How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
I don’t know what to call the US system we have now, but can’t say I’m a fan.
Chinese channel with fake videos about how there is not really a genocide going on in Xinjiang: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5hykSm2o7oRpOyFrMYjeBg
This girl is actually responding to a video exposing these ridiculous videos, trying to make the argument that the criticism is actually anti-China propaganda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYUmBDJPX6k
Random white monkey guy trying to make the same argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvEdUm4yIzw
Keep in mind that in mainland China and especially Xinjiang, YouTube is inaccessible.
Laowhy86 video on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWo2-Y1n1x0
Which is sad cuz their experience is one of a kind.
Compared to how they were during their stay in China especially serpentza saying how he "gets" why talking about politics is so important while very obviously barely cares about it (zero interest in his current country's politicsfor instance).
Or their weird "we are the true journalists" shtick like with covid or agood example being their claim of being the first to report illegal fishing by China when news outlets reported on it a week before.
I sincerely hope they dont start talking about america. What would be the point?
Apparently he had some trouble with the authorities, falling on the wrong side of some rules that apply to journalists, and left the country in a hurry.
After that it seems that he found that he could get more clicks/money with sensationalists anti-China content. Not nearly as good as his prior content.
"Since 2016, the Falun Gong-backed newspaper has used aggressive Facebook tactics and right-wing misinformation to create an anti-China, pro-Trump media empire."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/technology/epoch-times-in...
We only have to trust the people who pillaged Iraq under false pretences.
That said, one group has a history of shady (and overt) shit (from internment of Japanese Americans during WWII to MK Ultra to all the horrible things that have been unearthed during the years via FOIA, whistleblowers, investigative journalism, the culture of respecting the protection of journalists' sources) and the other group is currently operating concentration camps, is actively hostile toward investigative journalists, actively subverts any independent power structure (see the brutal suppression of Hong Kong politics).
Of course it's important to put things into perspective. Both Room 641A and the Great Firewall are bad things. Both countries (and the groups that run these regions) have a lot of things to improve on. But the simple both sides whataboutism does not help here at all.
Like hearing oil companies complain about the damage to the environment being wreaked by coal companies.
Or hearing Chinese state media complain about American human rights abuses (which is an example in this article cited by the BBC).
Not exactly. Some of us would rather first and primarily focus on the disinfo artists who are destroying Western democracies than point the finger at a country that doesn't claim to be free and fair and open.
Pot, meet kettle: from the Wikipedia entry on Britain's GCHQ JTRIG unit: 'The scope of the JTRIG's mission includes using "dirty tricks" to "destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt" enemies by "discrediting" them, planting misinformation and shutting down their communications.'
And: 'In 2011, the JTRIG conducted a denial-of-service attack (DoS) on the activist network Anonymous.[1] Other JTRIG targets have included the government of Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan.[2]
Campaigns operated by JTRIG have broadly fallen into two categories; cyber attacks and propaganda efforts.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Threat_Research_Intellig...
Edit: See also https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/how-to-spot-and-defe...
A core part of any domestic intelligence service is having the means to discredit and publically ridicule anyone who has or claims to have such evidence. Asking for it in this context is noble, but should be viewed as fundamentally futile. Either you will not have it, or the people providing it will most likely be crackpots to your perception.
what exactly is the problem with this?
https://www.army.mod.uk/who-we-are/formations-divisions-brig...
Chances are keywords of interest are monitored on common social media, after applying sentiment analysis, an analyst specialising in Public engagement is assigned to engage with the public in order to shape the narrative.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
I've personally spent countless hours over many years poring over the data on this and I can tell you that the overwhelming majority of HN comments like yours are based on nothing more than imagination. It's extremely easy to imagine that you're seeing things and make up stories around what you think you're seeing. These stories almost never amount to anything. Even to say "almost never" is misleading—it's vanishingly rare. (Unless you count hapless voting rings from clueless startups. Those are common but they're naive abuses and not what people mean when they go on about sinister astroturfing.)
Assuming that a BBC article is describing HN is already imagination. If you think it applies to HN, I want to see specific links. Tip: look at the account histories first. Mostly it takes just a few seconds to see that $suspected-spy has been posting to HN for years about everything from Hyperloop to Rust to PyPy. I think the odds that such a user was planted as a Chinese agent in 2015 or whatever are similar to Russell's teacup orbiting the moon.
> It couldn't happen here, I hear you say
No, I'm saying that when commenters have posted such insinuations here, close study of the data has consistently shown them to be nothing more than cheap internet pontification, a.k.a. bullshit. The more flamboyant and grandiose the claims, the more fantasy-driven they prove to be. People come up with this stuff purely because they want to believe it, and will literally read anything into anything.
The problem is that such insinuations are not cost-free. They add noise, poison community, and in several cases have turned into mobs that have hounded people off HN. Hence the rule that you can't do it unless you have actual evidence. If anyone comes up with actual evidence—literally any whatsoever—we'll take it seriously and look closely into it. But someone else having an opposing view on $hot-topic doesn't count as evidence.
I know I'm sounding "flamboyant and grandiose" myself, which is not optimal, but it would take a robot not to lose patience after looking at as much of this data that I have. The truth, as far as I've been able to determine it after tons of effort, is that you guys really don't know what you're talking about. Sorry for being blunt. Here's a longer explanation from when I was in a better mood: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27398725.
It can get pretty creepy how aggressive students - for example - get supporting their government. That flash mob behavior isn't as effective as the Russian's conflict stoking troll farms, but man does it drown out conversation, and god help you if you run into it in person.
I had a coworker from Spain, he was very "balanced" and reasonable on all things. One day, during the 2017 Catalan independence protests and referendum, we (non-Spanish people) tried to understand the different arguments and the current situation, and someone mentioned that IF (we didn't say it was the case, we said IF) one day the overwhelming majority of Catalonia wants to leave Spain for whatever reason, an option for "amicable" split would be preferable over a revolution.
He completely snapped, said all kinds of very mean things about Catalonia, that I don't want to repeat here, but my point is that it's very difficult to view these things from a different perspective and do not get emotional if all your life you heard only one perspective.
I noticed similar tendencies from people from every country that are in the news and are somewhat controversial (Israel, Palestine, Pakistan, US, Poland, Ireland just to name a few).
It still feels like it was just governments using it to split the people against each other instead of focusing on several political scandals that where going on.
Propaganda alone would never explain it, I think we tend to treat the problems of our nation as problems of our own. It is normal to get defensive on these things.
I assume people would identify with more local groups, if left to their own devices. National politics usually seems to revolve around bigger is better, even if they have to force people to remain.
Or he is a democratically elected peaceful spiritual leader (like a reincarnated pope) from an independent theocratic serfdom kingdom?
There had been many bad things going on in Tibet, but it does not mean you can just invade the country, destroy all forms of religion, put people in prisons, starve and kill your victims, grab the resources, make the life of Tibetans miserable, and pretend you are the great liberator - only because of superior military power.
Many witnesses of what happened in the 50s are till alive, some managed to escape to India. When you read their testimony[0] all arguments of China become bleak.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Tibetan-Monk-Palden-Gya...
In fact as of today the 14th DL actively suppress native Tibetan religions like Dorje Shugden.
If you think Lamas were peaceful monks, check out how many "independent states" they have invaded in the 20th century
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48wkBskmYnE
> some managed to escape to India
More like India invaded those independent "princely states"
But all this is not the point - it's obvious that there were many bad things going on before the Chinese invasion. The Chinese never address things like "you invaded a country, you were killing people, putting them in prison, starving to death". Instead, they turn to arguments like: "But lamas were very bad, they were abusing ordinary people".
Of course the past system was bad and abusive. The problem is, the current system is so much worse that ordinary people prefer to self-immolate than to live in it.
Why? I thought you were arguing with your colleague whether DL is good or bad?
> it's obvious that there were many bad things going on before the Chinese invasion
So yeah, Tibet was in bad shape when DL reigned. That's the whole point.
> so much worse that ordinary people prefer to self-immolate than to live in it
If you look up news closely, you'd see that only privileged Lamas self-immolate.
Tibetan/Mongoila monks were a grand scheme invented by the Chinese to sterialize tribes with their no-marriable policy, for a local family only 1 or 2 boys are allowed to breed and labor, rest of siblings were all destined to be Lamas in remote places. Tibetan and Mongolia's working & total population dropped dramatically after the school of Gelug took power and no longer pose a threat to east & central asia.
The title of Dalai & Panchen were invented and installed directly by the Qing rulers (Jampalyang) to manipulate the Gelug hierarchy. 14th DL is a guy gone rogue and sold Tibet to East India Company.
That's also not just the CCP's argument, it's the same argument for most modern day states that's desposed of monarch.
Self-immolate is an act of religious fervert, it would be out of the ordinary to reason with. Generally, I think most people simply don't kill themselves like that, unless they believe there is something to be gained after death. The same reason for suicidal bombing. For people who are generally not happy or find live unbearable, they wouldn't kill themselves using those kinds of excruciating and painful methods, unless of course, they were trying to achieve something, which are most likely religious or it just doesn't make sense.
Is it just me or the sentence also makes perfect sense if Tibet is replaced by Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya?
Iraq seems even worse. They admitted they invaded it on false grounds and the supposed WMDs haven't been found to this day. And it was just the beginning, because the invasion created an even greater evil, ISIS.
As for Libya, it's true that many people hated Kadafi and he was a cruel man (just like Hussein, Bin Laden and the rest of the crew), but the final result for ordinary people was a disaster. So whenever someone proposes "let's kill a dictator and al problems will disappear" for me such a person is a lunatic.
the dictators when you try to reasonate anything they're doing, you can see clearly they're working for someone, and you guess who might this one be.
because of course, destroying a whole country, violating human rights etc, isn't going to guarantee you a good long life for you and your family unless you have someone stronge enough to make you trust him tell you otherwise.
most dictators are against what the population believe and are enslaving people more or less. it's just the modern unseen slavery of the west.
By the way, USA made Al Qaueda and they were called the freedom fighters or something like that inb4.
What changed? the USSR ended and now they found another use for them, to stereotype the muslims and cause distress and push them off their religion to the new world-wide religion, humanity, ps. sugar-coated atheism.
So what the American president is doing? Instead of finally starting to work hard on American-ME relations, he decided to invade another country. A country that had been unsuccessfully invaded in the past and has the worst natural conditions for invasion, with Taliban with bazookas hiding in caves and ordinary people living in villages, and the two freely mixing. What could possibly go wrong?
I'm not saying that peace in the ME is easy, it even became a kind of meme that it's impossible, but there is no hope if Israel doesn't consider some concessions. And year after year, decade after decade it becomes worse. Any American interventions, any casualty makes it much worse. But it seems we're to stupid to work on the causes and can only deal with the results. It just makes me sad as ordinary people can't do anything about it.
Note that if you read the testimonies of those who escaped to India, it's hardly surprising that they are uniformly critical of the occupation. A more balanced history shows that prior to the occupation, peasants were generally the property of the landowner; a peasant needed the permission of his "owner" to get married, and that would not be granted if the intended was from another estate; and that many lives were objectively improved by the occupation.
I'm by no means a supporter of the occupation/invasion; it's been racist and kleptocratic since the beginning. But let's be clear: pre-occupation Tibet was no Shangri-La.
On the other hand, I know several people whose lives are made worse by the occupation. There was a period of some limited freedom a few decades ago, now it seems worse. As a Westerner you can't just visit Tibet and go where you want. And when you go there, you can notice that apart from official and public situations, Tibetans will avoid any contact with you. Many of them are simply afraid of accusations of spying or collaborating with the enemy etc. They try to keep a low profile and be obedient to stay away from prison. They cannot possess objects like a picture of the DL and so on. So even though from a material point of view their lives might look better, when you talk to them, there is no happiness inside.
This Chinese tone that "justifies" the invasion creates these kinds of side discussions, which serves the same purpose as Whataboutism, even if that isn't the intent of the speaker/writer.
A thought experiment: Assume that Tibet was actually some kind of horrific feudal empire that did whatever horrible things to its people you can imagine.
Even if that is some kind of justification for an invasion, e.g., the people had pleaded with the CCP to get freed - which they did not, it is CCP's actions ever since the invasion that betray's their intent.
If the goal had been to free the Tibetean people, they would have removed the leadership, which was done in days, and then freed the people. But CCP has done the opposite, consistently holding more tightly to the land, eliminating the Tibetian's culture and freedom, and claiming ownership.
It is as if the US had not only invaded Iraq to remove the dictator who annexed adjacent countries, but then claimed the land and oil as it's own, and also started systematically removing all mosques, moving US families into each town, and imposing American culture on Iraq.
China are illegitimate occupiers, and wrongfully claim stolen Tibetan territory as their own. Full Stop.
The fact that there was some prior recognition is quite irrelevant. Should the EU nations claim their pre 1911 boundaries against the will of the people living there, by force?
Should the Lenape Native Americans whose predecessors sold Manhattan to the Dutch be able to reclaim it by force? How about the Dutch?
Your argument is sophistry, and nothing but inane justification for an authoritarian and expansionist regime.
Moreover while that regime repeatedly proclaims that no one should interfere in the internal affairs of other nations, it feels completely free to interfere and claim other nations, including, Tibet, Taiwan, and Hong Kong (yes it was leased and returned, but they are already violating the terms of the return).
This is not a regime to defend.
Although, the Catholic Church have also killed gigantic amount of people anyway, modern day priests seems to continue the habit of raping little boys regardless. Those organizations still exist, and will keep existing, so whatever, that's just this world. I'm forever a non-believer for instituionalized religion for those reasons alone.
(Also note DL never did reform Tibet to democratic society on his own, so regardless, I don't think he should be the symbol of Tibet, or as a leader. Afterall, the theme for these last centuries was that ALL despots must be abolished unless they made democratic reforms.)
> In May 1990, as a result of His Holiness’s reforms the Tibetan administration in exile was fully democratized. The Tibetan Cabinet (Kashag), which until then had been appointed by His Holiness, was dissolved along with the Tenth Assembly of the Tibetan People's Deputies (the Tibetan parliament in exile). In the same year, exiled Tibetans living in India and more than 33 other countries elected 46 members to an expanded Eleventh Tibetan Assembly on a one-person one-vote basis. That Assembly then elected the members of a new cabinet.
[0] https://www.dalailama.com/the-dalai-lama/biography-and-daily...
TBH this is as much your brainwashing as your colleagues. 14th DL was part of CIA Tibetan program. You mentioned serf/feudalism, he was old enough to perpetuate before exile. Current Dalai Lama was literally a killer who tried to undermine PRC sovereignty. This is like when mainstream America suddenly found out Christopher Columbus was kind of a monster, because previously it was simply not taught / common knowledge.
Just like your claim in another comment that China said they would nuke Japan. Some random PRC netizen posted it and got popular, it's not an official CCP foreign policy position as misreported from many western media. Don't get me wrong, Chinese nationalists would LOVE to nuke Japan if they came to the defense of Taiwan, which to PRC = if a previous invader who committed horrible atrocities decides to meddle militarily in the ongoing Chinese civil war. It's completely expected nationalism based on historic grievances. CCP isn't fanning anti-Japanese flames this hard, frequently they have to rein nationalists in, especially when it comes to Japanese drama. BTW you'll find South Korean comments about nuking Japan as well. Except western propaganda doesn't deliberately conflate that with SK foreign policy.
>This person seemed otherwise completely normal.
This gets said so frequently, yet never with any self reflection. Maybe the Chinese colleague (and friend / girlfriend / wife), typically very educated, who likely speaks both languages, has lived in both cultures, and has dual perspectives, is not the one that experienced very successful brainwashing. Growing up in a society with free press doesn't automatically make one more informed. Almost always, it's not the Chinese person with information deficit. They're exposed to both sides of the story.
You're confusing nuanced, informed, counter-argument compared to your agressive blind accusation. This is what PRC diaspora in the west has to deal with, brainwashed people who are signficantly less informed than them who accuse everyone of being shill / propaganda accounts. It's every bit as dogmatic as rabid religious folk, with even less self awareness.
Then I recall reading forums full of British supposedly mature adults reacting with similarly preposterous rage to a non-story about an Oxford college taking down a picture of the Queen, and I'm absolutely certain the Royal Family weren't paying them...
Pretty sure that China's actual paid propagandists are doing the difficult job of changing the focus of the attack when evidence of government shortcomings surfaces on Chinese message boards, not hanging around on niche English language forums which categorise politics as "off topic" in case California-based computer programmers' views of China aren't universally positive (or for that matter bombarding student publications of with the sort of outraged anonymous comments that look... actually pretty similar in tone to the letters to the editor by named undergraduates)
I've never seen anything that looks like wumao on HN. On reddit theyre usually pretty obvious.
But! For less extreme examples, check out the discussion of the occupation of Tibet that spontaneously generated under my first comment and:
> Meanwhile the BBC pushes anti-China propaganda in plain sight.
> I wonder how it stacks up to the fake network pushing anti-China propaganda.
> Brought to you by the 5 eyes propaganda machine: Bullshit Broadcasting Corporation
> I find using the term “concentration camp” for something that resembles a youth correctional facility somewhat dishonest.
Western propaganda campaigns are often a prelude to war. And they usually deploy several orders of magnitude more assets than "350 fake social media profiles." Remember WMDs in Iraq, Libya and Gaddafi, babies in incubators? I have no interest in unquestioningly accepting the BBC's version of what's important. If we let our psycho warmongers start another war based on lies, millions will die on both sides.
See Thucydides Trap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides_Trap
Since you seem like a peace loving person then what do you think about what is happening in Xinjiang?
Also to debunk your obvious whataboutism.
First of wmd in Iraq has been confirmed before the Iraq War even happen.
Baby in incubator was something kuwait said to the us not the other way around.
Lastly never heard about wmd in Libya since they scrap it in 2003.
They never existed and it would frankly be an enormous stretch of the imagination to think intelligence services are so earth-shatteringly incompetent that they would not be aware of this fact.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program
But I don't think I've ever seen that political reflex as strongly in Americans nearly as much. It's like for some topics (Tibet, Human Rights, Tienanmen, etc) they're stuck at the height of the Freedom Fries / Dixie Chicks rage machine after 9/11.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
You can read many years' worth of past explanations if you want to understand more:
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...