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How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

bbc.co.uk

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Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#131

Post by fortuna86 »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #129
fortuna86 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the recent attack on foreign media in China: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1229947.shtml When NYT/WSJ/BBC etc weren't blocked in China, they had incredible high trust #'s. Now the government says they are bad (after blocking them), the public all falls in line with that opinion. I worry about what the Chinese government will do when they know they can make or remake public opinion so easily and effectivel…

NYT/SWJ/BBC used to have much more rounded coverage of China. Look at their China coverage before and after four years of Trump. The difference is stark. The entire political environment regarding China shifted drastically during the Trump administration, and that's reflected in both opinion polling and media coverage.

Again, if you were actually watching NYT/WSJ*/BBC, you'd know they were tougher on Trump in most cases than China 2016-20.

But I see you have a narrative that i'm not going to penetrate, so lets leave it here. Have a nice day.

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#132

Post by fortuna86 »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #127
fortuna86 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just something that's obvious to me as a regular consumer of major US and European news media, who also happens to know something about China. As someone with the same exposure, my opinion is the exact opposite. Sure sensationalist reporting exists, but the vast majority (as said) is somber and resigned. > Western reporting on China is actually quite limited. Surely you aren't implying that Chinese domestic me…

> I don't need to speak uyghur to hear their testimonials. I didn't need to be alive during WW2 to know what happened. I find these comparisons extremely disrespectful to the memory of the Holocaust. The Third Reich systematically murdered millions of people. > If you actually read the mainstream coverage, it's methodical, thoughtful I read / listen to the mainstream news, both American and European, in a few differe…

> I find these comparisons extremely disrespectful to the memory of the Holocaust. The Third Reich systematically murdered millions of people.

I wasn't making a direct comparison, and instead of addressing what I said you got on a high horse about being offended. Disappointing.

> You have to scroll most of the way through the article to find the first mention of the fact that scientific studies by public health authorities in these countries have shown that the Chinese vaccines in question have high real-world effectiveness

This is a good example of what I consider to be maddening. You claim Vaccine disinfo by the NYTs. You point out that actually, Chinese vaccines are as good if not better than the other, worst performing vaccines (Russian, etc.). You do not compare them to the highest performing ones, I can only assume you've done this on purpose. Chinese vaccine makers specifically refuse to release their user data proving efficacy (unlike western vaccines that continually do so) so we are left to guess how effective they are. Some countries refuse to use them based on this alone (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-coro...) As to how effective they are? The evidence isn't good.

Several countries are seeking western booster shots when the initial Sinovac vaccines haven't proven effective enough:

Turkey: https://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-offers-covid-19-booster-...

UAE: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-a-e-giving-third-shot-of-sino...

Bahrain: https://www.wsj.com/articles/bahrain-facing-a-covid-surge-st...

Vietnam: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/commentary-vietna...

Chinese companies themselves: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-04-28/...

And scientists:

"But the director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, said at a conference Saturday their efficacy rates needed improving.

“We will solve the issue that current vaccines don’t have very high protection rates,” Gao said in a presentation on Chinese COVID-19 vaccines and immunization strategies at a conference in the southwestern city of Chengdu. “It’s now under consideration whether we should use different vaccines from different technical lines for the immunization process.”

https://apnews.com/article/china-gao-fu-vaccines-offer-low-p...

I know you might be tempted to blame the messenger as most do and call all that "fake news", but the data is there.

This isn't the NYTs pushing this narrative, it is widely accepted that the Chinese vaccines lose a lot of their potency only a few months after they are given. China has all but shut down their country because they have no confidence their vaccines work against Delta.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-high-alert-delta-va...

I'm thoroughly unimpressed by your only example of this claimed bias. Usually when I get into these discusses on Twitter it ends in XJ denialism, which i'm glad we aren't doing. But it's clear you have made up your mind which "side" you are on in all this. For my own curiosity, what is your connection to China? Does your livelihood depend on them in any way?

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#133

Post by dang »

parrellel wrote: post #30

Now the question is are most of the comments on this thread examples or are they the social conditioned response of Chinese citizens abroad showing the flag. It can get pretty creepy how aggressive students - for example - get supporting their government. That flash mob behavior isn't as effective as the Russian's conflict stoking troll farms, but man does it drown out conversation, and god help you if you run into i…

You broke the site guidelines badly here. Please don't do that on HN again. We have this rule for good, extremely well-supported-by-data reasons:

"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."

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

You can read many years' worth of past explanations if you want to understand more:

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

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#134

Post by dang »

windoze123 wrote: post #105

Oddly enough my comment about india pushing the same kind of propaganda here on HN got flagged. The trolls are having a field day. Let us not forget the fate of the dalit and call india out on it as much as we do all other non democracies.

We've banned this account for posting flamebait to HN and using the site for political battle. It's not what this site is for. Please stop creating accounts to break the rules with.

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

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#135

Post by dang »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #7
galaxyLogic wrote: post #2

Could it be that they are also active on Hacker News?

I suspect there are several PR firms active on HN. Some topics were suddenly very popular out of nowhere and criticising it was getting you a wall of downvote. Then it stopped.

"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."

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

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

I've personally spent countless hours over many years poring over the data on this and I can tell you that the overwhelming majority of HN comments like yours are based on nothing more than imagination. It's extremely easy to imagine that you're seeing things and make up stories around what you think you're seeing. These stories almost never amount to anything. Even to say "almost never" is misleading—it's vanishingly rare. (Unless you count hapless voting rings from clueless startups. Those are common but they're naive abuses and not what people mean when they go on about sinister astroturfing.)

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#136

Post by dang »

fartcannon wrote: post #28
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect there are several PR firms active on HN. Some topics were suddenly very popular out of nowhere and criticising it was getting you a wall of downvote. Then it stopped.

More than any other tech company, negative things about Apple will get you quickly down voted into oblivion. Hard to know if its just rabid fanboys, or PR firms. Unfortunately, HN isn't interested in naming and shaming companies caught astroturfing and they don't like us to speculate. Its too bad because I would consider that information a huge kindness to humanity.

This is cognitive bias. People who feel the opposite way about $BigCo see exactly the opposite pattern, and post isomorphic complaints to yours.

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#137

Post by dang »

PradeetPatel wrote: post #40
fartcannon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than any other tech company, negative things about Apple will get you quickly down voted into oblivion. Hard to know if its just rabid fanboys, or PR firms. Unfortunately, HN isn't interested in naming and shaming companies caught astroturfing and they don't like us to speculate. Its too bad because I would consider that information a huge kindness to humanity.

As someone who used to work in a reputation management firm, this is considered industry practice regarding public engagement. Chances are keywords of interest are monitored on common social media, after applying sentiment analysis, an analyst specialising in Public engagement is assigned to engage with the public in order to shape the narrative.

If you or anyone else think you see this happening on HN, please send links to hn@ycombinator.com, as the site guidelines ask. If we find actual evidence of it we'll crack down hard. What we don't allow is idle speculation about it in comments, because experience has shown that that's nearly always just fantasy.

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

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#138

Post by dang »

pulse7 wrote: post #29
goatsi wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the evidence says no: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27398725

"Counteracting abuse of this site is the #1 thing we do behind the scenes to try to prevent the value of HN from eroding." => So they are active here, but their posts are removed...

That's not what I meant and doesn't follow. There are all kinds of abuses that we work hard to counter.

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#139

Post by galaxyLogic »

dang wrote: post #135
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect there are several PR firms active on HN. Some topics were suddenly very popular out of nowhere and criticising it was getting you a wall of downvote. Then it stopped.

" Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... I've personally spent countless hours over many years poring over the…

This comment was based not on imagination but an article on BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58062630 which reports on "A sprawling network of more than 350 fake social media profiles..: HN is social media right so I don't think it's very far-fetched they would try to spread their messages also here. Here? It couldn't happen here, I hear you say.

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#140

Post by beaunative »

mc32 wrote: post #91
beaunative wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure this generation of Dalai Lama didn't kill anyone, he never had that kind of power, but it should be noted his previous generations have, and consistently did. It should be noted that DL was not just a religious leader, but also had the status of a king, with more power than your typical medieval dictator, who just treat people like trash, and kill, and torture, and rape whoever they want, which really…

If they were honest about being upset by past atrocities by past rulers of Tibet, then surely he’d be upset when mentioning Mao. I’m certain Mao in absolute numbers was responsible for vastly more deaths of his own people.

It's a wonder why Mao always get mentioned in those sort of things. Mao is a problematic leader by today's standard, but would be a saint in pre-modern history. What happened was horrible, but those aren't atrocities. Mao was certain he was doing the right thing, which is exactly the issue at that time. It's radically different from the nobilities who do things to others because they think they are born superior, Mao was obviously not that.
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