Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

gking.harvard.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 174 posts

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#51

Post by noobermin »

pmlnr wrote: post #44
noobermin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this downvoted? All governments do propaganda, this is a well known fact. One particular interesting thing about this particular case is the scale and the focus, but do we really think other governments don't try? Even companies astroturf.

Isn't the comment itself a distraction, just like the ones in the main post? :)

No, it isn't a distraction, it's actually related to the topic. A distraction along the lines of the article would be flagging this article and upvoting others.

However, upvoting this and flagging comments pointing out hypocrisy can also be construed as propaganda. Seeing that across the comment section is discouraging.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#52

Post by crazy_monkey »

vthallam wrote: post #12

T - 30 mins before this post gets buried. I don't understand despite the high upvote count, why do articles critical of China are not able to be in the first page for more than a couple hours. Also, China is the new Saudi Arabia. With the economic power, they can get away with anything and actually, you can't do anything to stop that. Even Trump who was so critical wanted to help ZTE as soon as the Chinese asked for…

Lol, the US can get away with anything too like torture, illegal bombing, civilian casualties in a US wars, ... Maybe we should try introspecting too before assuming that others are not like us...

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#53

Post by [deleted] »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #38
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.

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

[deleted]

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#54

Post by John_KZ »

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.

Personally I was disappointed by the lack of coverage this landing got. Same with their space station. I'm genuinely interested in this, but the Chinese won't translate articles/sources themselves, and given the (strategic? image-preserving?) indifference by the US, I can't find any content about them in English. I find this really annoying.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#55

Post by pmlnr »

noobermin wrote: post #43
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.

Or something like a comment thread where half the comments pointing out other governments do propaganda are flagged to hell, like this section.

In this very case, the topic is how the country in the post is doing it.

Isn't talking about another country a distraction from that?

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#56

Post by reaperducer »

vthallam wrote: post #45
reaperducer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On HN it's not unique to China. Anything negative about India is downvoted into oblivion. You can almost time it to the rising of the sun in India Standard Time. I'm not saying that it's being orchestrated by the Indian government, but it does happen.

This is the distraction the linked study was talking about. I'm not sure if it happens about articles related to India, but since we are on the topic about China's article getting down-voted (anecdotally I have seen multiple times), I think we should focus on that atm.

Agreed. Not trying to divert attention from the topic at hand (like the people cited in the Harvard study do).

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#58

Post by yorwba »

johnchristopher wrote: post #27

> Many academics, and most journalists and activists, claim that these so-called 50c party posts vociferously argue for the government’s side in political and policy debates. As we show, this is also true of most posts openly accused on social media of being 50c. I am not a native speaker. I can't parse that sentence :/. Why is this `also` true ? In addition to what ? Wouldn't it follow that posts arguing in favour o…

> Why is this `also` true ? In addition to what ?

It is true in addition to being claimed.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#59

Post by nothrabannosir »

crazy_monkey wrote: post #52
vthallam wrote: post #12

T - 30 mins before this post gets buried. I don't understand despite the high upvote count, why do articles critical of China are not able to be in the first page for more than a couple hours. Also, China is the new Saudi Arabia. With the economic power, they can get away with anything and actually, you can't do anything to stop that. Even Trump who was so critical wanted to help ZTE as soon as the Chinese asked for…

Lol, the US can get away with anything too like torture, illegal bombing, civilian casualties in a US wars, ... Maybe we should try introspecting too before assuming that others are not like us...

Are you joking ? How literally can you be the very essence of what this article is about?

This, literally this is what that research is describing.

Stop changing the bloody subject !

Gah.

Edit: this account is a smoking gun. Have a look at the comment history.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#60

Post by BatFastard »

vthallam wrote: post #12

T - 30 mins before this post gets buried. I don't understand despite the high upvote count, why do articles critical of China are not able to be in the first page for more than a couple hours. Also, China is the new Saudi Arabia. With the economic power, they can get away with anything and actually, you can't do anything to stop that. Even Trump who was so critical wanted to help ZTE as soon as the Chinese asked for…

Well Trump appears to have changed his mind very soon after they invested 500 million in a project he was involved with.
Post reply on HN