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

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

#21
post #17

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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…

> objectively more likely to spread falsehoods.

According to who? The "conspiracy tinged topics" that you describe so fairly were some of the most over-covered stories, were substantially wrong, and were known at the time of being printed that they were substantially wrong.

> Then you mention masks, as if there is something actually controversial there.

There is. While masks were thought by scientists in authority to slow transmission, Fauci told everyone that masks were not only useless but harmful, and that people shouldn't be wearing them. He later admitted to lying about that. That may not be controversial to you, but if you can't imagine or empathize with people being upset that the government was lying to them in order to manipulate their behavior, you aren't very imaginative or empathetic.

> There isn't (not to normal people, anyway)

I think that when many people who agree with you see bad faith argument like this, they start re-evaluating their position.

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

#22

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 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 t…

> my personal solution was to stop paying attention to social media altogether

Agreed. I deleted all my social media accounts except for this one and it helped immensely. I sometimes feel like I live in a different world.

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

#23
Scary. Next they might hire two white people, put them in front of a green screen, and do the exact same thing. That will be really terrifying because they won't even need to use deepfakes.

Have the Chinese discovered fiverr? They could generate hundreds of these a day.

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

#24

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…

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

#25
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.

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

#26
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.

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Q.E.D

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

#27
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.

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Well yes, you're going to see anti-chinese sentiments when they're engaged in Uighur extermination.

What did you think would happen?

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

#28
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.

Look no further than Hollywood which for some reason keeps blatantly peddling pro-Communism

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

#29

Scary. Next they might hire two white people, put them in front of a green screen, and do the exact same thing. That will be really terrifying because they won't even need to use deepfakes. Have the Chinese discovered fiverr? They could generate hundreds of these a day.

You don't know that this has been going on for at least a decade (probably way longer)?

The Chinese government hires Western influencers to spread their propaganda all the time. Those who are on Youtube and elsewhere.

Getting paid for spreading that government propaganda (and for doing "normal" Chinese company ads) as a white person is referred to in China as going for "a white monkey job".

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

#30
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.

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