're much harder to subvert. Surely, "I'm confident I'm not gullible" is the primary risk factor for actually being gullible.

Well, a Chinese bot told him he's not gullible, so he has that going for him.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#109

Post by Aperocky »

ryanchankh wrote: post #22

HongKonger here. I have some friends in China posting similar anti-protest posts on WeChat social media. It's like the news they read has a completely different story than what it's being told in legitimate new sources. The problem of fake news does become very apparent, and I hope people in China can eventually gain awareness or at least start to question the validity of their news sources.

It's not necessarily fake, just very selective. When all you hear/see are videos of molotov cocktail, beating the reporter up for having a pro-police tshirt, and british/american flag waving (All of which did happen). You'll have a pretty different image of the protestors.

I have to say this selection bias exist on the other end as well, perhaps not as blatant as mainland, where the girl gotten her eye shot or the triad beating people wasn't shown at all.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#110

Post by sword_smith »

kypro wrote: post #62
tmux314 wrote: post #42

Good on Twitter and Facebook. On top of blocking thousands of websites (which includes Facebook, Google, Twitter) China's government employs thousands of government employees just to purge even the most mild criticism of the CCP on Weibo [1]. They also employ tens of thousands to export their propaganda overseas, using sock puppet accounts to push their worldview[2]. And their worldview is fiercely anti-democratic. T…

> The Internet cannot remain free if we allow governments to use their power to control narratives and suppress the truth. US-based Social media companies are not ideal judges, but at least they publish their methodology. Would it be too cynical to suggest the only reason they're doing this is because they don't operate in mainland China? Do you think they would write a report like this if they found the US governmen…

> Would it be too cynical to suggest the only reason they're doing this is because they don't operate in mainland China? Do you think they would write a report like this if they found the US government trying to push a pro-democracy narrative into China instead?

Excellent point. Snowden's revelations show that US tech companies have been threatened to comply with the three-letter agencies' demands. The US govenrment already has a lot of leverage over these companies, so they don't need to use these more primitive methods.

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