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False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK

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

#71

Post by marcus_holmes »

3np wrote: post #56
marcus_holmes wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Vi…

It doesn't seem like you're consciously doing it but this comment falls to the exact same fallacy. That is, the party and their enforcers would be happy to agree. Yes, there's a very noisy mainority both online and abroad that will make you believe so. It's far from representative of the culture(s) and views of people in China, though.

I spent a couple of years in SE Asia, and worked in Cambodia, and my comment is based on that experience. I had a fascinating conversation with one of my staff where she explained that to criticise one's boss was absolutely taboo. Roughly equivalent to taking a dump on your boss's desk in Western culture.

There's this whole concept of "social harmony" that we don't have in the West. And partly it revolves around respecting your place in a very strict social hierarchy. Criticising those above you in the hierarchy is "disharmonious" and not accepted.

I'm fascinated if you know this is different in China? I haven't been to China (yet). But my impression from the contact with the Chinese I have had is that (at least in this respect) the cultures are very similar.

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

#72

Post by ghuin »

yodelshady wrote: post #59
marcus_holmes wrote: post #32

I 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.

Supposedly, it's good for security discussions. I've tried and in reality whilst some signal is there the noise is just overwhelming. Even with curation, almost 100% of the traffic was unrelated personal conflicts. Hopefully in a few years' we'll rediscover the personal/professional separation.

Not to mention politics. Yes security guys on Twitter, we get it, you're all very progressive. Can you talk about bloody computer security for a change?

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

#73

Post by pessimizer »

axiosgunnar wrote: post #54
White_Wolf wrote: post #51

This is absurd. 26 accounts? 70 accounts? This is script kiddie level. You can buy accounts for pennies(literally) linked to @outlook.com on blackhat marketing websites. You can also buy the tools to administer all of them. £500 (estimate) would get you from black hat marketeers: - 200 twitter accounts (new) - you can also get aged ones but more expensive - bot - around 25-100 proxies to rotate when posting (dependin…

It is also script kiddie level to steal candy from a store. But if a nation state engages in systematic candy theft, that should raise eyebrows.

If paid/automated social media activity is "candy theft," the only nation states that aren't doing it are the ones who can't afford to.

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

#74

Post by throwinawaysoon »

White_Wolf wrote: post #51

This is absurd. 26 accounts? 70 accounts? This is script kiddie level. You can buy accounts for pennies(literally) linked to @outlook.com on blackhat marketing websites. You can also buy the tools to administer all of them. £500 (estimate) would get you from black hat marketeers: - 200 twitter accounts (new) - you can also get aged ones but more expensive - bot - around 25-100 proxies to rotate when posting (dependin…

ya. At 26-70 accounts you don't even need a VPS, there are free VPNs, free temporary emails, and temporary phone numbers you can buy. this could be any angry chinese person or a teenager.

Being anti-china gets people riled up. I'm guessing it's the same in China when they want to divert the attention.

50 western accounts on said 'China Bad' at the same time.

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

#76

Post by pessimizer »

Ekaros wrote: post #25
AndyMcConachie wrote: post #12

> We identify a large network of Twitter accounts that demonstrate multiple forms of coordinated inauthentic activity. The network consists of 62 accounts in total, 29 of which were recently active until we flagged their activity for Twitter. 29 active accounts is 'a large network'? From this report: https://demtech.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/127/20...

Even the 62 accounts? That is like nothing, I would expect single person to manage half of that in a day with efficient tools. Why are these numbers always so laughable like all the press of Russian spending couple tens of thousand on advertising, when in general speding was in billions. I wonder how many pro-DNC troll accounts there are too, and why those aren't tracked in like?

There was one that I remember that twitter had to be pushed to do anything about. Notably, the operator of the network wasn't banned.

How A Twitter Fight Over Bernie Sanders Revealed A Network Of Fake Accounts

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democratic-bot-network-sally-...

Shareblue Astroturf Analysis

https://shareblueastroturf.netlify.app/

It's just sockpuppeting at scale, although I'm not sure of the real difference between paying 100 people to post similar stuff, and paying 1 person to run 100 accounts. Every large organization that wants to manipulate opinion does this, and the only distinction between the former and the latter is that paying 100 people requires a lot of money.

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

#77

Post by coldacid »

bb123 wrote: post #13

Twitter is just awful for so many reasons. I honestly think, of all the social media, the world would be most improved if Twitter disappeared.

I'd say that's more true for Facebook, but Twitter is definitely a close second in this particular race.

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

#79

Post by baybal2 »

eertami wrote: post #30
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…

Well yeah, what we see as obvious bots, twitter sees as MAUs which it can include in figures given to investors and shareholders. Because they haven't developed any systems to identify the bots, they can pretend that they do not know they are bots - and their active user figures are not fraudulent/illegal. If they identified the bots, then they would not be able to lie about these accounts.

What is "MAUS"?

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

#80

Post by amar-laksh »

baybal2 wrote: post #79
eertami wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yeah, what we see as obvious bots, twitter sees as MAUs which it can include in figures given to investors and shareholders. Because they haven't developed any systems to identify the bots, they can pretend that they do not know they are bots - and their active user figures are not fraudulent/illegal. If they identified the bots, then they would not be able to lie about these accounts.

What is "MAUS"?

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