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A comment on Twitter is blocked in China, but its state news agency is buying promoted tweets. Parent comment

Re:Twitter is blocked in China, but its state news agency is... by SllX on Monday August 19, 2019 @02:46PM (#20740538)
Not to undermine your concerns, for you raise fair questions, but this is justifiable behavior on Twitter’s part for a simple reason: Twitter is blocked in PRC.

It seems fair to block the activities of even entire governments to operate on a platform that is itself blocked from operating normally in that country. Governments are not above reproach or criticism anymore than corporations are. If PRC will not subject itself to fair scrutiny or allow their subjects to participate on Twitter’s platform, then why should Twitter have to play or even allow PRC’s game on their platform, especially when they are blatantly breaking Twitter’s rules and intentionally trying to deceive Twitter’s users.

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Re:Twitter is blocked in China, but its state news agency is... by Cybiote on Monday August 19, 2019 @03:56PM (#20741222)
I think the ethics on this is quite clear. PRC is not trying to share their ideas in a fair manner. Rather, they are trying to shape and manipulate beliefs by distorting the amount of support there is for their preferred take. It's next level propaganda.

If not for the fact that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bots are being coordinated to create an illusion of weight for some consensus, things would indeed be murkier. As it is, the PRC is currently acting disingenuously.

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