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Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

nytimes.com

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Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#41

Post by 323 »

uniqueuid wrote: post #32
323 wrote: post #13

Why would that be a bad thing? The Republicans influence FoxNews. The Democrats influence CNN. Why wouldn't China also influence some outlets? It's a free market, you don't like a media source, you are free to use one suitable to your bias.

It's not a free market for manipulation. There are laws and rules designed to safeguard open and free exchange of information and opinions, and covert influence is regularly forbidden. The big difference is that domestic influence is much easier to (eventually) unveil (see Watergate, Snowden, panama papers etc.). Foreign influence is harder to detect if it comes from a country that executes its whistleblowers and dis…

> It's not a free market for manipulation.

Advertising, lobbying, PR, think tanks, ... are all legal. They are all in the market for manipulation.

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#42

Post by endisneigh »

thanhhaimai wrote: post #35
endisneigh wrote: post #17

Which countries don’t do this? What China is doing is bad, but is this some sort of new development? Russia, Germany, France to name a few have been caught doing the same thing. Not to mention the USA. Facebook and Twitter need to handle this issue. This type of stuff is going on meanwhile they’re banning people for the stupidest most innocuous actions.

The line of reasoning in this post is a fallacy. If you're not familiar with the concept, it's worth a read: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Ironically mentioning this is whataboutism per your link. If you have an actual comment I’d like to hear it though.

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#43

Post by k4c9x »

chroem- wrote: post #9
the-dude wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't make it less true.

Chomsky spent a good part of his career claiming the Cambodian Genocide was just US propaganda.

This comment is parroting Chomsky critics that stretched pretty damn hard to find some way to defame him.

He compared the US media coverage of 2 similar genocides, nowhere does he claim either was "just US propaganda", nor does he downplay the seriousness of either, just that the coverage of it was handled different than the other.

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#44

Post by uniqueuid »

323 wrote: post #41
uniqueuid wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a free market for manipulation. There are laws and rules designed to safeguard open and free exchange of information and opinions, and covert influence is regularly forbidden. The big difference is that domestic influence is much easier to (eventually) unveil (see Watergate, Snowden, panama papers etc.). Foreign influence is harder to detect if it comes from a country that executes its whistleblowers and dis…

> It's not a free market for manipulation. Advertising, lobbying, PR, think tanks, ... are all legal. They are all in the market for manipulation.

Right, these are legal and regulated forms of manipulation.

Covert manipulation is mostly sanctioned through platform TOS and laws.

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#46

Post by WC3w6pXxgGd »

vmception wrote: post #23

So I actually paid for subscriptions to a couple of these news sites and they keep forgetting my session and lack a deeplinking feature to their app which doesnt forget my session I would rather they starve due to lack of revenue at this point so they actually do something competitive

[dead]

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#47

Post by chroem- »

k4c9x wrote: post #43
chroem- wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky spent a good part of his career claiming the Cambodian Genocide was just US propaganda.

This comment is parroting Chomsky critics that stretched pretty damn hard to find some way to defame him. He compared the US media coverage of 2 similar genocides, nowhere does he claim either was "just US propaganda", nor does he downplay the seriousness of either, just that the coverage of it was handled different than the other.

Wikipedia has an entire section dedicated to his denial of the genocide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide_denial#Chom...

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#48

Post by the-dude »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #14
the-dude wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This too doesn't make it less true.

Nothing you say makes your comment any more true, either. At the moment, we're at "That's just, like, your opinion, man." [Edit: Do you have any evidence that the NYT is deliberately seeking to manufacture consent? Or even that they are unwittingly being used to manufacture consent? Or are they just reporting what's actually happening, namely that China is manipulating western media? And, even if the NYT is manufactu…

Since you've editted, I will use a new comment.

Propaganda is among others what to say, or not to say. When to say it. What words to use.

1) Where the NYT uses manipulating western media, I would say China is engaging with world leading social networks. Basically China is buying likes. Big frickin' deal. But the NYT calls this manipulates Facebook and Twitter ( as if they are influencing the companies in itself ).

2) Manufacturing consent implies war : foreign adventures. It is not whataboutism because the US has a track record of these adventures and China has not.

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#49

Post by fsckboy »

hetspookjee wrote: post #29
endisneigh wrote: post #17

Which countries don’t do this? What China is doing is bad, but is this some sort of new development? Russia, Germany, France to name a few have been caught doing the same thing. Not to mention the USA. Facebook and Twitter need to handle this issue. This type of stuff is going on meanwhile they’re banning people for the stupidest most innocuous actions.

It would be foolish to think that either of the companies would move an inch in tackling this. Governments need to enforce policy to lower the ridiculous amount of influence this platforms have. They can start by forcing open standards on these platforms like SMS used to be for messaging. There is barely any technological challenge to the basics of Facebook and Twitter. Here in the Netherlands the PM had a phase wher…

I agree that the platforms have too much market power... but astroturfed propaganda from a centralized authoritarian power requires a centralized defense; a true "open competitive marketplace" of ideas and discussion would have just as much astroturfing and more.

I'm not arguing in favor of Facebook at all, shut them down and lock up Zuck, but I'm simply saying "careful what you wish for".

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#50

Post by thomasahle »

323 wrote: post #41
uniqueuid wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a free market for manipulation. There are laws and rules designed to safeguard open and free exchange of information and opinions, and covert influence is regularly forbidden. The big difference is that domestic influence is much easier to (eventually) unveil (see Watergate, Snowden, panama papers etc.). Foreign influence is harder to detect if it comes from a country that executes its whistleblowers and dis…

> It's not a free market for manipulation. Advertising, lobbying, PR, think tanks, ... are all legal. They are all in the market for manipulation.

Advertised content is supposed to be marked as such; not guise as organic content and upvoted by lots of bots disguising as real users.
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