Hacker News Reader

Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

Off topic, but SixthTone is an interesting publication. It is actually controlled by the CPC in an attempt to create news that westerners would actually read [1], as opposed to Chinadaily and Globaltimes that are too obviously propaganda. In this case, they go with China-critical articles and then try to direct the message to a pro-government position from that perspective.

This is actually how wumaos are supposed to work in China as well. If they go with a blatantly pro-government message, they will be ignored by anyone critical of the Chinese government. So instead, they come in agreeing with critical positions and redirect sentiment from there. So if you ever hear someone who sounds like a wumao, they are probably just overzealous nationalists and not shills.

[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/03/china-explained-sixth-t...

View on HN

I am also curious about this site, too. But right now, it is still one of the fastest English site to report scandal from China, another example is this[1] one I submitted before. I've tried to read some China news about this scandal in Chinese and I thought most of the content in the report is basically the same (BTW, I get this scandal in Chinese first, then try to find some article about this in English for submitting here and find this news by Google).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16544058

> China, Explained

> BY BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN

Wow. That's an incredible title to use on a subject that is so narrow in scope.

Let's look at her other articles:

https://foreignpolicy.com/author/bethany-allen-ebrahimian/

Seems pretty one-sided.

And her twitter:

https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr

Seems pretty one-sided as well.

Just to be clear, I don't intend to personally attack her. Just pointing out the bias in her reporting while we are on this topic of "wumao".

I am also not targeting Foreign Policy as a news media, as Foreign Policy itself doesn't seem to suffer from bias against China as a whole, as there are other authors that are either more neutral or biased towards China:

https://foreignpolicy.com/tag/tea-leaf-nation/

https://foreignpolicy.com/author/melissa-chan/

https://foreignpolicy.com/author/ran-jijun/

Edit: Attempt to remove personal attacks in the comment.

Edit 2: Remove the section about myself.

Those are pretty stereotypical ad hominems, actually. Anytime you attack the author and not the content, it is pretty much an ad hominem. These get used heavily in the Chinese press as well, so I assume there isn’t the taboo against using ad hominems (and other red herrings) in Chinese culture as there is in western culture.

Wumao is basically someone who is paid by the Chinese government to subvert online public opinion. If you are just pro China and being called a womao, the term is being misapplied. Anyone who says anything critical of China is called biased against China, even if it’s just a thing or two. Few people are actually completely biased against China on everything, but in Chinese thought, there seems to be no room for nuance.

Thanks for the reply. I have edited my comment so that it is less personal. Is that enough to remove the ad hominems?

Also, there's plenty of room for nuance to judge the bias, like the other authors on FT that I pointed out in my comment. Her bias is quite clear in my own opinion, given that there are many articles by her on China in FT, and most of the content (at least first few pages) is critical of China (not just one or two).

Ad hominem is easy to fall into if you don't know what to look for, we all do it unless we are trained/train ourselves otherwise, it is just human nature. The reason it is taboo is that it is really an emotional appeal rather than a rational one.

As always in western press, bad news is much more visible than good news, leading to an appearance of bias against China when it is really just a bias for bad news that readers will take note of. The CPC is exploiting this exactly with sixthtone, realizing that their feel good only propaganda approach doesn't translate abroad.

Also, certain reporters do feel good articles, others are better at critical ones, it doesn't mean that the reporter has a bone to pick with China, just that they have a job to do. In reality, she is probably less salty than the average long term laowai.

start out with an overtly critical almost "ad hominem attack" position, include your own stance in the course of your argument and redirect sentiment-in this case trying to garner sympathy for yourself for being attacked as a wumao.

you're either actually a wumao or are too afraid to actually take a reasoned stance. i had never heard of the term before this thread but makes sense, i'm reading a lot more content like this nowadays wondering what exactly the author is arguing about

Thanks for pointing it out. I have edited out personal comments on her and my own stance. Didn't think it would be perceived as garnering sympathy, but if people feel that way I am happy to remove it.

I think it a little funny that you are attacked for this. Personally I have a hate for China due to nationalistic reasons, perhaps unreasonably. But it is good to question the source of information. After all that is the idea of a free press, no? Should we not all question the source of the information to find bias? For myself overall, I would say fuck China.

So, HN has a culture of not explaining down votes, but in this case I can only reason that it is because I said "fuck China". I do not know what experience the down voter has had with China. Myself I made the mistake of loving a person who was later imprisoned in a forced labor camp in China. I understand that that is partly my fault(they were never shy about their beliefs). At some point though it should be okay for a person with grievances to rail against the machine that imprisons them and separates them from their desires.

Ask yourself if you have to worry about your love having all their organs after an act of civil disobedience. I have and do every night. I do not know how to state that in a way that is palatable.

> But it is good to question the source of information.

Not when it's done in lieu of a rational discussion of the information, which should be the majority of the argument. Hitler liking dogs does not invalidate loving dogs even one iota - so what did you gain by attacking the source (when the subject is not the source but what it says)? It's a distraction and a (dark side!) rhetorical method, attempting a shortcut through evoking emotions.

"Probably it is a good time for us to reflect on this, and maybe next we can try to appreciate and acknowledge others’ arguments before jumping into a rebuttal."

[cit. https://paradite.com/2014/01/23/good-articletaking-a-war-of-...]

Yes. I'm guilty of this quite often. And probably in this case too. That's why I need constant reminders like your comment.

Do you know the article beforehand or you discovered it through my profile?

I checked your profile and blog after reading this discussion. Now I feel some regret posting that anyway, as I think my comment did not add anything valuable to this discussion and was only instrumental to reprove you, a person who I don't know. So I would like to apologize, I am sorry for my stupidity and lightness.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com