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China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

economist.com

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Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#131

Post by junofan »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #66
vuln wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can repeat the 2020 election the “most safe and secure” election ever. Funny how Russia and China sat that one out huh? Guess they’d let the other team win one.

Neither Russia or China has ever interfered with vote totals. No one has ever claimed that

My understanding is in some states the laws are written with a Catch-22: you need evidence of hacking to kick off an investigation. So I wouldn’t be that confident.

If I were China I’d probably go with a hardware supply chain attack. These machines can sit around for years.

I think DARPA’s SSITH program is a step in the right direction. At the very least, I’d feel a lot better with bug bounties on publicly available demonstrators from all manufacturers.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#132

Post by idrios »

jamesaurichs wrote: post #100
Animats wrote: post #32

China is having an internal information crackdown. It's approaching the nutty level, which probably indicates that Xi is losing it. The latest thing is a crackdown on clothing "detrimental to the spirit of the Chinese people."[1] [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-66737272

Xi is losing it everywhere; - internal purging of military senior officials. 5 out of the 7 senior officials are now missing in action. https://www.newsweek.com/china-defence-minister-li-shangfu-m... . Very similar to Mao Zedong's purging of his generals https://www.hoover.org/research/lin-biao-incident-and-people... . China has had to transfer generals from airforce and army to head up missile force, because so many…

Marriages being down in 2022 is pretty easily explainable as a result of the strict lockdowns that weren't lifted until late December.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#133

Post by hnfong »

jamesaurichs wrote: post #117
oreally wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it isn't the first time that narratives about China's collapse have surfaced; they've been going on since the 2000s. Take anything you read about China on western boards with a pinch of salt; vice versa for the other side too.

[dead]

I don't know about the others, but I'd contest the claim about Cathie Wood.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#134

Post by dang »

jamesaurichs wrote: post #117
oreally wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it isn't the first time that narratives about China's collapse have surfaced; they've been going on since the 2000s. Take anything you read about China on western boards with a pinch of salt; vice versa for the other side too.

[dead]

We've banned this account because it's consistently been breaking the HN guidelines. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. That means, among other things, using HN for curious conversation rather than ideological battle.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#135

Post by hnfong »

jcranmer wrote: post #114
aragonite wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd suggest taking a look at the specific clauses under discussion, esp. as the draft laws are still in the public commentary stage. See clauses 2 and 3 of Article 34 in ( https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/public-security-adminis... ) and consider them in the context of clauses 1, 4, 5, and 6. Note the recurrent mentions of 'heroes and martyrs' and 'wars of aggression' within these clauses, something a casual read…

"Causing harm to the names, images, reputations, and honor of heroes and martyrs through insult, defamation, or other such means" pretty clearly means to me something along the lines of "you can't point out that Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward caused a famine that killed tens of millions of people." There's nothing along those lines in any EU country, let alone the US (where such a concept is in extremely flagrant vi…

> "you can't point out that Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward caused a famine that killed tens of millions of people."

I suspect you never read commentary about the Great Leap Forward from the official gov.cn web sites...

In other news, if we're here to sling dirt: https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/31/23004339/uk-twitter-user-...

Of course UK isn't in "EU country" any more, but hey, I don't have a habit of collecting human rights violations of other countries as a hobby.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#136

Post by miguelazo »

jamesaurichs wrote: post #100
Animats wrote: post #32

China is having an internal information crackdown. It's approaching the nutty level, which probably indicates that Xi is losing it. The latest thing is a crackdown on clothing "detrimental to the spirit of the Chinese people."[1] [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-66737272

Xi is losing it everywhere; - internal purging of military senior officials. 5 out of the 7 senior officials are now missing in action. https://www.newsweek.com/china-defence-minister-li-shangfu-m... . Very similar to Mao Zedong's purging of his generals https://www.hoover.org/research/lin-biao-incident-and-people... . China has had to transfer generals from airforce and army to head up missile force, because so many…

Yeah, I’ve seen these stories before. And all from the usual suspects. Quick, someone find the tweet with the 10 Economist magazine covers about China collapsing. You know, the ones that used to come out every 5 years and now come out every year.

Someone could easily cherry pick stories about the US and make the same argument. Unsustainable debt, rampant homelessness and addiction, lifespan and healthspan plummeting, birth rates dropping, etc.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#137

Post by hnfong »

arp242 wrote: post #64
perihelions wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HN discussion isn't related to a "misleading video posted on Douyin"; it's based on accurate news reporting about an academic foreign policy paper (which doesn't speak for US foreign policy). https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/05/taiwan_should_destory... ( "US Army journal's top paper from 2021 says Taiwan should destroy TSMC if China invades" ) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31012442 ( "Taiwan should dest…

> an academic foreign policy paper (which doesn't speak for the US foreign policy). From two guys who seem to have no real influence. It's basically little more than a blog post. A lot of people say a lot of stuff. Sometimes that's pretty stupid. Sometimes even worse. That's kind of how it works in a free society. The most effective lie is the one with a kernel of truth.

From one of the links from GP:

> “I’m not promoting the idea. I’m not promoting the idea,” Moulton said. “What I’m saying is these are some of the things that are actually actively being debated among US policymakers.”

The fun thing is this: if people like you keep denying this is a real thing until this becomes official policy, it would be too late for the people of Taiwan to object to it.

Another win for the US again! "The most effective lie is the one with a kernel of truth" indeed.

The US does a lot of stupid things, it doesn't make it unreal. This policy isn't even half stupid as long as you can deny it long enough to make it happen. I might even say it's smart to deny it on the surface but actually continuing to make the threat credible. Well done.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#138

Post by nradov »

threeseed wrote: post #79
jamesaurichs wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's going to be a lot of Russian and Chinese interference in American politics in 2024 for sure

The worst part is that X/Twitter is deliberately not trying to help this cycle. They pulled out of the EU Code of Practice around disinformation back in May and they have been warned as recently as yesterday that the platform was the worst of all of the social networks at allowing Russian disinformation. And I am sure everyone who used it has seen the massive uptick in bots and other coordinated activity.

Fake news. I haven't seen any uptick in bots or coordinated activity. You might be following the wrong sort of accounts.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#140

Post by Animats »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #116
oreally wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it isn't the first time that narratives about China's collapse have surfaced; they've been going on since the 2000s. Take anything you read about China on western boards with a pinch of salt; vice versa for the other side too.

It's the first time we've had some serious quantitative data behind it, though. There are good indicators that an economic stagnation or recession are coming, and that could potentially hurt the CCP long term.

China had a real estate bubble fueled by overbuilding, and it collapsed. Nobody is quite sure what happens after that. The economic system is so different that the aftereffects aren't clear.
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