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Information operations directed at Hong Kong

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Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#341

Post by adamsea »

ospider wrote: post #237
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.

Native Chinese here. Hacker news have been a great place to learn new things to me for 5 years. But the political views on Hacker news are somewhat naive to me. It seems that the Chinese Government is always evil and wrong, but why haven't the government collapsed after so many years if there were no people supporting them? People in China, at least those millions people who are able to cross the Great Firewall, know…

Don’t worry we criticize the U.S. government too ;-)

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#342

Post by dang »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #304
dang wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I sought out information about you to judge your biases. I found that you're... I don't know how you could think that it's ok to pull a move like that on HN, but it's not ok. Specifically, checking up on and bringing in someone's personal circumstances, which they didn't choose to mention, in order to use them as ammunition an argument is not ok on HN. Please don't do that. I'm glad that you didn't publish the deta…

The information is in their profile, just one click away and you don't even have to leave HN. Don't you think we ought to be vigilant of these biases when discussing the very matter of whether or not these biases are subverting the discussion?

Even if it's one click away, it isn't your prerogative to cross the line and introduce it as ammunition in an argument. That way lies significant degradation of the community, and I'm surprised that you stooped to it here. Please don't.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#343

Post by adamsea »

egdod wrote: post #317
adjkant wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police brutality, racially targeted drug operations by the CIA/FBI, and the ignoring of the AIDS crisis come to mind in the past 50 years. The civil rights act didn't magically solve everything. Those are just a few major things, plenty of others to go around.

> Police brutality Actions taken by individuals who are employed by the government--especially when such actions are explicitly illegal--hardly count as an abusive government. > racially targeted drug operations by the CIA/FBI Got a link? > ignoring of the AIDS crisis Allocation of scarce resources in a way that you personally disagree with is not the same as an abusive government.

Homie. Chill.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#344

Post by Smithalicious »

leppr wrote: post #158
mytailorisrich wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but as I mentioned it is not surprising that there is genuine support even if some of the comments may not be real. There are many Chinese living abroad. I'm thinking it may also depends on which channel you're looking at. This one is essentially a government one and so may be followed by people who tend to be sympathetic. There are also quite a few negative comments.

The format of the top comments are all similar. 20-30 words staying under the "Read more" limit, “I am X, I support China", 200-250 upvotes. Replies are argumented with links to anti-US articles. Not very subtle, this was probably just homework for the interns.

I don't know, a lot of YouTube comments are "I am X and I think Y". Usually "I am from X country and support Y country" (on national anthems and such) or "I am young and like old music".

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#345

Post by dbuder »

bouncycastle wrote: post #262
diNgUrAndI wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Even within HK there are thousands pro-police anti-protest supporters. https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/08/17/oppose-violence-save-h... Our opinions are shaped by what media are fed into our brains. I saw my friends divided into two camps because of the different media articles they read. How do you make sure you are not biased and only read what you believe? Rad more and find the opposing articles!

> Why not? Of course, Australia is a democracy so they are free to do so. The irony is that these "anti democracy" protestors are exercising their democratic right to protest! Perhaps there are probably ulterior motives for their behavior, eg. these people want to prove their loyalty to the party in order to gain a better acceptance/ranking, or there kinds of peer pressure. Others could be simply influenced by the CC…

They are certainly attending due to the direction of CCP assets.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#346

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #279
dang wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two site guidelines that apply to this. First, it's not ok to use HN primarily for political, ideological, or national battle. If a commenter is posting as you describe, we ask them to stop. Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20727426 . But by no means does it follow that a commenter behaving that way must be a sockpuppet, astroturfer, shill, spy, foreign agent, etc. That's where the second guide…

DanG, there is a book in here somewhere, or at least a substantial collection of essays, on a coherent theory of moderated speech and debate.

[deleted]

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#347

Post by xster »

yorwba wrote: post #203
kmonsen wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what is missing in most the the China and HN discussions is that HN is not blocked by the great firewall, so it is much easier for regular people living in China to participate. They will naturally have more pro-China views. Just like residents of every country will have more positive views of that country. And when that country is criticized they will be even more defensive and reflectively pro what is criti…

> HN is not blocked by the great firewall Your information is 16 days out of date: https://en.greatfire.org/news.ycombinator.com There's now a partial block where it can be accessed from some locations and not from others. That's not necessarily going to prevent "pro-China" views from appearing. People who circumvent the Great Firewall e.g. to follow celebrities on Instagram may not like the censorship, but could be…

Semi-tangential, but many Chinese tech companies just have a perma-VPN company wide and use GSuite and Google search by default. And Hacker News is a tech-leading forum (though it's not that big of a thing in China AFAIK).

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#348

Post by dang »

abacadaba wrote: post #254
dang wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two site guidelines that apply to this. First, it's not ok to use HN primarily for political, ideological, or national battle. If a commenter is posting as you describe, we ask them to stop. Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20727426 . But by no means does it follow that a commenter behaving that way must be a sockpuppet, astroturfer, shill, spy, foreign agent, etc. That's where the second guide…

Also to note, we've been hearing non-stop about puppet accounts taking over social media for the last few years. As mortal users on this and other sites, most of us don't have the tools or information available to us to reliably distinguish between puppet accounts and someone who genuinely holds stupid views. Some suspicion along these lines is to be expected.

I agree, but the suspicion is not cost-free. When people accuse each other recklessly of being astroturfers, shills, spies, or otherwise fakes, they do real damage to this community. If that becomes the culture here—which frankly it feels on the cusp of—it could kill the community. Therefore we need users to exercise some self-control and not simply vent their suspicions incontinently into the threads out of frustration at how wrong they feel someone is. If after that they still feel there's cause for suspicion, they are welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look for actual evidence.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#349

Post by luckylion »

Arn_Thor wrote: post #292
ospider wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Native Chinese here. Hacker news have been a great place to learn new things to me for 5 years. But the political views on Hacker news are somewhat naive to me. It seems that the Chinese Government is always evil and wrong, but why haven't the government collapsed after so many years if there were no people supporting them? People in China, at least those millions people who are able to cross the Great Firewall, know…

IMO the CCP gets its legitimacy to govern from its performance in some key areas: economic development and stability/security. That plays to the party's strengths, so the state-controlled media has actively promoted the view that these factors are the most important. Note how issues like the environment and health care were very much put on the back burner until public awareness and criticism reached a critical thres…

> the state-controlled media has actively promoted the view that these factors are the most important

Or those are the most important factors and that's why they are optimizing for them first. Carville's slogan for Bill Clinton was "It's the economy, stupid", and it's plausible at least. What good does a healthy environment if you don't have food to eat? What good does economic progress if you don't have security? The West has operated very similarly imho, we're just further along. Environmentalism is still fairly young, and so are today's social safety nets (well, in Europe anyway). I don't see a reason why the Chinese wouldn't follow on that route (and indeed they are starting to care for the environment more).

> In a liberal democracy, on the other hand, people expect much more responsiveness to their concerns. And people tend to value freedom of expression and freedom from suppression.

But that's only because the basic needs are generally taken care of. I don't see any liberal democracy valuing freedom over food security (en masse, certainly some happily value their freedom over the food security of others in society).

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