How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda • Hacker News Board

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#111

Post by parrellel » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 6:29 PM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #107

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I remember I had a colleague, a Chinese student, very nice person, we were going along nicely, until one day I mentioned the Dalai Lama, and he exploded. It seems like the brainwashing was very successful - he believed that the DL was a monster, killer, some demonic being aiming at the destruction of China and so on. I couldn't believe my ears. This person seemed otherwise completely normal.

>brainwashing was very successful TBH this is as much your brainwashing as your colleagues. 14th DL was part of CIA Tibetan program. You mentioned serf/feudalism, he was old enough to perpetuate before exile. Current Dalai Lama was literally a killer who tried to undermine PRC sovereignty. This is like when mainstream America suddenly found out Christopher Columbus was kind of a monster, because previously it was sim…

This, this, is what I was talking about. Aggressive blind defense of the party and dismissal of criticisms and almost certainly not a propaganda account. It reminds me of the reaction of my more rabidly religious relations :D

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#112

Post by codewench » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

krageon wrote: post #64

0dayz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its quite peculiar you only post on topics that are about China. Since you seem like a peace loving person then what do you think about what is happening in Xinjiang? Also to debunk your obvious whataboutism. First of wmd in Iraq has been confirmed before the Iraq War even happen. Baby in incubator was something kuwait said to the us not the other way around. Lastly never heard about wmd in Libya since they scrap it…

> wmd in Iraq has been confirmed They never existed and it would frankly be an enormous stretch of the imagination to think intelligence services are so earth-shatteringly incompetent that they would not be aware of this fact.

Not coming down on either side of this, bit Iraq's use of chemical weapons against their Kurdish population [0] is well documented.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#113

Post by dirtyid » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

parrellel wrote: post #111

dirtyid wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>brainwashing was very successful TBH this is as much your brainwashing as your colleagues. 14th DL was part of CIA Tibetan program. You mentioned serf/feudalism, he was old enough to perpetuate before exile. Current Dalai Lama was literally a killer who tried to undermine PRC sovereignty. This is like when mainstream America suddenly found out Christopher Columbus was kind of a monster, because previously it was sim…

This, this, is what I was talking about. Aggressive blind defense of the party and dismissal of criticisms and almost certainly not a propaganda account. It reminds me of the reaction of my more rabidly religious relations :D

> agressive blind defense

You're confusing nuanced, informed, counter-argument compared to your agressive blind accusation. This is what PRC diaspora in the west has to deal with, brainwashed people who are signficantly less informed than them who accuse everyone of being shill / propaganda accounts. It's every bit as dogmatic as rabid religious folk, with even less self awareness.

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#114

Post by fortuna86 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #110

fortuna86 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are the two comments below yours: https://i.imgur.com/o8c9ZPm.png While most efforts by the Chinese government to distort and degrade online communications have been focused domestically: https://www.propublica.org/article/leaked-documents-show-how... There is evidence they are starting to turn their guns outward: https://www.cfr.org/blog/chinas-internet-trolls-go-global But there is an uncomfortable truth behi…

>turn their guns outward Different kinds of calibre guns, so far PRC has not brought out the big ones nor firing with intent to kill. PRC foreign propaganda is still overwhelmingly boring "tell china story well", distinctively different from Russian troll farms. They're fundamentally different attack vectors. Both also influence diaspora, as does every country. There's just more Chinese abroad with perspective of bot…

> Different kinds of calibre guns

I'm sorry but you aren't paying attention to recent developments. Chinese trolls are attaching themselves to wedge issues in the US culture war (guns, BLM, etc.) in the same way Russia did, as a strategy of general harm. Also vaccine related disinfo isn't general/vague or long term in it's harm, it's doing real damage today.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pro-china-trolls-dubbed-spamou...

> My general feeling of the "coordinated pro-CCP" phenomenon is that there are many pro-China diaspora in western platforms whose threshold for engaging anti-China pieces is to downvote and move on.

The more that China diaspora see any criticism of the Chinese Government as criticism of themselves, the wider and more difficult to bridge the gap becomes.

> IMO most do it for themselves for tribalism, which is natural behaviour.

That was my point, everyone has a bit of nationalist in them. But the behavior i've observed from Chinese nationalists far out paces anything else i've seen. I fear the consequences of this trend, as if the Chinese government decides to start making more overt their current campaign of covert aggression, most Chinese will simple fall in line as they've been conditioned to do for the past decade.

> accessing western internet is not some verboten activity like many westerners envisions it to be, it's entertainment.

As long as your don't say the wrong thing, of course.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-is-now-sending-twitter-us...

I've seen a lot of westerners in HK, China, etc. take a blasé attitude towards crackdowns because they are convinced they are safe (which is mostly accurate). You do not and should not speak for natives in this regard.

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3143207/...

Re: VPNS, according to my friends in the mainland VPN's are becoming more and more unreliable. This is purposeful.

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#115

Post by arcanon » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

weimerica wrote: post #106

arvigeus wrote: post #95

I find it amusing how the ex president of USA is banned from social media, while Chinese propaganda is left mostly untouched.

At this point I’m starting to warm to the Chinese system. At least the Han aren’t made to be guilty of the original sin of being White. I don’t know what to call the US system we have now, but can’t say I’m a fan.

Yes, very excited to become a Chinese communist vassal state and follow the north korean model.

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#116

Post by Paradigma11 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 7:40 PM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #75

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the general tone that China justifies the invasion: Tibet was feudal, people were slaves, we liberated them, now everybody is happy. There had been many bad things going on in Tibet, but it does not mean you can just invade the country, destroy all forms of religion, put people in prisons, starve and kill your victims, grab the resources, make the life of Tibetans miserable, and pretend you are the great libe…

I think China would argue that it wasn't really an invasion, because Tibet had for a couple of hundred years kowtowed to the emperor, and was therefore really part of the empire. Note that if you read the testimonies of those who escaped to India, it's hardly surprising that they are uniformly critical of the occupation. A more balanced history shows that prior to the occupation, peasants were generally the property…

Chinas invasion brought with it all those horrors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution You would need lots of modernization and economic growth to offset this. Plus its hard to say where Tibet would be without chinese occupation.

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#117

Post by hdjjhhvvhga » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #113

parrellel wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, this, is what I was talking about. Aggressive blind defense of the party and dismissal of criticisms and almost certainly not a propaganda account. It reminds me of the reaction of my more rabidly religious relations :D

> agressive blind defense You're confusing nuanced, informed, counter-argument compared to your agressive blind accusation. This is what PRC diaspora in the west has to deal with, brainwashed people who are signficantly less informed than them who accuse everyone of being shill / propaganda accounts. It's every bit as dogmatic as rabid religious folk, with even less self awareness.

Your comment is self-contradictory.

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#118

Post by yesbut » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

shapefrog wrote: post #4

yesbut wrote: post #3

I wonder how it stacks up to the fake network pushing anti-China propaganda.

I want to find the facebook pages where the pro-China propaganda bots are fighting the anti-China propaganda bots to know which is the one true propaganda I am meant to believe in.

Bernays' Battle Bots

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#119

Post by DiogenesKynikos » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 10:28 PM UTC

toss1 wrote: post #98

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the general tone that China justifies the invasion: Tibet was feudal, people were slaves, we liberated them, now everybody is happy. There had been many bad things going on in Tibet, but it does not mean you can just invade the country, destroy all forms of religion, put people in prisons, starve and kill your victims, grab the resources, make the life of Tibetans miserable, and pretend you are the great libe…

Yup, and let's be even more clear about this. This Chinese tone that "justifies" the invasion creates these kinds of side discussions, which serves the same purpose as Whataboutism, even if that isn't the intent of the speaker/writer. A thought experiment: Assume that Tibet was actually some kind of horrific feudal empire that did whatever horrible things to its people you can imagine. Even if that is some kind of ju…

It's a bit more complicated than that. Tibet was internationally recognized as part of China - not as an independent country. After the Chinese revolution of 1911, China fell apart, and Tibet became de facto independent. But that occurred throughout China, as various warlords took control of different parts of the country. China was in turmoil (the Japanese invasion and near-constant civil war) until 1949. Once the country had a strong central government, that government immediately tried to reassert its authority over the territories that were de jure part of China, including Tibet. You can think of this what you want, but it's not at all similar to invading a country in the other side of the world.

Re: How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda

#120

Post by DiogenesKynikos » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 10:45 PM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #110

fortuna86 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are the two comments below yours: https://i.imgur.com/o8c9ZPm.png While most efforts by the Chinese government to distort and degrade online communications have been focused domestically: https://www.propublica.org/article/leaked-documents-show-how... There is evidence they are starting to turn their guns outward: https://www.cfr.org/blog/chinas-internet-trolls-go-global But there is an uncomfortable truth behi…

>turn their guns outward Different kinds of calibre guns, so far PRC has not brought out the big ones nor firing with intent to kill. PRC foreign propaganda is still overwhelmingly boring "tell china story well", distinctively different from Russian troll farms. They're fundamentally different attack vectors. Both also influence diaspora, as does every country. There's just more Chinese abroad with perspective of bot…

> There's just more Chinese abroad with perspective of both systems, and frankly the western narrative is frequently blatantly misinformed that most don't see defending the homeland as promoting illiberalism. Most are shocked at how quickly liberal minds can be brainwashed despite free media.

Yes, this is legitimately shocking. For anyone who has any experience/ knowledge of China, the image of the country that is relentlessly pushed in many mainstream outlets is totally unrecognizable. The reason they can get away with it is that most people in the West know next to nothing about China. It's not that China is some paradise - it's just that it's extremely different from how it's portrayed.