Forget I said anything. HN is infiltrated by propaganda without people even realising.
The same can apply to social media, it can be pretty obvious based on commenting patterns that there is some propaganda going on in posts blatantly about China, without it being able to identify with any degree of certainty which comments are problematic.
(I take no stance on whether or not there is obviously propaganda here, the commenting and voting does strike me as suspicious, but not to the degree that I think it's a slam dunk that it's not just the result of a biased sample of HN users being interested in posts like this).
But especially when it comes to China, when someone has an opinion that slightly goes against the general sentiment, it's marked as propaganda, or a paid troll, just as a way to invalidate their opinions.
Hence why I'm asking, because I don't see any obvious propaganda here. Just people with a different opinion trying to have a discussion about it. And I'm only asking because someone pointed it out without posting evidence.
> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.
From the guidelines
Downvoting because you disagree has also been acceptable on this site, since basically forever https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171