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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

#71

Post by yorwba »

John_KZ wrote: post #54
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.

I'm not sure what kind of articles you're looking for, but here is the English website of the China National Space Administration: http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/n6443408/index.html

As a non-government source, the South China Morning post is the closest thing to an independent newspaper and they have a collection of articles about the Yutu rover: http://www.scmp.com/topics/jade-rabbit-lunar-rover

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#72

Post by noobermin »

Sangermaine wrote: post #61
noobermin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The inevitable "whataboutism" comments that any discussion of China generates are indeed just noise.

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.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#73

Post by Lionsion »

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.

> The rating was sustained by constant comments by Chinese studying in the US and burnishing their reps with the Party.

I can believe it. The Chinese government apparently paying students to wave flags when their officials come visit [1]. Since they manage to do that successfully, it wouldn't surprise me if they do similar things with internet comments.

[1] http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/chinas-long-arm-reaches-...

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#74

Post by yorwba »

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…

1 hour later and this story is #6 on the front page. I get it, complaining about perceived censorship is fun, but this submission hasn't quite gone full flame war yet, so I think it will stay for a while.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#75

Post by MekaiGS »

Lionsion wrote: post #73
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.

> The rating was sustained by constant comments by Chinese studying in the US and burnishing their reps with the Party. I can believe it. The Chinese government apparently paying students to wave flags when their officials come visit [1]. Since they manage to do that successfully, it wouldn't surprise me if they do similar things with internet comments. [1] http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/chinas-long-arm-reaches-…

There is a more specific term for folks like that, they are being referred as the 50 cent party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#76

Post by lstyls »

noobermin wrote: post #72
Sangermaine wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inevitable "whataboutism" comments that any discussion of China generates are indeed just noise.

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 I get sick of the moralizing that underlies all these threads, as if our media doesn't do the exact same thing

You do realize this is false equivalency / whataboutism?

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#77

Post by _jgvg »

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.

Your post is pretty much the definition of whataboutism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#78

Post by Lionsion »

noobermin wrote: post #72
Sangermaine wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inevitable "whataboutism" comments that any discussion of China generates are indeed just noise.

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.

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#79

Post by elefanten »

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…

I read those two sentences to describe an existing misconception among BOTH (sentence 1) academics/journalists/activists AND (sentence 2) people posting on social media. The misconception is that the strategy of 50c party posters is to argue loudly from the perspective of the CCP.

The following sentence in the abstract helps put it in context: "Yet, almost no systematic empirical evidence exists for this claim, or, more importantly, for the Chinese regime's strategic objective in pursuing this activity. "

This third sentence presents the paper's challenge to the supposed misconception.

Therefore, the concluding quote you highlight makes perfect sense as the paper's thesis for what strategy drives 50c party posts.

Edit: I agree those sentence are a bit awkward. To help parse them, eliminate some of the connecting words:

1: "Academics/journalists/activists claim 50c posts argue for government's side."

2: "This is also true of posts accused on social media of being 50c" (this = argue for government's side)

3: "Yet, no evidence exists for this claim"

Re: Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction

#80

Post by noobermin »

pmlnr wrote: post #55
noobermin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The topic is propaganda, that other countries and organizations like companies do that is related to the topic. If that's unrelated, pointing out the random articles dealing with China ever is also unrelated. (A freaking article about the Moon lander for pete's sake)

I don't think "China" is a reason enough for things to be under the same topic.

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