Comment by MisterSandman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MisterSandman | Hacker News Reader

The link leads to a reddit post, which leads to another reddit post, which leads to this article in Swiss: https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/hsg-und-china-kritik-auf-twitter-...

I can't read Swiss... but the comments on Reddit seem to show that this isn't as cut and dry as the title makes it sound. Quoting /u/hamsterman20:

> "First of all, he was going to a chinese university with a chinese scholarship.

> He left the swiss university because of some weird technicalities while attending the Chinese university.

> He posted political messages against china and 1 picture depicting a chinese with yellow skin and slit eyes.

> Im not surprised he was kicked out of the chinese university and that the supervisor wanted to distance themselves. Though I wish they would stand up against China, its hard when your career depends on it.

> His swiss university refused to take them back. Don't know why. Technicalities I guess."

I'm sure there's still more to the story, and that it obviously isn't entirely the student's fault, but it isn't like a Swiss Student randomly tweeted about the CCP and got kicked out.

> it isn't like a Swiss Student randomly tweeted about the CCP and got kicked out.

Based on the original article, it is pretty much exactly like that. The newspaper talked to both sides and clearly believes the student over the professor. It seems everything else are excuses by the Prof and the university (which has plenty of cooperations with China).

Now, if the student was technically enrolled at the University or the prof was "only" his PhD advisor, does not change anything about the story.

Edit: English version of the article here: https://www.nzz.ch/english/swiss-phd-students-dismissal-spot...

That article should definitely be the OP here, as it's much, much more informative than the Reddit posts.

The 2nd comment in the original Reddit post linked here on HN has a good translation:

https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/oxmgg2/phd_student_...

No need for a translation. There is an original English version of the article:

https://www.nzz.ch/english/swiss-phd-students-dismissal-spot...

The NZZ, for what it is worth, is probably the most highly regarded newspaper in Switzerland when it comes to journalistic integrity. It has a clear political bias to the right, but very high credibility.

The reddit comment might be Chinese propaganda.

Reading the beginning of the English version of the article [1], it looks like the student was expelled from University of St. Gallen, which definitely sounds like a Swiss university.

[1] https://www.nzz.ch/english/swiss-phd-students-dismissal-spot...

However, from later on in the article, "Yet throughout the spring of 2020, the university stuck to its position that when the trouble over his tweets broke out, he had long since ceased to be a St. Gallen doctoral student."

So it looks like the guy wasn't technically a student at the university at the time.

I don't know but I would guess this was some kind of technical move that is commonly done but because he kicked up some trouble, the university used this technicality as an excuse to get rid of him.

Sounds like a very weak excuse. "We let our not-students keep their email accounts until we not-kick-them-out."

The point is that a Swiss university retaliated against a Swiss student in Switzerland due to Chinese/CCP pressure because he voiced his political opinion.

I don't know how it works there, but IME, I can still use my email from a university I'm not working at for over 2 years.

My sister uses an email account from grad school as her primary personal email. She got her PhD seventeen years ago and hasn't had any official connection with the university since then.

I still have access to email accounts from previous educational institutions for 5 years. It's not uncommon at all.

Finish the article.

Lol, it's German. There is no Swiss language. We speak German, French, Italian and Romansch here.

(Spoken) Swiss German might as well be its own language. At least since we are already accepting Dutch being different from (Low) German.

Of course in this case, the write-up is in standard high German. Google Translate handles that just fine.

The problem there is that there is no standardization across all the Swiss German variations, for foreigners, this is an interesting comparison of 5 of these dialects:

https://youtu.be/nEAcepckl5U

Yes. I suppose the lack of standardization is a consequence of Swiss German not having a long history of cross-regional use in national media (be that print or radio or TV).

> We speak German

The Germans might see that a bit different than us ;) Jokes aside, the article was of course in German.

People who speak German regularly dont understand Swiss German as it is different.

Sure, but this was not Swiss German.

Same goes for Swiss from different regions. You know it's bad when they add German subtitles to a Swiss person talking Swiss German so other Swiss Germans understand it.

It may happen the same way with random Spanish speakers on the Chilean, Argentinian or the Murcian dialect if they are not exposed to them.

Suisse Dutsch might as well be its own language.

There are several localized Swiss dialects and there are some Swiss German formal written publications in these local Swiss dialects that other Alemannic German readers have trouble understanding.

Sorry! Genuine mistake, should've probably looked it up before posting :/

I recommend to continue reading the English article:

> Gerber's goal was to be able to continue studying at St. Gallen. But the university argued that the professor hadn’t kicked him out; rather, he had been deregistered at his own request quite some time ago. In fact, as of the fall 2019 semester, Gerber had been officially enrolled only at the university in China, not at St. Gallen. He had been advised to take this tack by the St. Gallen doctoral program manager. In an email, the manager had said this would ensure that the maximum time allowed for pursuit of the degree would not expire while Gerber was in China. «Deregistration allows you to keep all your options on the table,» the email had said. The reregistration process would be like applying all over again – but with the support of his professor, this would be no problem, the program manager said.

It then continues to talk about the voluntary nature of the continued support. The email that was received was also sent by a Chinese student in Canada

> which leads to this article in Swiss

What? There is no "Swiss" language, the article is in German

I mostly came here to post that I was surprised that this is legal in Switzerland.

A Ph.D. student is an employee, and even normal university students can in most countries not be so easily dismissed without some show of academic misconduct.

Organizations being legally allowed to dismiss without some compelling reason or court approval is a U.S.A. idiosyncrasy.

Link to comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/oxmgg2/phd_student_...

Considering that the CCP paid The NY Times, LA Times, and other major papers to publish propaganda pieces and not publish COVID lab leak pieces during 2020, I don't believe much of what I read when it comes to articles that could be deemed favorable to China.

Do you have evidence for this from a reputable source?

Of course he doesn't, as it's complete nonsense.

Chinese mouthpiece paid US newspapers $19 mn in ads, printing: https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/chin...

Please refrain from reactionary insults like calling chrissnell's comment "nonsense." It's in poor taste even if you're supported by others who don't bother to perform even cursory research.

Okay, China Daily paid for ads. Any evidence that "CCP paid The NY Times, LA Times, and other major papers to [...] not publish COVID lab leak pieces during 2020"?

China Daily (simplified Chinese: 中国日报; traditional Chinese: 中國日報; pinyin: Zhōngguó Rìbào) is an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party.

I'm getting confused. Is China Daily separate from the CCP?

China Daily actually paid mostly (if you actually read the FARA documents that were falsely cited above as evidence) to print copies of the China Daily for dissemination in the US. That's very clear from the documents. The advertising was a relatively minor endeavor by comparison and limited mostly to buying WaPo ads, whereas they paid a number of papers to print the China Daily.

There's no evidence at all that US papers were paid to publish "propaganda pieces".

Was this a regular transaction? Was the price per unit notably divergent from other contracts? It's important to remember that graft often gets whitewashed in legitimate-looking transactions. That being said, $19 million USD sounds like a particularly insignificant sum for risk that would be incurred to the reputation of a single US tier 1 journalistic publication let alone multiple.

They paid millions for pro-china ads, the kind that look like actual articles. It's important to remember that graft often gets whitewashed in legitimate-looking transactions. The money, regardless of what it's for, is coming straight from the Chinese government. There is of course more money transfers that haven't been discovered. You don't have to be a genius to know that for every bit discovered there is a byte still covered..

China Daily (simplified Chinese: 中国日报; traditional Chinese: 中國日報; pinyin: Zhōngguó Rìbào) is an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party.

chrissnell claims the NYT etc accepted money to spike stories. Your story doesn't validate his claim.

Meanwhile the NYT published an article on the lab leak theory by the same author that published the 2003 article on Iraq's WMDs (co-author with Judith Curry) that helped push us into war.

And I don't have to dig into anything financial to find that, its sitting there staring at you right on the byline.

“ The Daily Caller first reported the multimillion-dollar expenditures on June 8, based on an 86-page Justice Department filing dated June 1.”

[0] https://dailycaller.com/2020/06/08/chinese-propaganda-china-... [1] https://efile.fara.gov/docs/3457-Amendment-20200601-2.pdf

The FARA source doesn't support your conclusion here, which leaves the Daily Caller, which is a white supremacist rag that Tucker Carlson puts out.

In other words, you have no evidence to support this.

We have evidence that the Chinese Communist Party has made substantial "advertising" payments to the New York Times, Washington Post, Twitter, the Seattle Times, the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribute, Sun Sentinel. The evidence of payments may not confirm the conclusion, but it certainly supports it.

In any case, I'll be submitting your declaration to the Daily Caller, so you can truly stand behind it.

Oh, please, make my day. Sic the Nazi boys on me, go for it. I will be happy to stand behind it.

I am pleased to stand aside and observe a fool at play. Do write more!

@dang, what’s the idea here?

Are we allowed to slander groups if they’re not here to represent themselves? For example, I would never write something like ‘baritone.org is a crypto-homophobic site that Jeff Fields maintains.” is that okay?

Is it slander if the Daily Caller’s Wikipedia article has an entire section titled “Ties to White Supremacists”?

I don’t think the Daily Caller is a white supremacist organization, but they do have a curious amount of ties to white supremacists.

I guess you are kinder than I am, or more forgiving, or more restrained. So I do congratulate you, since those are excellent qualities.

But really, people: if we can't agree that Tucker Carlson's media org that he founded to be a mouthpiece for white supremacy is not a white supremacist organization, then we've officially lost the ability to agree on, and work with, obvious fact.

Tucker Carlson is the most important white supremacist leader in the country today.

Assuredly you count among your peers many who celebrate your insight.

I think you need to refresh your memory on the definition of slander. But let me help: slander is a false statement. I didn't make one of those.

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