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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

#51

Post by cwkoss »

chillacy wrote: post #39

Anyone else a bit freaked out at how effective social influence is? What does that say about how we form opinions?

I think 95%+ of opinions are directly regurgitated from others, but we humans mistake our own novelty with the idea for the idea actually being original.

Thinking about my teenage years, I'd often see a documentary and then "come up" with concepts it covered a week or two later.

Similarly, I think one of the biggest issues with "bot influencers" is that the average human is not good at thinking for themselves and regurgitates whatever they agree with/protects the ego. The online activity of many technology-naive middle aged users gradually becomes indistinguishable from the bots they follow.

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

#52

Post by cwkoss »

hktruth wrote: post #14
mullingitover wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like China unleashed their bots on HN as well?

This is the typical Pavlovian response which has infected social media and HN. If you disagree with the "narrative" you're either a China bot or a Russian troll.

You created an account named `hktruth` 28 days ago.

Seems quite obvious you have a horse in this race.

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

#53

Post by bllguo »

SimbaOnSteroids wrote: post #46
vkou wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frequently, people have political opinions that are incredibly nationalistic, to the point of sounding like complete gibberish to anyone outside their bubble. I generally don't assume that they are bots, shills, or trolls, even if they sound like them. I need only look at the outcome of elections to know that those positions have incredibly broad grassroots support.

True, but consider that they're equally productive for any discourse, that is to say a net negative. Therefore it would be pertinent to treat them similarly.

what kind of "discourse" are you aiming for after you've labeled and dismissed everyone with a pro-China sentiment? a debate where the only participants have the same opinions seems like the least productive possible form of discussion.

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

#54

Post by ben_jones »

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…

It is an industry that goes way beyond Twitter and PR companies. It's incredibly popular for US businesses to pay firms in Asia, Africa, etc. to trawl social media and collect data using various automaton tools for BI and other purposes.

That said I also believe a lot of trolls and political posters are just normal people voicing their malignant opinions to the point where it is nearly impossible to identify astroturfing as long as the accounts are "tenured" enough (real pictures, some age, etc.).

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

#55

Post by cwkoss »

chvid wrote: post #32
hktruth wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwaway account to talk about Hong Kong. Look at the downvotes I'm getting.

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.

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

#56

Post by yorwba »

dirtyid wrote: post #28

What is stopping Twitter from releasing server logs for others to independently authenticate attribution? Facebook, Google have not declared. The ASPI analysis proceeds on assumption that Twitters attribution is correct. The startup Digital Intelligence concludes confidently "China has made its debut as a confirmed information operations actor" because the bots coordinated behavior "emulat[es] divisive disinformation…

> some independent agent/contractor with limited resources and basic scripting knowledge.

Outsourcing seems likely. Last month an invitation for bids was posted for a contract to promote Chinese state media on Twitter for 1.2 million yuan, payable if the follower count increased by at least 580,000 at the end of the contract period. [1]

Some people have framed it as "China openly buys followers", but it seems clear that whoever came up with the contract intended for those followers to be real people, since a propaganda account is pretty useless if it's only read by bots. Of course the successful bidder would be likely to try and add some fake accounts if they couldn't hit the target otherwise. Someone seems to have realized that and pulled the announcement, which is why I had to use an archive.org link.

This spam campaign might have been similar; with a contract to spread propaganda messages that lacked the necessary safeguards to ensure subtlety.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190822113315/http://www.ccgp.g...

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

#57

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

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.

In truth, I find that most Westerners have a much more distorted view of China than Chinese people do. That may seem strange and obvious to say, but there are so many Westerners who know next to nothing about China, yet confidently talk about Chinese people being brainwashed. The thing is, those "brainwashed" people have a much better informed and more nuanced view of China. The people calling them "brainwashed" are typically just regurgitating whatever they read in the newspaper this morning, which is usually sensationalized (imagine a non-American's impression of the US being formed entirely by news accounts of mass shootings).

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

#58

Post by smhenderson »

mullingitover wrote: post #15
hktruth wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the typical Pavlovian response which has infected social media and HN. If you disagree with the "narrative" you're either a China bot or a Russian troll.

I mean, your account has zero history and is strongly advocating a pro-China position. If it walks like a duck...

And the account is named hktruth, how is that supposed to be taken as impartial? Sounds like a duck as well.

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

#59

Post by RobertRoberts »

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 think it's useful to hear multiple sides to an argument, and to dismiss one side of an argument with ad hominem attacks, like you just did, only demonstrates how vital it is to hear various sides of a situation.

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

#60

Post by FooBarWidget »

mullingitover wrote: post #15
hktruth wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the typical Pavlovian response which has infected social media and HN. If you disagree with the "narrative" you're either a China bot or a Russian troll.

I mean, your account has zero history and is strongly advocating a pro-China position. If it walks like a duck...

Perhaps there are people who want to voice unpopular opinions anonymously in order to avoid social backlashes? We at HN frequently celebrate anonymity as a means of free speech.
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