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Information operations directed at Hong Kong

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Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#401

Post by echevil »

qtplatypus wrote: post #389
echevil wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to share some perspective as a native Chinese living in US for anyone interested: - Most of immigrants from China after 2000 holds pro-China views, and there's strong tendency to become more pro-China after living in US for some time, after having full exposure to US media and getting to know how things really work in US. - It's probably common to see HN accounts that comment mostly on China related issues. I do…

What is it about exposure to the US that will make someone more pro the Chinese government?

Plenty of reasons. To begin with, seeing how biased the Western media are when they report anything related to China is both appalling and disappointing. The impression of what average American has about Chinese government, Chinese people and their relation is light years away from reality.

Moreover, people immigrating to US from China tends to be more pro-democracy than average Chinese, but we got disillusioned after seeing how things worked out in American politics.

The life here is quite unsatisfactory for lots of Chinese, as there are many aspects of China making it a better place to live in compared to US. Can't speak for other people but frankly if I could have got a job with similar pay and similar workload in China, I wouldn't even hesitate for a second that I'd move back.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#402

Post by yyhhsj0521 »

qtplatypus wrote: post #389
echevil wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to share some perspective as a native Chinese living in US for anyone interested: - Most of immigrants from China after 2000 holds pro-China views, and there's strong tendency to become more pro-China after living in US for some time, after having full exposure to US media and getting to know how things really work in US. - It's probably common to see HN accounts that comment mostly on China related issues. I do…

What is it about exposure to the US that will make someone more pro the Chinese government?

Speaking from my own experience, it is probably because it is the US. If I were more exposed to say France or Germany instead, which at least to me seem to be less hypocritical, especially on international politics, I think I'd feel weaker nudging to be more pro Chinese government.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#403

Post by echevil »

solipsism wrote: post #398
echevil wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to share some perspective as a native Chinese living in US for anyone interested: - Most of immigrants from China after 2000 holds pro-China views, and there's strong tendency to become more pro-China after living in US for some time, after having full exposure to US media and getting to know how things really work in US. - It's probably common to see HN accounts that comment mostly on China related issues. I do…

When people question if an account is genuine just because they have pro-China voice, it's just confirming how hypocritical western "freedom of press" is, and pushing us towards more pro-China Firstly, do you mean "freedom of speech"? Few people here are the press. Secondly, can you elaborate on this view? I don't doubt that the situation is as you describe, but if true this shows a misunderstanding of the freedom of…

It's not just the comments but those "free independent media" as well. Having freedom of speech doesn't mean having no bias. None of the US media I've seen doesnt have strong confirmation bias towards China. And even for US domestic issues, it's still appalling to see how media could be so polarized. Even when they report truth, they'd select facts that support their views while simply ignore things that's against them. I had to say that's a big disillusionment

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#404

Post by olalonde »

adamsea wrote: post #336
olalonde wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw the comment you are referring to and it was most likely wrong. The majority of Chinese people are genuinely "pro-China" and there are vastly more regular Chinese people than professional sockpuppets. That being said, I do agree with keeping politics off HN and wish it was enforced a bit more strictly.

Intentionally or not, I believe not talking about politics is politics, because not talking about something strengthens whatever the status quo - good or bad - at that time is. I’m not advocating for constant political discussions on hacker news. But to pretend that technology can be separated from politics is to hold a false belief about reality. Politics is fundamentally about social groups, power, and the ethical…

> Intentionally or not, I believe not talking about X is X [...]

That's extremist talk. HN is just one of many online communities, many of which encourage political debate. Technology can often be separated from politics as demonstrated by the majority of submissions here.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#405

Post by echevil »

yyhhsj0521 wrote: post #402
qtplatypus wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it about exposure to the US that will make someone more pro the Chinese government?

Speaking from my own experience, it is probably because it is the US. If I were more exposed to say France or Germany instead, which at least to me seem to be less hypocritical, especially on international politics, I think I'd feel weaker nudging to be more pro Chinese government.

Agree, I was in Singapore for a couple of years before moving here and I never felt becoming more pro China there

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#406

Post by hooande »

dang wrote: post #160
woah wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even here on Hacker News, a week or so ago I saw someone being chided for “breaking the HN guidelines” by calling out a sock puppet. When I looked at the comment history of the account doing the chiding, all of its comments were on China related articles, taking a pro-China view.

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, I would be stunned if China decided to target HN with professional propoganda. It's just not that large or well known.

If, say, eight out of ten people haven't heard of hn then why even bother? just put more resources into spamming twitter or whatsapp or whatever they use in china

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#407

Post by dang »

yorwba wrote: post #384
dang wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN doesn't block VPNs. What are you observing that leads you to say that?

Don't you ban IP addresses in some cases? https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20IP%20banned&sort=byD... suggests you do. That could result in effectively banning a VPN.

We do, but not usually heavily used ones, and the VPNs we're aware of use lots of IPs.

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#408

Post by ckastner »

jen20 wrote: post #386
jackvalentine wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can I ask for an account deletion and removal of all posted content? Thanks! I asked for that once and was refused with the reasoning: > I’m sorry to disappoint, but Hacker News doesn’t delete entire accounts because that would gut the threads it participated in. We do sometimes remove specific comments if users are worried they’ll get in trouble, and we’re also working on the ability to rename accounts. Would eith…

If you are European, this seems fundamentally incompatible with the requirements of the GDPR, unless they have a better basis for processing than consent (which I doubt for a site like Hacker News).

There is a better basis, one that covers even sensitive data under Article 9. Specifically, the processing is lawful when "processing relates to personal data which are manifestly made public by the data subject" [1], as is the case here.

[1] https://gdpr-info.eu/art-9-gdpr/

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#409

Post by dang »

powerapple wrote: post #374
woah wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even here on Hacker News, a week or so ago I saw someone being chided for “breaking the HN guidelines” by calling out a sock puppet. When I looked at the comment history of the account doing the chiding, all of its comments were on China related articles, taking a pro-China view.

I mostly only comment on China related articles, with a pro-China view. Sometimes I find it necessary to comment because it is rare to see pro-China comment here. I am definitely not state-sponsored, I might be brainwashed in your opinion, but definitely not getting paid for those comments, and those comments are from the bottom of my heart :) I don't really like to read political posts on Hacker News, I am mostly in…

I believe you, but it's against the site guidelines to use HN primarily for political battle (which includes nationalistic arguments), and it seems you have been doing so exclusively. We ban accounts for that, not because we think they're insincere, but because political flames will take over the entire site if we let them, and there's a big difference between accounts that use HN this way and accounts that use HN as intended.

The way to fix this is to use HN as intended, which means posting on an diverse range of topics for reasons of intellectual curiosity. Would you please do that instead?

More explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Information operations directed at Hong Kong

#410

Post by yyhhsj0521 »

jokoon wrote: post #392

Are you saying that the CIA is not trying to help the protests? I'm not trying to say that the CIA is involved, but I would be surprised to learn that the US is not trying to get involved to amplify the noise the protests are making. With Trump and his trade war, don't you think he would not ask the CIA to try to damage the reputation of chinese government by using protests? I don't like the PRC and their method, but…

Who says anything about CIA?

Please don't bring whataboutism into the discussion.

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