How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters • Hacker News Board

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#91

Post by alexron782 » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #89

freeflight wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You may not believe it, the vast majority of Chinese actually love the CCP and the system, they only just hate that a few corrupt low-level officials who are the bad apples fucking up leaders' glorious visions. This has been a common theme with this "Fake News and Social Bots" stuff since the very beginning not reserved to China. On the 34C3 there was a really interesting talk [0] about the troublesome nature of cl…

> You may not believe it, the vast majority of Chinese actually love the CCP and the system, they only just hate that a few corrupt low-level officials who are the bad apples fucking up leaders' glorious visions. Is that what they actually feel, or is that exactly the upper limit of what the State accepts as legitimate dissatisfaction with the status quo, which the vast majority of people are aware of an unwilling to…

Well, because the quality of life is indeed getting better and better in China. CCP successfully satisfied the fundamental need of people who were living under extreme poverty before right? Perhaps the next generation of Chinese people will start to demand more freedom, etc..

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#92

Post by UnFleshedOne » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #75

AFascistWorld wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may not believe it, the vast majority of Chinese actually love the CCP and the system, they only just hate that a few corrupt low-level officials who are the bad apples fucking up leaders' glorious visions. These "bots" are mostly spontaneous people, they are not even government-sponsored Wumao, they genuinely love China and defend it, their reason being it may have some flaws but any other country has too and is…

That's pretty common in dictatorships, if you read Alex Kershaw's two volume Bio of Hitler he gives some examples. The response to corruption by local Nazi party members, was along the line of "if only the Fuhrer knew"

This goes much further back, Russian peasants often expressed similar sentiments towards their tsars. Even Robin Hood stories feature benevolent king who would come in and fix everything, if only he knew.

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#93

Post by freeflight » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

I really hate how inherently biased and subjective most reporting about "social bots" seems to be.

For these last years headlines about all kinds of "bot armies" are constantly making the rounds, getting blamed for pretty much everything from Trump's election to Brexit.

Often based on some research that defines the parameters for a user being a "social bot", that they have extremely high false-positive rates, but still end up only identifying hundreds, maybe thousands of accounts, on platforms that have total user numbers in the hundreds of millions or even over a billion.

That is already enough to cause widespread paranoia about Chinese/Russian/Iranian trolls supposedly being everywhere.

So anybody on Twitter, Facebook or Reddit who's opinions and views don't align with a certain Overton window, are quickly labeled as being "foreign influencers", regardless of any arguments or facts whatsoever, in a purely ideological reaction of "What, you do not agree that is evil?! How dare you!".

Meanwhile, barely anybody talks about the reality that these kinds of games are played by pretty much everybody [0] [1], but I guess it would be weird for a US American platform to ban users for spreading pro-US propaganda. Tho, it's still scary how completely oblivious most people seem to be about that, while seeing the Chinese/Russian/Iranian version everywhere.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-op...

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit...

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#94

Post by hktruth » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #34

chvid wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curios - hktruth. What is your background and interest in this subject? I mean: you call yourself hk truth and your only two posts has been on Hong Kong.

It is not far-fetched to believe that hktruth is a Chinese person living abroad. They would have an interest in preserving their anonymity. In this tense environment, a Chinese person in a Western country expressing support for the Chinese regime would risk being accused of being a Chinese spy.

Yes, overseas Chinese communities are divided, as are families too.

What's happening now is that a Chinese person who doesn't support the protestors is labelled as being pro-China, which is ludicrous.

Protestors have been described as "Little Black Guards", a reference to the Cultural Revolution and the student led Red Guards.

Why? Because it's dangerous to voice an opinion or argue with protestors. There have been numerous assaults. The protestors even beat up a man and tied him up in the middle of Hong Kong international airport!

Now, there are daily fist fights between different factions, between police, radical protestors and pro-government supporters. Excessive force and violence has been committed by all sides.

It's a real mess.

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#95

Post by onemoresoop » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 10:00 PM UTC

hktruth wrote: post #94

bjourne wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not far-fetched to believe that hktruth is a Chinese person living abroad. They would have an interest in preserving their anonymity. In this tense environment, a Chinese person in a Western country expressing support for the Chinese regime would risk being accused of being a Chinese spy.

Yes, overseas Chinese communities are divided, as are families too. What's happening now is that a Chinese person who doesn't support the protestors is labelled as being pro-China, which is ludicrous. Protestors have been described as "Little Black Guards", a reference to the Cultural Revolution and the student led Red Guards. Why? Because it's dangerous to voice an opinion or argue with protestors. There have been n…

What do you think about the tiananmen massacre? Do you think it is a western fabrication?? If you're not authorized to talk about it we understand...

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#96

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 10:03 PM UTC

wisty wrote: post #84

AFascistWorld wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may not believe it, the vast majority of Chinese actually love the CCP and the system, they only just hate that a few corrupt low-level officials who are the bad apples fucking up leaders' glorious visions. These "bots" are mostly spontaneous people, they are not even government-sponsored Wumao, they genuinely love China and defend it, their reason being it may have some flaws but any other country has too and is…

I wouldn't say most Chinese love the system. They don't despise it though. I think a lot see the HK thing as an attack on their country. There's a fair bit of history (the insult of losing territory to foreign powers) and also current tensions ('locusts' is a HK slur against mainland Chinese). A lot of HK people kinda dislike mainlanders coming to HK, but the city kinda relies on mainland money. So there's already a…

[deleted]

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#97

Post by vkou » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 10:05 PM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #63

bllguo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what kind of "discourse" are you aiming for after you've labeled and dismissed everyone with a pro-China sentiment? a debate where the only participants have the same opinions seems like the least productive possible form of discussion.

"everyone with a pro-China sentiment" != one sock puppet account with zero history aside from spouting rhetoric on one position.

What makes you think it's a sock puppet, and not someone who wants to express a political opinion, without having it tied back to their main account?

It would be a sock puppet if one person had multiple accounts for this purpose.

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#98

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 10:05 PM UTC

alexron782 wrote: post #91

dragonwriter wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You may not believe it, the vast majority of Chinese actually love the CCP and the system, they only just hate that a few corrupt low-level officials who are the bad apples fucking up leaders' glorious visions. Is that what they actually feel, or is that exactly the upper limit of what the State accepts as legitimate dissatisfaction with the status quo, which the vast majority of people are aware of an unwilling to…

Well, because the quality of life is indeed getting better and better in China. CCP successfully satisfied the fundamental need of people who were living under extreme poverty before right? Perhaps the next generation of Chinese people will start to demand more freedom, etc..

> Well, because the quality of life is indeed getting better and better in China. CCP successfully satisfied the fundamental need of people who were living under extreme poverty before right?

That's a reason one might suspect that people would support the regime, but not an answer to the question asked in GP.

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#99

Post by dirtyid » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 10:05 PM UTC

RobertRoberts wrote: post #83

dirtyid wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think it's useful to hear multiple sides to an argument I don't disagree with this, but it's annoying how much casual western internet users will rely on glorified travel youtubers when there are many veteran China watchers with much more substantial things to say. I.e., Bill Bishop Sinocism (cost $$$) newsletter is widely regarded as one of the best English newsletter on Chinese developments. One would be hard pr…

Are facts determined to be accurate by only people with an education or skilled speakers? In the old world a person's word was their bond, not their status in society. As much as you may not like what some people say about China, it doesn't mean it's not true. I have met many people from many other countries, I've travelled, I have relatives in multiple countries right now, and it's all too easy to see something in t…

>I will take facts over opinions any day of the week.

Then why place so much faith on 2 YouTubers instead of a seasoned China hand who has been around longer, whose work has been recognized by other China hands, who aggregates information from both western and Chinese sources to provide a relatively impartial view of the situation?

My contention isn't an appeal to authority and call to defer to experts, but to point out that there are many experts out there trying to understand and elucidate various parts of China. But lay audiences have consistently decided to fallback on a couple Youtube content creators and appeal to their authority instead. I'd like to see someone nominate 2 non-American youtubers who lived in NYC and Toledo and goes on the occasional road trips as the basis for forming general consensus on US culture and politics. But that's an asinine exercise, yet it's pretty much how a shocking amount of Chinese understanding is derived.

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#100

Post by NicoJuicy » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 10:15 PM UTC

AFascistWorld wrote: post #38

machbio wrote: post #5

Am starting to feel this trolling is an industry (like troll farm) of its own - there are people or bots dedicated to trolling and reporting people who raise voice against the discrimination.. I recently had to report an unfair service by virgin atlantic staff after an emergency landing - I tweeted the pictures and video of the incident.. I was immediately trolled by twitter accounts about how i should be happy that…

You may not believe it, the vast majority of Chinese actually love the CCP and the system, they only just hate that a few corrupt low-level officials who are the bad apples fucking up leaders' glorious visions. These "bots" are mostly spontaneous people, they are not even government-sponsored Wumao, they genuinely love China and defend it, their reason being it may have some flaws but any other country has too and is…

I don't really think that it's true though.

If everything goes well, it can stay that way.

Bit when things go to shit and people found out the government lied, that patriotisme can reverse quickly. Depends on the roots of doubt on your close relatives.

Living in partial fear for the social credit ain't helping and realizing you live behind a firewall online is enough to grow doubts, from my point of view.

Eg. See Russia now and how the Soviet Union crumbled.