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Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

gking.harvard.edu

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Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#151

Post by xster »

pteredactyl wrote: post #5

This is great. Please, please let this concept enter the general public's mind.

I definitely hope so. I also hope this awareness doesn't stop at our borders since this type of astroturfing is exactly the official playbook in various ShareBlue/Media Matters type PACs https://i.redd.it/oij2wau47fdy.jpg (though with better use of euphemisms, a game at which China is still in an infantile stage).

It is as deeply ingrained as it can get in American public online discourse https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?two_year_transaction...

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#152

Post by kolpa »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #8

"In contrast to prior claims, we show that the Chinese regime's strategy is to avoid arguing with skeptics of the party and the government, and to not even discuss controversial issues. We show that the goal of this massive secretive operation is instead to distract the public and change the subject, as most of the these posts involve cheerleading for China, the revolutionary history of the Communist Party, or other…

Cutting through the rhetoric, that means simply that CCP does bog-standard PR rhetoric. No professional in PR would deign to acknowledge the existence of critics, unless those critics are too loud to ignore.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#153

Post by dragonwriter »

qiqing wrote: post #89
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting. I always get that uncanny valley feeling even on Hacker News, especially when the comments concern China. This would explain a lot.

50c party is widely accepted as real a thing as Russian troll farms during the election, but I'd be skeptical if HN is a target. (I don't think you need an academic paper to 'prove' it's a real thing.) The reason you read defensive comments on HN (even from me) is due to how easily anti-China criticism slides from legitimate policy discussion into raw, tribal racism. I simply feel it is my duty to call out anti-Chine…

> 50c party is widely accepted as real a thing as Russian troll farms during the election, but I'd be skeptical if HN is a target.

I wouldn't; HN is obviously recognized as something an important influence node for an important (if not necessarily large number itself) segment of society. Why wouldn't 50c or Russian troll farms target it just as non-state-sponsored activists obviously do?

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#154

Post by xster »

dragonwriter wrote: post #149
xster wrote: post #144

This is literally and exactly what Correct The Record ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correct_the_Record ) is and is as standard as it gets in American political discourse online https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?two_year_transaction... .

> This is literally and exactly what Correct The Record [...] is No, it's not. Propaganda by competing domestic partisan interest groups seeking to influence elections in their own country is not “literally and exactly” the same thing as state sponsored propaganda.

Ah, I see where we might disagree on.

I think you would argue that from the perspective of the propaganda targets, the CCP is the establishment vying to influence public opinion and American political parties are not. They're simply political instruments in a machinery that then determines what becomes the establishment.

I'm not saying it's a binary dichotomy but I'm more leaning on the side that there are no American 'political parties' in the sense that the Green Party will never be like the Canadian NDP etc and the 'parties' is just an established, acceptable non-real-power-threatening Overton Window that directs shared class concerns and energy into a black hole of oxygen draining wedge issue arena.

The establishment is the establishment and money is the establishment and from that perspective, I would argue CTR is a class interest group rather than a partisan interest group.

Anyway. I think we disagree but I think it's the context we disagree on.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#155

Post by xster »

ss248 wrote: post #63
Barrin92 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Please, please let this concept enter the general public's mind. Especially salient because the idea of censorship in the form of bookburning or restricting speech is still way too dominant (especially in American culture). Information overflow and deflection through a sheer barrage of garbage and misinformation seems to be the new (and much more effective) MO.

>Information overflow and deflection through a sheer barrage of garbage and misinformation seems to be the new Nothing new actually. The whole concept is pretty old. Looks like after trying to follow "guidelines" from Orwell's "1984", we are just trying Huxley's "Brave New World".

> Looks like after trying to follow "guidelines" from Orwell's "1984", we are just trying Huxley's "Brave New World".

This guy gets it. I absolutely agree that China needs the searing scrutiny of the world for the sake of its people and the world but China is also still in absolute infantile stages of propaganda sophistication. Straight up censorships and news suppressions are things the West did in WWI. Astroturfing is a step up but operating under the premise of a palatable freedom of information and political choice while being inundated with what to think without ever receiving 'literal fake news' is light-years ahead of China.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#156

Post by [deleted] »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #91
qiqing wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50c party is widely accepted as real a thing as Russian troll farms during the election, but I'd be skeptical if HN is a target. (I don't think you need an academic paper to 'prove' it's a real thing.) The reason you read defensive comments on HN (even from me) is due to how easily anti-China criticism slides from legitimate policy discussion into raw, tribal racism. I simply feel it is my duty to call out anti-Chine…

In the interest of productive discussion, what do you perceive as racism? It's rare that I come across comments about China that are legitimately racist on HN. I get some people are and some discussion is that, but more than anything I see genuine concern about how the government is acting and given how the government controls that nation, that's where the criticism can seem so wholesale. But what do you feel is a ra…

[deleted]

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#157

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jessaustin wrote: post #133
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe grandparent was being ironic in their sarcasm?

We should always try to see more irony. It is a good antidote to the bullheaded self-righteous certainties that seem to plague these sorts of threads.

There is nothing more ironic than a what aboutism meeting an article about what aboutisms.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#158

Post by mc32 »

qiqing wrote: post #89
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting. I always get that uncanny valley feeling even on Hacker News, especially when the comments concern China. This would explain a lot.

50c party is widely accepted as real a thing as Russian troll farms during the election, but I'd be skeptical if HN is a target. (I don't think you need an academic paper to 'prove' it's a real thing.) The reason you read defensive comments on HN (even from me) is due to how easily anti-China criticism slides from legitimate policy discussion into raw, tribal racism. I simply feel it is my duty to call out anti-Chine…

I'll believe that when people begin identifying anti-Russian racism. Almost anything can be framed to look like a certain thing it wasn't.

I guess one could claim anti-Russian racism if we take all the "Russian trolls" comments as being not about the alleged actions and their contexts but rather about how that represents Russians in general to the American audience.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#159

Post by fermienrico »

Aunche wrote: post #103
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting. I always get that uncanny valley feeling even on Hacker News, especially when the comments concern China. This would explain a lot.

You get an uncanny valley feeling because the Western media always exaggerates the degree of how Orwellian or how much influence the Chinese government really has, so that they can get more clicks from people unfamiliar with China or who are mildly racist.

I disagree. Having been to China more than 30 times, I can tell you that the reality is worse.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#160

Post by shanghaiaway »

aj7 wrote: post #11

When the NY Times covered the Chinese robotic moon landing, it was in the top 10 stories for more than a week. In the most space-jaded country on the planet. The rating was sustained by constant comments by Chinese studying in the US and burnishing their reps with the Party. You can almost always make Chinese English, an AI program could be trained to do it. I wrote to their ombudsman. Down in a day.

Hacker News is awash with jingoist conspiracy theorists.
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