Unrelated, but do the English say “false” where the Americans say “fake”? To me (American), false has a different connotation than fake.
False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK
31–40 of 128 posts
Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK
#32I stopped using Twitter a few years ago. Haven't regretted it. I see nothing useful or good there.
And it's amazing how it just doesn't matter if you don't pay any attention to it.
Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK
#33Odd that an academic paper would fail to mention the work of the UK company Bell Pottinger that conducted a deliberate, paid Twitter campaign with thousands of false account in 2018 with the intent to stoke a racial war (nevermind overturn democracy) in South Africa on behalf of the former president's faction and a family of Indian criminals. From what I understand it bloody nearly succeeded. Perhaps the Chinese lear…
[flagged]
Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK
#34~60 accounts. TBH, another weak sauce, script kiddie tier effort comparable to other exposed PRC social media networks from the past couple years. Getting pretty incredulous that western researchers have only managed to uncover these these low-effort campaigns far below the competency of a state actor with PRC resources. Either PRC is still that incompetent at manipulating western platforms, or competent enough that larger networks have not been identified. There's also tinfoil conclusion that these are cheap western intelligence falseflag ops designed to normalize idea that PRC has pervasive coordinated activity to headline readers, i.e. people who thinks 50c operates abroad, even on sites like HN itself when it's against 50c MO to waste effort on anything but platitudes. It's hard to say which is worse, but it doesn't seem likely PRC influence ops on western platforms is restricted to such small scale efforts, if not now, then certainly not in the future.
Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK
#35We're not supposed to question it, but in this case it seems salient: your account was created just to post this and it's got a lot of upvotes for something seemingly banal. Is this part of a competing "diplomatic program"?
This. Even the website bitterwind just looks like an attack site against China. It seems to just have “articles” that just say negative things about China. This is just seems to be another play in an influence campaign.
... or just really nothing good happening on the religion side of China.
Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK
#36Unrelated, but do the English say “false” where the Americans say “fake”? To me (American), false has a different connotation than fake.
There's a distinction for us too, but I think it's well applied here. They're falsely presenting themselves as British citizens, (if that doesn't make sense to you, perhaps think 'falsifying a document'?) but they are 'real' (as opposed to fake) accounts, that are really pro-China/CCP.
Note the article does also brand it a 'fake band of PRC groupies' (which per above I would consider wrong - they are a band of 'PRC groupies' - but if 'fake's what you want, it's used too).
Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK
#37Unrelated, but do the English say “false” where the Americans say “fake”? To me (American), false has a different connotation than fake.
You ever hear of false teeth? That's the false they're using.
Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK
#38Odd that an academic paper would fail to mention the work of the UK company Bell Pottinger that conducted a deliberate, paid Twitter campaign with thousands of false account in 2018 with the intent to stoke a racial war (nevermind overturn democracy) in South Africa on behalf of the former president's faction and a family of Indian criminals. From what I understand it bloody nearly succeeded. Perhaps the Chinese lear…
That is some reviewer 3 tier criticism. That is not what they are investigating, and they are not doing a review of twitter disinformation campaigns.
Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's already happening. the 50c army vs the $0 army thinking they're doing anything useful with those arrows lol.
I’ve been accused of being 50c army for expressing a more neutral tone on China and challenging pro-US anti-China rhetoric. It’s actually impossible to have a reasonable conversation about China, Chinese economy, Chinese government, or Xijinping because those seperate things are all conflated into a single one. Where as if you try to conflate, Biden (or trump) with US economy, america or the america people you will q…
It's everywhere. And especially on the dumbest shit like Imgur or some subreddits. Just literally "Fuck China" trains. And clearly, they are the free, independent, smart, non-sheep people eh
Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK
#40Odd that an academic paper would fail to mention the work of the UK company Bell Pottinger that conducted a deliberate, paid Twitter campaign with thousands of false account in 2018 with the intent to stoke a racial war (nevermind overturn democracy) in South Africa on behalf of the former president's faction and a family of Indian criminals. From what I understand it bloody nearly succeeded. Perhaps the Chinese lear…
Whataboutism?
Why is it odd that an academic paper wouldn't mention it? Is every academic paper required to replay the entire history of the universe from the big bang onwards?