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False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK

bitterwinter.org

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Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK

#41

Post by throwaway210222 »

kindle-dev wrote: post #33
throwaway210222 wrote: post #28

Odd 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]

Where (and please be specific) did I say that Chinese can do what they want?

The worst I possible alluded to was that once you show how effective an evil social media campaign can be, the laws of unintended consequences mean others can - sadly - use the same techniques.

Please for the love of god, try go a week without using the w-word.

Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK

#42

Post by vlaxx100 »

kindle-dev wrote: post #33
throwaway210222 wrote: post #28

Odd 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]

Yes, let's confine any discussion, academic or otherwise, to exactly what a paper/submitter/party wants to discuss. Never mention any parallels that could broaden one's horizon.

This is how "discussions" in the Soviet Union looked like.

Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK

#43

Post by marcus_holmes »

onethought wrote: post #22
bserge wrote: post #18

Earlier 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…

Isn't that a cultural thing with China, though? That the party is the state, and therefore any criticism of the party is anti-patriotic criticism of the country?

Thailand has similar rules; criticising the king is illegal because anti-patriotic. Cambodia has rules around criticising the government (conflating it with criticising the country). Myanmar is a bit of a special case at the moment. Not sure about Laos or Vietnam.

The culture there just doesn't allow that kind of expression: you can't criticise your boss, or any authority, in public. That has become a flat "you can't criticise the CCP or its policies without being seen as attacking China" online.

Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK

#44

Post by kindle-dev »

vlaxx100 wrote: post #42
kindle-dev wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, let's confine any discussion, academic or otherwise, to exactly what a paper/submitter/party wants to discuss. Never mention any parallels that could broaden one's horizon. This is how "discussions" in the Soviet Union looked like.

It would be ok to discuss another topic, but this particular case was using the behavior of a private British firm to somehow make the researchers look hypocritical (or having an agenda) because they are also based in the UK

Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK

#45

Post by qsort »

vlaxx100 wrote: post #42
kindle-dev wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, let's confine any discussion, academic or otherwise, to exactly what a paper/submitter/party wants to discuss. Never mention any parallels that could broaden one's horizon. This is how "discussions" in the Soviet Union looked like.

Discussions are like soccer: if you go out of bounds you lose possession. We can't be talking about everything at the same time, that's exactly how you stifle discussion.

Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK

#46

Post by Deukhoofd »

ilamont wrote: post #23

Suspicions were aroused after researchers found a third of the accounts under investigation to have been created within minutes of each other. They exclusively promoted UK-based PRC diplomats, ignoring those in other countries. So human researchers were able to spot a pretty obvious pattern. How come Twitter's own staff and algorithms never seem to catch on, despite having even more data to look at? It amazes me that…

I don't think Twitter allows it maliciously, as it tends to hurt their PR every time, and paints a target on their back for governments to attack them.

Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK

#47

Post by heurisko »

A fraction of the population of the UK are on twitter, but it is used to drive media narratives.

I'm skeptical, as it feels like the narratives are more to do with they are cheap to write about, rather than meaningful journalism.

For example, after black players missed penalties in the Euros, there was wall-to-wall coverage on the BBC about racist comments directed at the players on twitter, provoking discussion on how racist the UK was.

Not until later, however, did people find that many of the tweets were sent from outside the UK.

https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/15/majority-of-racist-abuse-targ...

Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK

#49

Post by DaedPsyker »

vlaxx100 wrote: post #42
kindle-dev wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, let's confine any discussion, academic or otherwise, to exactly what a paper/submitter/party wants to discuss. Never mention any parallels that could broaden one's horizon. This is how "discussions" in the Soviet Union looked like.

That's not what the above comment said. It asked why didn't the academic paper discuss it in a manner that is attempting to cast suspicion on the findings. You discuss your own findings, quite frankly I'm not entirely sure their point. That Oxford shares the same country as this company? Is it somehow obligated based on this?

Re: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK

#50

Post by ezconnect »

ilamont wrote: post #23

Suspicions were aroused after researchers found a third of the accounts under investigation to have been created within minutes of each other. They exclusively promoted UK-based PRC diplomats, ignoring those in other countries. So human researchers were able to spot a pretty obvious pattern. How come Twitter's own staff and algorithms never seem to catch on, despite having even more data to look at? It amazes me that…

Twitter will not actively remove bots and fake accounts because without the new bots their user base has been stagnant for years and probably declining really fast.
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