News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong... by cwkoss on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @03:37PM (#21009151)
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.

Re:How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong... by DiogenesKynikos on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @03:52PM (#21009328)
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).
Re:How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong... by cwkoss on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @04:11PM (#21009556)
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.
Re:How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong... by UIZealot on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @09:40PM (#21012416)
So any opinion different than yours is automatically "propaganda"?