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How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

nytimes.com

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Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#111

Post by lettergram »

AFascistWorld wrote: post #38
machbio wrote: post #5

Am starting to feel this trolling is an industry (like troll farm) of its own - there are people or bots dedicated to trolling and reporting people who raise voice against the discrimination.. I recently had to report an unfair service by virgin atlantic staff after an emergency landing - I tweeted the pictures and video of the incident.. I was immediately trolled by twitter accounts about how i should be happy that…

You may not believe it, the vast majority of Chinese actually love the CCP and the system, they only just hate that a few corrupt low-level officials who are the bad apples fucking up leaders' glorious visions. These "bots" are mostly spontaneous people, they are not even government-sponsored Wumao, they genuinely love China and defend it, their reason being it may have some flaws but any other country has too and is…

I’ve pointed this out before, but China has a huge population. They also have hundreds of millions of “migrant workers” who aren’t allowed to live in cities without having an active job. These works have to collect money so they can send it back to their farms and pay for their brothers or kids education(s) (because in China you have to pay for education).

We are likely only seeing the voices of people who love the CCP. I do agree many love China, of course they do, everyone has to or they aren’t allowed to work, or have internet...

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#112

Post by RobertRoberts »

dirtyid wrote: post #99
RobertRoberts wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are facts determined to be accurate by only people with an education or skilled speakers? In the old world a person's word was their bond, not their status in society. As much as you may not like what some people say about China, it doesn't mean it's not true. I have met many people from many other countries, I've travelled, I have relatives in multiple countries right now, and it's all too easy to see something in t…

>I will take facts over opinions any day of the week. Then why place so much faith on 2 YouTubers instead of a seasoned China hand who has been around longer, whose work has been recognized by other China hands, who aggregates information from both western and Chinese sources to provide a relatively impartial view of the situation? My contention isn't an appeal to authority and call to defer to experts, but to point…

Just this past week China blocked American's from leaving their country (exit bans), even though they didn't commit any crimes. That is seriously tyrannical level activity.

Can a foreigner get a bank account and buy land in China? How hard is it to get a job as an white westerner in China? What kind of jobs are prevalent for foreigners in China?

Look at the videos of people getting hit by cars there and no helps. Why? Because their legal system can end up putting more burden on those that help than those that just leave people to die. Feel free to point me to a video that says this not true, and I can show you a bunch that says it is.

China's policies on the Muslim population being put into re-education centers (remind you of a European country's actions in the early 20th century?) there are videos of these places online of it happening right now, not from clickbait vloggers.

China destroys churches, persecutes it's own people based on many types of religions. It has a social score system that blocks people from travelling.

This doesn't even cover government supported fraud, IP theft, espionage, currency manipulation, etc... The garbage China pulls on the rest of the world is overwhelming.

And you think that a couple vloggers are the cause of this bad press???

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#113

Post by whoevercares »

onemoresoop wrote: post #95
hktruth wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, overseas Chinese communities are divided, as are families too. What's happening now is that a Chinese person who doesn't support the protestors is labelled as being pro-China, which is ludicrous. Protestors have been described as "Little Black Guards", a reference to the Cultural Revolution and the student led Red Guards. Why? Because it's dangerous to voice an opinion or argue with protestors. There have been n…

What do you think about the tiananmen massacre? Do you think it is a western fabrication?? If you're not authorized to talk about it we understand...

It’s not a big deal to discuss it even in China. My father bragged he was with the student leader the night before 64 happened. It’s CCP’s fault to commit mistakes when handling students. Is it worth overthrowing CCP just because of it? Hell Chinese people answered no, at least when they are doing most other things right. “Greater good”, you have to understand this to understand Chineses first

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#115

Post by mrtweetyhack »

AFascistWorld wrote: post #38
machbio wrote: post #5

Am starting to feel this trolling is an industry (like troll farm) of its own - there are people or bots dedicated to trolling and reporting people who raise voice against the discrimination.. I recently had to report an unfair service by virgin atlantic staff after an emergency landing - I tweeted the pictures and video of the incident.. I was immediately trolled by twitter accounts about how i should be happy that…

You may not believe it, the vast majority of Chinese actually love the CCP and the system, they only just hate that a few corrupt low-level officials who are the bad apples fucking up leaders' glorious visions. These "bots" are mostly spontaneous people, they are not even government-sponsored Wumao, they genuinely love China and defend it, their reason being it may have some flaws but any other country has too and is…

As if people even have a choice to love the CCP. Those who don't end up disappearing. Yeah, great place to live.

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#116

Post by dmix »

dirtyid wrote: post #41
RobertRoberts wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched a few videos of a western man living in China (married to a Chinese woman). Their views on propaganda, information, privacy, leadership, marketing, power structures, etc... are all so vastly different from ours that it's almost unbelievable until you hear about it first hand. China's propaganda style is unabashedly similar to "Baghdad Bob". [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Saeed_al-Sahhaf

I hope this isn't an endorsement of serpentza or laowhy86, bitter expats with middle school mandarin proficiency flunking out of China are not insightful sources. There are millions of Chinese diaspora who lived in both Chinese and western cultures with much more useful things to say. Here are recent studies on how domestic and foreign Chinese propaganda works. How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts…

I could imagine some lesser agencies, like some local small CPC offices have some of their workers going online in their spare time to push narratives. Whether encouraged just an an act of patriotism or something more organized where they look at your results and help manage what to hit.

But as you mentioned these could only really work within China. I doubt they have enough local english speakers who could effectively communicate in purely western social media channels. At least for the average party member.

Those people obsessed with politics twitter are a super paranoid bunch these days too. They suspect anyone who disagrees with them might be a Russian bot. So there would be a lot of scrutiny of anyone pushing pro-Bejing narratives without both subtly and a careful grasp of the language and culture.

They'd need some real professionals to do this right.

Otherwise there's still going to be plenty of Chinese people who automatically defend their country. If not simply for propaganda reasons and an impulse to defend your home and people, especially as their media often presents them as the victim of western conspiracies to sideline them and prevent their greatness. They simply want to correct any negative images attributed to the Chinese, which is understandable and easy to dismiss as being a 'bot'.

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#117

Post by dmix »

mieseratte wrote: post #86
phil248 wrote: post #66

It's a good time to remember that the vast majority of people never use Twitter. The media has had a fixation with the platform for as long as I can remember, which has helped it gain an unearned reputation as being relevant. It's not relevant. It's the trash heap of the internet. I can't understand why anyone would continue to spend time on it when it's become universally known that bots and trolls run the show.

> It's not relevant. It's the trash heap of the internet. It's got heads of state, leaders of enterprise, and myriad celebrity on the platform. As much as I'd like to see Twitter, Facebook, et. al. nuked from orbit, they're very much relevant.

Agreed, it may still be a trash heap, but it's still very relevant culturally. It's also a lazy source for headlines and (occasionally) breaking news so it gets far more relevance media-wise than it warrants in terms of quality.

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#118

Post by dmix »

zachguo wrote: post #68

China should scrap the GFW and unleash them all, I guess the English-speaking world would have to build a GFW to fend off all Chinese netizens then.

They don't even need to. It's not like they are having any problems doing what they want currently and their power is so far from being threatened that it's not even worthing monitoring.

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#119

Post by UIZealot »

cwkoss wrote: post #55
chvid wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough - sorry to be personal. Personally I am very skeptical of the western media coverage of the Hong Kong demonstrations. I do not think for a minute that it has the popular support now that it had earlier (2 mios in the streets etc.). And a lot of the pro-China support online gets categorised as bots or Chinese agents because it is in broken English and comes from the same few vpn ip-addresses. But it is qui…

Is the distinction between propaganda spread by a bot and propaganda spread by a human that was indoctrinated by propaganda important anymore? I think society should accept "bot" as a term for any human or automated entity who uncritically 'retweets' propaganda.

So any opinion different than yours is automatically "propaganda"?

Re: How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters

#120

Post by onemoresoop »

whoevercares wrote: post #113
onemoresoop wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think about the tiananmen massacre? Do you think it is a western fabrication?? If you're not authorized to talk about it we understand...

It’s not a big deal to discuss it even in China. My father bragged he was with the student leader the night before 64 happened. It’s CCP’s fault to commit mistakes when handling students. Is it worth overthrowing CCP just because of it? Hell Chinese people answered no, at least when they are doing most other things right. “Greater good”, you have to understand this to understand Chineses first

I actually heard it is heavily censored and people are kept at bay from openly talking about it. Am I misimformed? If so, can you tell me what is the general purpose of having the great firewall and why is there a need to keep people in the dark about certain things?
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