> For example Twitter accounts controlled by the Chinese state pretending to be common citizens.

Problem is that they are real citizens. In China, they're referred to as 50 Cent Army (or 50 Cent Party), because that's how much they're believed to be paid for every pro-government post.

Their engagements are usually not. There are botnets upvoting/downvoting/liking/retweeting stuff, but each and every post is written by an actual human, and there are guidelines as to how they need to respond to different stories. It's not like there's one human in charge of posting to 100s of accounts.

Yeah, that is a problem. The situation sounds similar to how the Act.IL app works, an app to counter criticism towards Israel online. The app publishes links to "hot pages" where users are supposed to post comments supportive of Israel and/or do the equivalent of down voting comments negative to it. The app itself is funded and, I believe, run by some Israeli government agency but the users who use it to coordinate are not affiliated with the Israeli state in any way. Just "normal" people who happen to be very pro-Israel, I guess.

So is that underhanded or not? It is not completely different from Amnesty who occasionally sends out emails asking you to sign some list of signatures or to send complaint letters to some third world despot. There are very few rules in this area so it is hard to say what is fair and what isn't. Even if there were, there's no way the rules will be enforced. I'm pretty sure that all these "scandals" are just the tip of the iceberg. The dumb ones are getting caught. More refined state actors (not Russia or China) already have way better methods that Twitter and Facebook can't (or wont!) detect.

I can see where you're coming from, but in the Amnesty case it's fairly obvious that the communication originates from a campaign (due to timing if nothing else) and in the Israel case it's not.

Then there's a strong argument to be made that Amnesty gets the moral high ground because their goals are altruistic.

Either way, I think it's an apples to oranges comparison.

altruism?! organizations like amnesty and human rights watch, regularly employee people in and out of western governments and are part of the governing western elite. no wonder that while they are always quick to call out and denounce some third world authoritarians, and adversaries of west, they are far more muted when it comes to rights violations by western leaders(even in minority of cases where they don't simply ignore). factually, greatest mass criminals and rights violators of 21st century, are presidents and other leaders of usa and it's allies. but you wouldn't know that, if your sources are amnesty and co.

Source? They don't come off especially muted on the USA. On this one page they mention:

* civilian drone-strike killings

* suspension of travel from Muslim-major countries

* attacks on rights of women & girls

* new Guantánamo Bay transfers

* gun violence

* death sentences

https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/americas/united-states-...

that is in fact extremely muted (and mostly about things that are not in line with ideology of west's elites) compared to their condemnation of 3rd world authoritarians or adversaries of west. especially so because west is now the biggest rights violators, including biggest mass murderers and perpetrators of illegal wars.

there are also many, many sincere chinese nationalists, some of whom use twitter. people forget that the number of chinese people on the internet is substantially larger than the entire US population, even if most don’t hang out in the same places

People on the internet seem regularly shocked to learn that there are real-life individuals who support Trump, are pro-CCP and don't consider every interaction with a Russian national to be treason.

They are real humans in the sense of that they're made of flesh, but their actions and opinions are clearly fabricated. Combine that with the fake engagement so that it looks legit to the average Joe and boom you have the perfect robot army.

> the sender of the ad was clearly identified people could judge for themselves.

If they aware enough of how horrible their government is that they can ignore what it says and assume it's all a lie, sure.

If the Chinese government has done anything to make citizens trust its authority, such as censorship etc, then the ad is manipulative.

> While the ad was propaganda it wasn't manipulative or underhanded.

Perhaps not in itself, but taking the very example you give, it is manipulative.

Use news stories to paint the "official" picture and use astroturfing to provide a counterpart to the "official" picture. Both as parts in a larger underhanded play.