The example used in the article seems pretty blatant to me. As does your comment.

was this post made ironically?

Given that it's impossible to tell, we can surely say it was made postironically.

>For example, why do prominent faces of the movement such as Joshua Wong frequently use the phrase "God Bless Hong Kong" for Western media interviews (and in a congressional hearing yesterday)?

Joshua Wong is Christian, having been raised Lutheran by his Hong Kong parents. About 10% of Hong Kong identifies as Christian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Wong#Early_life

It is not far-fetched to believe that hktruth is a Chinese person living abroad. They would have an interest in preserving their anonymity. In this tense environment, a Chinese person in a Western country expressing support for the Chinese regime would risk being accused of being a Chinese spy.

Yes, overseas Chinese communities are divided, as are families too.

What's happening now is that a Chinese person who doesn't support the protestors is labelled as being pro-China, which is ludicrous.

Protestors have been described as "Little Black Guards", a reference to the Cultural Revolution and the student led Red Guards.

Why? Because it's dangerous to voice an opinion or argue with protestors. There have been numerous assaults. The protestors even beat up a man and tied him up in the middle of Hong Kong international airport!

Now, there are daily fist fights between different factions, between police, radical protestors and pro-government supporters. Excessive force and violence has been committed by all sides.

It's a real mess.

What do you think about the tiananmen massacre? Do you think it is a western fabrication?? If you're not authorized to talk about it we understand...

It’s not a big deal to discuss it even in China. My father bragged he was with the student leader the night before 64 happened. It’s CCP’s fault to commit mistakes when handling students. Is it worth overthrowing CCP just because of it? Hell Chinese people answered no, at least when they are doing most other things right. “Greater good”, you have to understand this to understand Chineses first

I actually heard it is heavily censored and people are kept at bay from openly talking about it. Am I misimformed? If so, can you tell me what is the general purpose of having the great firewall and why is there a need to keep people in the dark about certain things?

I grew up in Beijing and because of the affinity politics are more common topic there. It’s not that “open”, more like in private dinner party, inner circle friend hangout and more likely you can safely start those conversations with taxi drivers who blames the government all the time

The decision to keep people in dark to me is silly but the motivation was always rumors spreads too fast and too wild in China, so it makes sense for the ruler to fear even if they aren’t that dirty. What’s funny is the harder they try to cover up things the quicker it spreads “hey try search XXX it’s blocked”

We currently live in a world where people don't feel comfortable expressing dissenting opinions about Hong Kong and China from their primary accounts. Any dissenting opinion is immediately suppressed and the user in question surrounded by a hostile interrogation squad.

When they make anonymous green accounts for the specific purpose of airing these opinions, they get accused of astroturfing because they "only discuss" the specific subject. Just think about the irony of that for a second as it relates to what HK supporters purport to be fighting for.

Throwaway account to talk about Hong Kong.

Look at the downvotes I'm getting.

Fair enough - sorry to be personal.

Personally I am very skeptical of the western media coverage of the Hong Kong demonstrations. I do not think for a minute that it has the popular support now that it had earlier (2 mios in the streets etc.).

And a lot of the pro-China support online gets categorised as bots or Chinese agents because it is in broken English and comes from the same few vpn ip-addresses.

But it is quite real.

Is the distinction between propaganda spread by a bot and propaganda spread by a human that was indoctrinated by propaganda important anymore?

I think society should accept "bot" as a term for any human or automated entity who uncritically 'retweets' propaganda.

In truth, I find that most Westerners have a much more distorted view of China than Chinese people do. That may seem strange and obvious to say, but there are so many Westerners who know next to nothing about China, yet confidently talk about Chinese people being brainwashed. The thing is, those "brainwashed" people have a much better informed and more nuanced view of China. The people calling them "brainwashed" are typically just regurgitating whatever they read in the newspaper this morning, which is usually sensationalized (imagine a non-American's impression of the US being formed entirely by news accounts of mass shootings).

My previous comment was mostly based on my personal experiences discussing US politics online - and seeing people on both sides retweet ideas that are not logically consistent but make them feel good about their team. I'm sure this common in most political discussions, but I'm not well versed in Chinese politics personally.

So any opinion different than yours is automatically "propaganda"?

Throwaway accounts get throwaway respect.

Why are you "acting" indignant? you created a throwaway for this exact purpose.

("Acting", because it's funny to think about robots acting)

Turing test in 3..2..

This is the typical Pavlovian response which has infected social media and HN.

If you disagree with the "narrative" you're either a China bot or a Russian troll.

Perhaps there are people who want to voice unpopular opinions anonymously in order to avoid social backlashes? We at HN frequently celebrate anonymity as a means of free speech.

And the account is named hktruth, how is that supposed to be taken as impartial? Sounds like a duck as well.

Frequently, people have political opinions that are incredibly nationalistic, to the point of sounding like complete gibberish to anyone outside their bubble.

I generally don't assume that they are bots, shills, or trolls, even if they sound like them. I need only look at the outcome of elections to know that those positions have incredibly broad grassroots support.

True, but consider that they're equally productive for any discourse, that is to say a net negative. Therefore it would be pertinent to treat them similarly.

what kind of "discourse" are you aiming for after you've labeled and dismissed everyone with a pro-China sentiment? a debate where the only participants have the same opinions seems like the least productive possible form of discussion.

"everyone with a pro-China sentiment" != one sock puppet account with zero history aside from spouting rhetoric on one position.

What makes you think it's a sock puppet, and not someone who wants to express a political opinion, without having it tied back to their main account?

It would be a sock puppet if one person had multiple accounts for this purpose.

Would you debate a Scientologist on the merits of Scientology?

...of course? Who else would you even be debating with? What is there to discuss between two people who hate scientology? Isn't the point of debate to entertain different views and/or to persuade others?

It's so obvious it's not even funny.

Yup, you only need to look at how the media reports on Hong Kong vs Kashmir.

As long as a story fits people’s biases, it’s “the truth.”