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Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

nytimes.com

201–210 of 463 posts

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#201
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about…?") is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy, which attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving the argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

The American media is attempting to frame China as worth of fighting over Taiwan by demarcating it as exceptionally evil by demonstrating that it does things that no acceptable country would do. Unfortunately for that argument, usually the US is doing something more exceptional and extreme than the demonstrated behavior.

> usually the US is doing something more exceptional and extreme than the demonstrated behavior

Actually, it's almost always the opposite.

CCP requiring Chinese companies to hand over all user data unencrypted > USG occasionally sending NSLs to specific companies for information on specific persons.

CCP stealing IP from the US, EU, Japan, and other countries > ???.

CCP Operation Fox Hunt[1] > ???.

CCP police threatening the family of a student in the US speaking about Tianamen Square[2] > ???.

CCP hiring massive numbers of 50c posters to write hundreds of millions of social media posts under false aliases > USG operating Free Radio Asia with the explicit notice that it's controlled by the government.

CCP restricting children to three hours of video games a week > USG preventing those under age 21 from smoking or drinking.

CCP massacring unarmed students in Tiananmen Square with tanks > ???.

CCP censoring all information about Tiananmen Square inside the Great Firewall > USG asking newspapers not to publish classified information.

CCP operating a concentration camp in Xinjing with about a million people indefinitely in it for no reason other than their religion > USG holding a few thousand refugees in cages for a limited time until they can be returned to their country because they crossed the border illegally.

CCP blackmailing various companies for stating that Taiwan is a separate country > ???.

CCP invading Taiwan for holding the former rulers of the country that fled after a bunch of murderous revolutionaries overthrew the government and killed millions of people > USG invading Afghanistan to find a terrorist group that flew planes into our buildings and killed thousands. (note that in the first case, the perpetrators (or associates thereof) are doing the invasion, while in the second case, it's the victims).

In almost every single case that China is doing something bad, America's equivalent is either far less bad or nonexistent.

Even beyond that - no country is perfect (especially not the US), but when the USG (or governments of most other countries) does something bad, the citizens usually get angry about it, and the officials responsible either try to hide or eventually reverse course. With the CCP, the citizens defend it, and the officials claim that they're actually doing the right thing, deny that it exists at all (e.g. the Uyghur concentration camps), or counter with misinformation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/Purdue/comments/ri95tp/in_response_...

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you regard Tibet as an internal Chinese matter? The US has more of a track record, I'll admit. On the other hand, China keeps forever in a way that the US does not. I asked if you have any evidence. You didn't even hint that you had any, so I will assume that you do not. So we're back to "That's just your opinion."

Asking for evidence of manufacturing consent is not understanding manufacturing consent . Without being told, the media knows what is supposed to report on and what not to report on.

"It's clearly true, no evidence needed"? At a minimum, that's not very persuasive to anyone who doesn't already agree with you.

But worse, that kind of thinking is how you wind up with beliefs that no external evidence can persuade you are false. It's the same approach of both religious cults and conspiracy theorists.

Mind you, you could in fact be right. But the thinking pattern has, at best, disreputable fellow travelers. Be cautious of that pattern of thinking.

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of worse problems does not make other problems go away. It's reasonable and desirable to strive for a better future no matter how good the present is.

Wouldn't that imply people are forever oppressed because things can be better.

No because if the law is applied equally to all people regardless of background by definition the reason to protest does not exist anymore. Think about it, this was the whole point of BLM: Please stop shooting/killing/maiming unarmed Black people at a disproportionally higher rate than members of other groups.

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#205
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whatboutism is whataboutism

So where exactly do you draw the line between "whataboutism" and asserting similarities?

If someone wants to assert those similarities in a separate conversation, that's fine. Trying to derail an existing conversation about the actions of one country by mentioning actions of another country is a distraction at best, and arguing in bad faith at worst.

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#206
post #84

there seems to be a really powerful group of people that don't approve of facebook selling access to "eyeballs" fairly and equally to anybody willing to buy this. I conjecture that they'd prefer if somebody (i.e. them) had preferential access

Who's "they"?

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"EVERYONE IS BRAINWASHED EXCEPT OF US BLESSED AMERICANS" F15 flyover bombing of some random civilians cool individualism that was build on exploitation of the planet and the 90% of the world KEK, sustainable, mate. China workd. I lived there for years and people were happier than here in Germany. I am just sooooooo sick and tired of those anti-China sentiment here in HN. EVERY SINGLE TIME a china article is posted, y…

Agreed, there's a lot of unthinking Sinophobia. I wish we had visa-less travel so more people could visit and see that it's not a scary place. It's a different system for sure, and you can be jailed for saying certain things, but that's true for almost everywhere except America. Germany jails holocaust deniers.

I met an English teacher who did visit China not too long afo. They were arrested and interrogated for days in a concrete room until his government paid a bribe (called a fine) for his release. His crime was teaching English after some regional goon changed the rule silently near the end of his visit in order to extort people. My professor at the time talked about how this was common

No thanks for the visit. Not to mention how china is detaining foreigners lately with death penalty sentences to blackmail other nations into obeying them (most recent example I can think of was Canada)

State driven kidnapping and extortion really kill tourism

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#208
post #103

Before you use this as an excuse to accuse the commenter you disagree with as being a Wumao, note that China's propaganda strategy serves to distract rather than directly engage, as they would rather minimize engagement. It's the same principle of "don't feed the trolls." Here's a Harvard paper that covers this topic more in depth, though it's about domestic propaganda: https://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/50c…

> a Wumao For reference, the initial W doesn't represent a sound, so this would be "an wumao". (Same for Wuhan.)

In English, Wuhan is typically pronounced with a "w" (/wuːhæn/ or /wuːhɑːn/), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan.

Re: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

#209
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My daily first-hand encounters with China's 50 cent army suggest it's more than just dubious claims. If anything, the NYT is late to the party.

Sorry, but this is just naïve. Washington/NY media invented "yellow journalism" long before the PRC or your scapegoat "wumao" bogeyman even existed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism#Hearst_in_Sa...

No, I mean I myself am bombarded by people who self-identify as wumao on the various internet forums I visit. I don't read the New York Times or other "mainstream" journalism outlets. The 50 cent army has become extremely pervasive and obnoxious with their off-topic spam over the last 12 months. It's very frustrating to use most of my usual forums because of just how intensely the wumaos spam them now.
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