Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chinese disinformation targeting U.S. features fake people on fake news programs

cuencahighlife.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 77 posts

Re: Chinese disinformation targeting U.S. features fake people on fake news programs

#11

Post by itsoktocry »

boeingUH60 wrote: post #4

This is something that is important to know of; propaganda is not necessarily delivering fake news. It can be foreign actors exploiting a country's problems, e.g., gun violence, racism, pandemic response, religious differences, etc., to sow division among the population. For example, Russian Facebook groups encouraged protests in Texas that riled Christians against supposed Islamization of the state and Muslims to co…

I find it funny to blame the "Russian organizers" as opposed to the thousands of American people who are members of the groups and showed up on the street to protest and fight. Do you think they were brainwashed for $200 in Facebook ad spend?

Re: Chinese disinformation targeting U.S. features fake people on fake news programs

#13

Post by earlyam »

Some anecdata: I've seen a big increase in pro-Chinese commentors on the internet in the past year or so. HN especially. It keeps popping up in subtle ways. I'm not saying it's necessarily propaganda or psyops, but we'd be fools to believe China isn't doing that quite extensively. Hell, America does it; we just had a scandal where the military was doing that when they shouldn't have been.

Re: Chinese disinformation targeting U.S. features fake people on fake news programs

#14

Post by okamiueru »

itsoktocry wrote: post #11
boeingUH60 wrote: post #4

This is something that is important to know of; propaganda is not necessarily delivering fake news. It can be foreign actors exploiting a country's problems, e.g., gun violence, racism, pandemic response, religious differences, etc., to sow division among the population. For example, Russian Facebook groups encouraged protests in Texas that riled Christians against supposed Islamization of the state and Muslims to co…

I find it funny to blame the "Russian organizers" as opposed to the thousands of American people who are members of the groups and showed up on the street to protest and fight. Do you think they were brainwashed for $200 in Facebook ad spend?

People en mass will always have the gullible. It's either "allowing a system that amplifies such misinformation", or "the actors exploiting it", that deserve blame.

Why would you care to blame the gullible who don't know any better?

Re: Chinese disinformation targeting U.S. features fake people on fake news programs

#16

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

okamiueru wrote: post #14
itsoktocry wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it funny to blame the "Russian organizers" as opposed to the thousands of American people who are members of the groups and showed up on the street to protest and fight. Do you think they were brainwashed for $200 in Facebook ad spend?

People en mass will always have the gullible. It's either "allowing a system that amplifies such misinformation", or "the actors exploiting it", that deserve blame. Why would you care to blame the gullible who don't know any better?

I think that people around here get antsy when this topic is raised because mis/disinformation is a cousin of advertising- the cash cow of silicon valley VC power-elite. The conversation often goes to combating these things which could turn into privacy/information regulation which would hurt their paychecks. So they clam up and blame the gullible. Just a thought.

Re: Chinese disinformation targeting U.S. features fake people on fake news programs

#17

Post by gaoshan »

TheBlight wrote: post #10

[flagged]

This is a mish mash of your own sort of misinformation. You mention politically left leaning, left and center media outlets yet completely leave out right wing outlets that are inarguably (at least from any logical and fact based perspective) and objectively more likely to spread falsehoods.

You then toss out a salad of conspiracy tinged topics but lump things like this laptop topic with "masks work". The laptop thing is completely buried in conspiracy nonsense but one thing is certain, the only evidence for anything amiss comes from people with a very narrowly focused political agenda and that should raise doubts in anyone reasonable. Then you mention masks, as if there is something actually controversial there. There isn't (not to normal people, anyway). Health care professionals wear them for a reason and that reason isn't anything nefarious or political. Only the opposition to it comes from such a place. Even "you won't get covid if you take these shots" is silly and disingenuous. No one credible ever claimed that. They are a vaccine and they work by providing a degree of immunity. That's the gist of it. Always has been. Again, only people with an extreme political agenda claim otherwise.

Re: Chinese disinformation targeting U.S. features fake people on fake news programs

#18

Post by pessimizer »

earlyam wrote: post #13

Some anecdata: I've seen a big increase in pro-Chinese commentors on the internet in the past year or so. HN especially. It keeps popping up in subtle ways. I'm not saying it's necessarily propaganda or psyops, but we'd be fools to believe China isn't doing that quite extensively. Hell, America does it; we just had a scandal where the military was doing that when they shouldn't have been.

[flagged]

Re: Chinese disinformation targeting U.S. features fake people on fake news programs

#19

Post by boeingUH60 »

itsoktocry wrote: post #11
boeingUH60 wrote: post #4

This is something that is important to know of; propaganda is not necessarily delivering fake news. It can be foreign actors exploiting a country's problems, e.g., gun violence, racism, pandemic response, religious differences, etc., to sow division among the population. For example, Russian Facebook groups encouraged protests in Texas that riled Christians against supposed Islamization of the state and Muslims to co…

I find it funny to blame the "Russian organizers" as opposed to the thousands of American people who are members of the groups and showed up on the street to protest and fight. Do you think they were brainwashed for $200 in Facebook ad spend?

People will always have social groups that can be exploited to sow discord. Like I said, my personal solution was to stop paying attention to social media altogether, but that obviously won't happen for everyone.

While you blame the "brainwashed", I blame the executives and workers at the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, et al. They know their platform is being exploited to rile up anger but it brings them the sweet ad dollars so they don't care. They can even feel better and feign some self-righteousness by blaming the "brainwashed" instead of the platforms they oversee...very difficult to get them to admit to the problem when their financial interest depends on it.

Re: Chinese disinformation targeting U.S. features fake people on fake news programs

#20

Post by TheBlight »

gaoshan wrote: post #17
TheBlight wrote: post #10

[flagged]

This is a mish mash of your own sort of misinformation. You mention politically left leaning, left and center media outlets yet completely leave out right wing outlets that are inarguably (at least from any logical and fact based perspective) and objectively more likely to spread falsehoods. You then toss out a salad of conspiracy tinged topics but lump things like this laptop topic with "masks work". The laptop thin…

They're "conspiracy tinged" because the media claimed they were conspiracy theories but that all turned out to be a lie.

Surgeons historically wear masks so they don't spit in open wounds.

Plenty of credible people claimed if you took the shots you wouldn't get the virus. Unless you don't think the director of the CDC or President Biden are credible.

I'm sorry if this is all upsetting to you.

Post reply on HN