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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

#161

Post by pteredactyl »

xster wrote: post #155
ss248 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Yea, I'd argue the whole goal of Western government operators is to create a well-oiled propaganda machine. Everything else is a negotiation.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#162

Post by yorwba »

pow_pp_-1_v wrote: post #97

Interesting. The whole thing is so simple. A government wants to get their message out quickly and efficiently before negative stories get too much attention. So, how to do it cost effectively? Simple, ask normal government employees to write pro-government posts on social media when they get time. Plus their career prospects improve if they do it. Finally a reminder on certain days about their duty to spread the goo…

> if you ask the people who write these posts if they are doing propaganda, there's a good chance that their initial genuine response will be to say no.

Actually, they'll probably say yes. Most Chinese do not think of propaganda as something negative. Every student club at my university has an unironically named "propaganda department" that manages their social media. "Propaganda" just never underwent the value shift that happened in other countries, so although there's a translation of "PR" almost nobody uses the word.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#163

Post by nothrabannosir »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #139
nothrabannosir wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HN moderating skew on anything regarding China is palpable. Anecdotal, but I’ve witnessed it every single time I participated (both ways). And I systematically see posts buried which otherwise would not have been. It’s becoming a nuisance, which is fine. But I fear what will happen if the trend continues. It may very well end up suffocating thoughtful discussion about China and their policies. Which, ironically,…

> And I systematically see posts buried which otherwise would not have been. I'm skeptical that mods are deliberating burying such posts. What can happen is 1 - it gets flagged then vouched, but still has a huge karma hit. This happened to all the Damore discussions. 2 - it has a much greater ratio of comments to upvotes. This is taken as a marker of bickering and leads to penalization

I see the confusion, my apologies; I was referring to moderation of comments by users. This is very susceptible to astroturfing and manipulation, as discussed elsewhere in this thread.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#164

Post by foodislove »

qiqing wrote: post #128
aaron-lebo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It's rare that I come across comments about China that are legitimately racist on HN Perhaps your threshold has a different set-point from mine (and from people who are the target of similar comments). I include conscious and unconscious bias, and Chinese people are just as capable of anti-China racism as women are capable of being sexist.* The same people who criticize the Chinese government for not allowing Faceb…

I'm sorry. Where were you when your counterparts kept calling Michelle Obama a "monkey" or Tsai, the President of Taiwan a "old maid", "japanese collaborator" and other things?

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#165

Post by foodislove »

foodislove wrote: post #22

[flagged]

This proves the point. I added the "bimbo of a wife" comment as an example. If you look on web forums, there are unmitigated attacks of similar calibre towards Tsai (President of Taiwan) calling her a "old whore", "old maid", "japanese collaborator", and such.

The first time you see such nonsense like the "bimbo" reference, you call it out. However, after you see it 50 times, you just ignore it. For you, you ignore it, but since nobody calls it out, it is gradually asserted as fact. This is the same trend online by the organized trolls whereby nobody even bothers to call them out when they pretend Taiwan is part of China; that the South China Sea belongs to China; and that Xi Jinping is the new Kim Jong Il.

The first time you see something like this attack, you call it out. By the time you see it 200 times from 20 different people, you'll be indifferent.

I should write a better 50c algorithm that spews Peng is a stupid bimbo until everyone on the internet accepts it.

Note. I don't think she is a bimbo, but the point stands none the less

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#167

Post by dang »

foodislove wrote: post #22

[flagged]

Your attack against Xi Jinping's wife is shameful and obviously a bannable offense. It's shameful most of all to whatever point of view or country you're representing. Who would want to be associated with something like that? If you want to continue participating on HN, please don't ever do anything like this again.

The rest of your comment is also the kind of nationalistic ranting that isn't allowed on HN. People on both sides of every strongly-felt line perceive their opponents as trolls. If you have evidence of abuse, please email us so we can take a look; we ban accounts that do that, regardless of which nations or opinions are at issue.

But please don't post insinuations without basis. By 'basis' I mean specific links or data. Simply having an opposing view is not enough; it's too subject to how one feels. The site guidelines mention this, so it would be a good idea to (re-)read them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Is there a pattern of downvotes whenver there isa negative story about China

There isn't such a pattern than I'm aware of. What you're probably seeing is users flagging stories that they feel are off-topic for HN, presumably because they lead to nationalistic flamewars.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#168

Post by dang »

foodislove wrote: post #165
foodislove wrote: post #22

[flagged]

This proves the point. I added the "bimbo of a wife" comment as an example. If you look on web forums, there are unmitigated attacks of similar calibre towards Tsai (President of Taiwan) calling her a "old whore", "old maid", "japanese collaborator", and such. The first time you see such nonsense like the "bimbo" reference, you call it out. However, after you see it 50 times, you just ignore it. For you, you ignore i…

It doesn't "stand", because you're not welcome to haul that kind of trash into Hacker News just because people sling it elsewhere.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#169

Post by dang »

jonathanyc wrote: post #98

We should definitely be wary of attempts by the Chinese government to distract from meaningful discussion. It’s worth remembering that leftist organizations in the US and around the world during the Cold War were sometimes funded by the Soviet Union. At the same time, I am reminded of how organizations that in hindsight we know were definitely not funded by the Soviet Union were accused of exactly that during the 50s…

You've been getting deep into nationalistic flamewars. You've also repeatedly been uncivil. We ban accounts that do these things, regardless of which nation (or ideology or opinion) you're for or against. It needs to stop, so please stop.

You've been spreading the toxin you're deploring, which is generally how it spreads on HN. That's not ok, regardless of how wrong someone else may be. If you think you see abuse, you're welcome to email us about it so we can take a look and take action if we find it. But you're not welcome to bring the site down in flames in your own right.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#170

Post by dang »

Lionsion wrote: post #78
noobermin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably a good reason. The thing is I get sick of the moralizing that underlies all these threads, as if our media doesn't do the exact same thing. re: manufacturing consent. The thing is there's this strange, "uncanny" feeling I get whenever these things are shared too, all of a sudden, HN readers who are usually critical start to coalesce around a common fear of the other.

> The thing is there's this strange, "uncanny" feeling I get whenever these things are shared too I posted this because I got super frustrated with all the derails and distractions that utterly destroyed the Xinjiang indoctrination camp post from yesterday. If you don't believe me you can look at my comment history.

Your comment history is extremely problematic for Hacker News, because you've been using it to engage in nationalistic flamewar. I don't care what your views are or which nations you have feelings about: doing this is as toxic as it gets.

Edit: actually you went so far over the line that we banned the account. No one is allowed to turn HN into nationalistic hell, regardless of which nation they're fighting for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17108836

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