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Comment by kmonsen | Hacker News Reader

I think what is missing in most the the China and HN discussions is that HN is not blocked by the great firewall, so it is much easier for regular people living in China to participate. They will naturally have more pro-China views. Just like residents of every country will have more positive views of that country. And when that country is criticized they will be even more defensive and reflectively pro what is criticized.

All this without having to be paid to do so, although that is possible as well.

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> HN is not blocked by the great firewall

Your information is 16 days out of date: https://en.greatfire.org/news.ycombinator.com There's now a partial block where it can be accessed from some locations and not from others.

That's not necessarily going to prevent "pro-China" views from appearing. People who circumvent the Great Firewall e.g. to follow celebrities on Instagram may not like the censorship, but could be on the same page with the government on other issues.

Semi-tangential, but many Chinese tech companies just have a perma-VPN company wide and use GSuite and Google search by default. And Hacker News is a tech-leading forum (though it's not that big of a thing in China AFAIK).

Actually，I work for one of the most well known Chinese Internet companies. Our company’s VPN is blocked by HN

Did you mean that HN isn't accessible through VPN? i.e. it only tunnels domains selectively?

HN doesn't block VPNs. What are you observing that leads you to say that?

Don't you ban IP addresses in some cases? https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20IP%20banned&sort=byD... suggests you do. That could result in effectively banning a VPN.

We do, but not usually heavily used ones, and the VPNs we're aware of use lots of IPs.

The VPN blocks HN, not the other way round

Always been curious -- why is this allowed by the Chinese government? If people feel comfortable using such a VPN, they must have some reasonable belief that the Chinese government doesn't care that much about it, right?

As far as I can tell, that is only a small minority of the commenters with such views. Far more are people in Western countries who have personal, familial, educational, or work ties to China, or who had experiences in China that gave them a different perspective.

In a way, though, we're talking about the same thing, because most of this follows from human loyalties—to family, tribe, country, etc.—that all of us have. It's true that some commenters are ideologically motivated, but even that is a second-order version of the same thing, since ideological commitment itself comes out of such loyalties.

Just to share some perspective as a native Chinese living in US for anyone interested:

- Most of immigrants from China after 2000 holds pro-China views, and there's strong tendency to become more pro-China after living in US for some time, after having full exposure to US media and getting to know how things really work in US.

- It's probably common to see HN accounts that comment mostly on China related issues. I don't have stats, but this is very likely, because when immigrants like us read HN comments upon these issues, it's usually as irritating as lots of you reading far-right pro Trump comments.

- When people question if an account is genuine just because they have pro-China voice, it's just confirming how hypocritical western "freedom of press" is, and pushing us towards more pro-China.

- HN is still fairly unpopular among Chinese tech immigrants, otherwise you'd be seeing a lot more sincere pro-China comments here.

What is it about exposure to the US that will make someone more pro the Chinese government?

Plenty of reasons. To begin with, seeing how biased the Western media are when they report anything related to China is both appalling and disappointing. The impression of what average American has about Chinese government, Chinese people and their relation is light years away from reality.

Moreover, people immigrating to US from China tends to be more pro-democracy than average Chinese, but we got disillusioned after seeing how things worked out in American politics.

The life here is quite unsatisfactory for lots of Chinese, as there are many aspects of China making it a better place to live in compared to US. Can't speak for other people but frankly if I could have got a job with similar pay and similar workload in China, I wouldn't even hesitate for a second that I'd move back.

we got disillusioned after seeing how things worked out in American politics.

What parts of American politics disillusion you? And why do you think the USA should necessarily be the example? Do the criticisms you have of the USA also apply to other democracies, like the Democratic socialist countries in Europe? If not, why do you think they would constitute an effective argument against Democracy? "The USA has problems" is not an argument against Democracy.

Out of curiosity, when you're talking about "Western media" do you mean only US-based outlets, or do the European outlets (excluding the English rags) have the same effect?

For me I was reading the Economists (through my uncle who works in publishing) in China since high school. My American foreign language teacher told me it’s too conservative. FWIW, it almost has the same effect

Speaking from my own experience, it is probably because it is the US. If I were more exposed to say France or Germany instead, which at least to me seem to be less hypocritical, especially on international politics, I think I'd feel weaker nudging to be more pro Chinese government.

Agree, I was in Singapore for a couple of years before moving here and I never felt becoming more pro China there

This is actually a relatively common thing. When people immigrate to a place that generally treats them like a foreign entity, they are more likely to strongly identify as that entity.

When people question if an account is genuine just because they have pro-China voice, it's just confirming how hypocritical western "freedom of press" is, and pushing us towards more pro-China

Firstly, do you mean "freedom of speech"? Few people here are the press.

Secondly, can you elaborate on this view? I don't doubt that the situation is as you describe, but if true this shows a misunderstanding of the freedom of speech. It's not hypocritical(in general) to criticize speech one doesn't support, or to accuse the speaker of having ulterior motives, while supporting the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech doesn't give anyone the right to speak without being criticized.

It's not just the comments but those "free independent media" as well. Having freedom of speech doesn't mean having no bias. None of the US media I've seen doesnt have strong confirmation bias towards China. And even for US domestic issues, it's still appalling to see how media could be so polarized. Even when they report truth, they'd select facts that support their views while simply ignore things that's against them. I had to say that's a big disillusionment

You've switched topics. My question was about calling people hypocrites because they support the freedom of speech while criticizing speech you align with. I wonder if you see now why that doesn't make sense and why it implies a misunderstanding of what "freedom of speech" means.

It does not mean everyone likes everyone else's opinions. Just that we don't think governments should control what people say.

Did I ever say "freedom of speech"? English is after all my second language, and I don't expect I could articulate like a native speaker.

Just to make it clear, the most irritating part is that people's opions are clearly shaped by what they read from media, which you'd expect to be more neutral as "freedom of press" is "so great" but it's just not the case.

In China, at least people are generally aware of media censorship, and would take a grain of salt in what they read, but with independent press, people are generally less critical about their reports unless it directly contradictory with to what they know for a fact. As a result you got so many people commenting like they know more truth, even when the "truth" is so absurd. When they are presented a different side of the story, ok, that must be "government propaganda", and whoever supporting them need to be banned?

I understand your original point now. Thanks for clarifying.

One aspect of American media that you are ignoring is the fact that it's often biased, often politically biased... but it is not controlled by the government. And it is not monolithic.

The biased western media has brought down presidents and many other powerful, connected people (most recently Jeffrey Epstein). They revealed the secret, illegal actions of the NSA. Etc. All of these journalists were biased in some way or another... but they were all biased in different ways. A lot of the truth eventually gets out.

Now you could make the argument that all of Western media is biased against the PRC, but that's going to be a very tough argument to make. Who are they all loyal to, to cause them to uniformly be biased against the PRC? We know it's not loyalty to the United States because of the usa-hostile reporting I reference above. It takes ultra conspiratorial thinking to arrive at the conclusion that all of Western media is biased against the PRC.

So you seem to be pulling a bait-and-switch. You seem to want to conclude <Western media is uniformly biased against the Chinese government>... But you argument is the very weak <no Western media entity is free from bias>. The conclusion doesn't follow.

I hope I haven't misconstrued your argument. Cheers!

In general actually people who have access to western medias are educated enough to think differently, not to take the media's view wholly. I am sure many of them would just defend China out of pride (apply to people living in China), for others, mostly oversea Chinese, they have seen the world and concludes that is the right view to hold, and they don't have to follow western media's (CNN, BBC) view on things. I personally would not be so much pro-China if the news is not as biased as it is to be honest.

I'd like to see an honest explanation of the kind of bias you're talking about, on the part of Western media. I'm open to its existence, but I also know it's an easy accusation to lob without evidence.

I wasn't going to comment because I don't have time to do research for this. There was a website collected all edited photos by CNN a few years ago, I just don't have time to do this kind of analysis. You can basically say I 'feel' them are biased because a few photos I saw on BBC. Another typical thing happen is that the Chinese edition would word differently than the English one. Just yesterday, NYT published an article about a Chinese student run college press. Apparently the interview was done in February, and they just decide to publish it now after these students published content against violent protest in HK (I am all for the peaceful part, and against violence and British flag /US flag waving in protests though) The Chinese version of the article in title says this students website only manufacture fake stories, the English title is slightly better. And when they speak about the editor, they make association with negative words (such as North Korea, because he lives in a Chinese city of North). It is typical propaganda techniques. I have to say, journalism is dead. We don't have time to verify, no patience to wait for the truth coming out, I have chosen not to read news. We are wasting too much time on politics I think. Unfortunately on Hacker News, there are still politics, mostly about China.

I don't see it as quite that simple. I think the difference is that dissent is, to varying extent, suppressed in China. Which can lead to a homogeneity of view that looks suspicious, even when it may not be. I suspect many Chinese who do have sympathy for events in HK would be circumspect expressing that. Just as was the case in former East Germany or Soviet Russia, wearing your views on your sleeve comes with consequences. What I privately think and what I write online may be two very different species, or maybe I avoid certain subjects entirely online.

Many Americans, Brits, HKers and other nationalities usually find people are supportive of some aspects of their country but openly criticise other aspects, sometimes vocally, sometimes by demonstrations. Unless you step over into hate speech and incitement that comes without consequence. Even America, which often seems from the outside to be one of the more blindly patriotic nations, has a good and healthy proportion who will criticise. Then there's us cynical Brit's who, at times, seem to have a majority criticising most things about Britain and reserve pride and flags for very special occasions. :)

It's fair to say even HN is not blocked by GFW, majority chinese are not comfortable reading/writing english to participate discussion here, or on FB, twitter. Also economy wise if using VPN or otherwise to get onto the internet having a cost/inconvenience, it's not wise to spend it on political discussion, youtube or netflix might be just better options.

Most Chinese posters to HN (pro or otherwise) either have access to a VPN or are overseas anyways. Not all people posting from within China are particularly pro China or even Chinese (maybe half?).

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