I've spent countless hours looking at this problem in HN data, which admittedly may not be representative of the internet at large, but is the most relevant here. By far the overwhelming finding is that users are massively prone to leap to "astroturfing" (or "shill", "troll", "bot", or "spy") based solely on hearing something they dislike on a charged topic. This is plainly a psychological bias—probably one we all share—and it dominates all discussion on the topic by at least 99% if not 99.9. The phenomenon is so universal, and conforms so closely to what I see on other platforms even though I can't study their data, that I have to believe it's the same everywhere.
The parsimonious explanation for comments expressing strongly opposing points of view is that humans are the same on both sides of any divisive topic: emotionally charged and primed for reflexive, predictable responses. That's why these arguments are all the same (in the case of China v. US: "but imperialism", "but totalitarianism", etc.) and also why they are off topic on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
This was the top subthread before I marked it off topic. That's mostly because of upvoters, but the reason we ask people not to post this sort of flamebait is that upvoters simply can't resist it. When it comes to indignation, upvotes are a statistical cloud of fruit flies showing up near a decaying banana.
I definitely wasn't trying to start a flamewar, let alone a nationalistic one - I do see an aggressive amount of pro-PRC posts (on other platforms), I have no proof that they're PRC agents other than the fact that they're posting things that one would consider "pro-PRC." I have no proof that similar isn't happening against the PRC on baidu, other than that I don't see it. So is the issue that my post was on too tenuous a thread, based on your data on HN? I certainly didn't mean to imply the presence of shills on HN - I almost never see pro-PRC posts. I specifically called out facebook, twitter, and reddit to avoid that implication.
Perhaps it would have been better to construct my post without mentioning shills at all? I am concerned about the PRC gov's role in communication applications and technology, and I am curious what others (HN crowd particularly because they're almost universally more knowledgeable than me) have to say on the subject.
If the answer to all my ramblings is "don't pin random conspiracy theory shit on the PRC here" that's totally acceptable as well.
I believe you about intent, but the sad fact is that intent doesn't matter in cases like this, because the dangers are mechanical and predictable. Arson is worse than negligence, but from a fire-prevention point of view there's little difference; and since many more fires are started by negligence than arson, it's the bigger problem.
That may be so in some cases, but my experience is that the propaganda is a reflection of the zeitgeist of Chinese people. Propaganda works because it taps into fundamental beliefs and grievances of the masses. It may distort or channel it into certain directions but it is actually quite aligned with prevailing schools of thought in China and Chinese historiography.
Some of these include:
- The west is hypocritical, the goal of western human rights and democratization is to weaken or subvert China's rise with the goal of ultimately replacing a strong centralized Chinese state that encompasses its present borders for several independent states along ethnic lines and geographic lines that would be easier to manage from a western perspective.
- The fundamental strength of the west up to now is due to superiority capacity for warfare, subjugation of foreign lands through brutal colonialism and exploitation of their natural resources. Now the west in criticizing China in Africa and one belt and road initiatives is simply a cynical maneuver to kick down the ladder after one has already climbed up it.
I could go on, but from these two points stem all subsequent arguments and I think they provide the fundamental rationale for argument over all points of conflict between China and the west.
1) In this case the nation working behind the scenes is China. American imperialism I concede is bad. However, the Chinese have quietly been breaking over 50 international regulations and laws from the WTO and universal declaration of human rights.
2) The Chinese do care what you do. Just last week the Swedish government was going to give an award to an activist in Sweden, and the CCP threatened the entire country - pathetic. The Australians said they do not agree with Chinese human rights violations, so they were denied entry (clearly they care). I also question how one can determine what is "challenging" the CCP when it is a mercantilist nation with hands in every basket.
3) Enforcing the war on drugs all over the world? Like asking China not to ship fentanyl? Sure.
4) America is pushing the war on financial privacy? Hello, have you seen Alipay and Wechat before? Do you realize cash is still a major way that some people get paid in America? Perhaps in swift you could argue undue transparency, but wire transfers are a different subject.
5) American intellectual property infringement? ...do you mean like the Chinese forced intellectual property transfer?
Lastly, on the CS Lewis quote. America is constantly at odds with its conscience. Half the country is constantly calling out the other half. In China if you don't tow the imperial / mercantilist line your social credit goes down and your freedoms are limited.
Each one of your bullets is true, and more extremely applicable to the US.
It's the difference between setting a house on fire to acquire the land, and buying a land lot where a house used to be.
How has the official US line held up, historically, when it comes to coups vs socialists in Latin America? Why should it be different this time?
Challenge it on what? Currency manipulation? Unfair trade practices? Influencing elections? Going against every international body and established rule, and building island military bases to seize new ocean territory from its neighbors? Building concentration camps to imprison millions of minorities who have committed no crime? Propping up N. Korea to use its instability to further Chinese international negotiations?
So if China isn't challenged on any anything of importance, it doesn't care what you do? All countries do bad things and they should all be challenged on it. Why would China be different?
Wether it's an oligarchy of party elite, or oligarchy of robber barons pulling the strings makes little difference to the lives ruined.
In the west we can criticize our governments and are arguably more free. in china you can't and are arguably less free. I know where i would prefer to live.
That one would personally prefer to have the freedoms of the privileged class of the US is not in question. But the US ruins lives at a 3x higher rate in prisons than China does. And it's not organ harvesting, but is cruelty that is personal, financial, and petty. Medical care is routinely denied, long term imprisonment in solitary conditions is considered torture in other nations, and is common in the US. And undeniably, prison is applied more frequently and for longer terms to a minority set of races in the US akin to how China persecutes minorities. (again I agree the degree is different but point out the rate is higher in the US, and ruined lives are still ruined). Those affected in that system really don't have the freedom to opt out of it.
Edit: The robber barons cruelly end lives too...
https://twitter.com/AllOnMedicare/status/1184644551987777537
But I was referring to our in-nation prisons to clairify.
Wait what? Chinese social media is astroturfing at its best (worst?) and it’s not even close, it’s not even possible to say something without a Wumao[1] matching you post to post with total BS. It’s much more blatant than English forums IMO (but maybe that’s just me being a native Chinese speaker in a reverse situation)
In comparison, what the PRC offers is very specific to China. The government wants to see China grow strong and lead the world. They may or may not get there, but these values offer little value to the rest of the world, especially those that have already adopted the liberal values.
This is the entire reason behind "with Chinese characteristics". There is no universal Chinese model to export, the Chinese system is a product of constant experimentation that is highly situational and enabled by advantages of Chinese scale. Most countries are constrained in demographics, geography etc to replicate what China has done. The closest applicable model behind Chines development is Manchukuo, strategic protectionist policies that establish domestic industries which has fueled other Asian tigers like Japan, Korea and Taiwan. What's unique to China is sheer scale enables her reach great power parity in many fields and the ability to absorb failures without losing too much momentum. At the end of the day, the only oppression that China will export is surveillance state technology like Huawei Smart City but that's an commercial commodity like weapons, not ideology.
IMO people are worried about Chinese influence because US influence is declining - that shining house on hill has become dilapidated in the last 20 years. Blaming the nouveau riche neighbor won't solve America's problems, nor will trying to stop them from getting that new pool nor coercing others in the neighborhood to avoid the new neighbors house party.
I agree with you, but a lot of people seem to think these values are automatically parts of America - a "system" as you described it - instead of things we all have to actively achieve every single day. It's a "use it or lose it" kind of thing in my opinion. We have some of the worst voting rates in the developed world. We have illiberal values and behavior creeping into both sides of the political spectrum. On the left we have the language police, cancel culture, and a general attitude that no part of American life can take place outside of the government's sphere of influence. On the right we have blatant xenophobia, voter suppression, and a refusal to deal honestly with our country's legacy of racial oppression.
Those values you listed are not magic totems that we can summon to fend off the specter of Chinese totalitarianism without any real work on our part. If we don't actively pursue them, defend them, and set examples for our children, they will die off.
Regarding all the problems you listed: I think the reason we see these issues come up nowadays is in large due to the fact that the "modern" way of life that currently dominates the world -- the system that encourages individualism, consumerism, and duality, has simply met its end of life. We cannot solve the problems you listed from a dualistic viewpoint. Heck, we can't even get people to help save the environment. In that sense, I do see that we will see a huge shift toward the more Eastern values (especially the notion of interdependence) in the near future, but certainly not the ones pushed by the PRC.
And if you have plans for 20-50 years you don't even need military or police force
Just buy any politician and push your ideology and rewrite history books. And in 50 years people can't think that was something else
And 50 years it is a lot. In rusian federation that was done by less that 5 years
1984
Or if you go to any high end department store, more than half the models in ads are not Chinese. The models present a luxurious, enviable lifestyle.
Any random Chinese person can name at least 10 Hollywood celebrities and hum 10 American songs.
This type of “influence” is much more powerful than what China is currently capable of. And until Americans are like that, I’m not worried at all about “Chinese influence.”
Now if you are strictly talking about government sponsored astroturfing, then look up Operation Earnest Voice and Project Mockingbird.
I also recommend Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent.
Throwaway account since I don’t dare discuss some topics with my real account
There is plenty of evidence showing China's propogandistic influence on Hollywood movies. References to Tibet, Taiwan, etc. are often removed.
The next generation will see it as they grow up, so it'll be smoother for them.
Well one benefit of a censorship state, is that it's easy to censor all the astroturfers.
CCP - yes
I know you're sincere but sincerely burning this place down is still destructive.
The things the USA did supposedly in the name of stopping "red danger" were utterly dispicable, and still have an impact today.
If you believe the US is the only actor that benefitted from this development, you're somehow ignoring about 800 million people and over two dozen countries who remained free and independent thanks to NATO.
There are no historical artifacts claiming that USSR ever had a serious plan to "steamroll" Western Europe. If anything, they were deathly terrified of NATO incursion into Russia and almost pathologically attached to creating a buffer zone of Warszaw Pact states.
Please do not mix up US cold war propaganda with historic facts, those are not quite the same.
So you think that "red danger" was fake?
Or "red danger" did (and do) less despicable things?
I didn't say that - I think the US reaction to the threat was horrendous.
> Or "red danger" did (and do) less despicable things?
That's whataboutism - you would hope that a country that bills itself as "land of the free" would aim for a little better than that.
Note: this also happens in pretty much every other thread about a country that isn’t America. God forbid anyone ever discuss anything else, Americans want to relitigate the same old tired “why my country sucks” debates!
And for what? Is any useful information being conveyed? No, it’s mostly just some kind of social status signalling — Americans of certain insecure social class feel the need to complain about America at every opportunity to distinguish themselves from people of a lower social class because patriotism is coded as a low-class activity.
Yes you’re all very sophisticated and I’m sure you like high speed trains and such. Can we please stop talking about the same thing all the time?
Love,
A non American
Something like 200k people died in the civil war that ensued in Guatamala after the US-backed coup. And that is but one example. It could be argued that a lot of the violence and instability in Latin America is as a result of US intervetion.
Hell, just think of how many excessive deaths have been caused around the globe by the USSR's push of socialism, retarding growth by decades everywhere it won.
You'd have to be a hard core ideologue to not look at the 20th century and think the "red danger" wasn't the most evil thing to ever happen to humanity.
Never
That word was a mask for totalitarian ideology
Hell, just think of the violence, misery and excessive deaths that have occurred across Latin America and the Middle East because of the USA's interventions.
My point is that just because the USSR did worse, doesn't excuse the USA's actions, which still have an impact to this day.
You need to check out the rose glasses you're wearing yourself
(I don't mean to start a flame war, but they are topics where EU and Canada tend to disagree with major US trends)
Canada has been involved in every war that the US has been in my lifetime (born in 1993). Don't know what you mean on hypocrisy on nudity, but I only became comfortable with it when I visited Scandinavia when I was 22; seems like Canada has a similar issue.
I'll maybe give you medical care, but this is an incredibly complex topic. To think that public health care isn't monetized is a naïve point of view.
Somehow, the only thing that the Canadian government has done differently than the US is that it has convinced its people that it is not the US. That's my honest opinion.
Medical care monetisation: sure there is a big private industry, but it's scales different than in the US. And it did not say that it does not exist, only that we tend to disagree on the trend (ex: pharma insurance, now deployed in some provinces, and likely to become federal).
Nudity: granted, I'm from Quebec, it might be different, but things like nipples, breastfeeding, nudity in art, being naked in locker rooms, seeing friends naked (non-sexually), etc. people tend to be much more indifferent about nudity and more comfortable with their body. Obviously, that's a huge generalization and perhaps anecdotal, but I heard this often.
Ah, and I guess with regards to violence, is our difference in free speech: hate speech is not permitted (with exclusions for religious groups, because of LGBT issues, iirc).
Again, these are what I think are non-aligned trends, and topics that have an impact on moderation/algorithms online, not a hard truth. Obviously not everyone agrees on these topics, some regions are more divided than others, and these views tend to evolve in time.
Canada was not party to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
> Somehow, the only thing that the Canadian government has done differently than the US is that it has convinced its people that it is not the US.
Canada did not suffer a financial crisis to the extent that the US did in 2008 because banks here are regulated very differently than in the US. Also, the likelihood of medical bills causing financial ruin is much lower here.
That's what is reported. I highly suspect JTF2 was involved since the beginning. This directly proving my point of the government misleading the people.
[0] - https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/02/war-crimes-in-the-da...
Since the US is Canada's largest trading partner, this will always be the case, but there are huge and important differences in the level of involvement. Famously the level of involvement in the Iraq war was almost non-existent. Canada's involvement consisted of patrolling surrounding waters, and approximately 100 Canadian soldiers who were embedded in American forces as a sort of culteral military exchange[1].
https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/02/war-crimes-in-the-da...
I enjoyed this article: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a9335/upvote...
I also rarely visit Reddit, but for Facebook and Twitter, I guess there has been plenty of research on how people can manipulate public opinion by sharing/voting, and also the impact of their respective algorithms for promoting content?
Of course, Tik Tok is no different, and we should be worried. They do the same thing, only it's not 'our' lobbies and we have little control on them.
I don't see the US trying to export or push that idea/policy and i can't see it ever gaining traction in canada or the EU.
Or in 5-10 years that someone will be in situation worse than HK now
Amusingly, when you look at the comments to yours here in this thread, they try to shift the conversation to "Look at what US does in <region>" without actually talking about what you specifically are bringing up. I see this pattern a lot now, whenever you bring up any thoughts such as yours in this realm involving China, a lot of whataboutism in reply happens. Sad to see this happening on HN.
There's actual reputable and recent research about 50c Army abroad - they don't exist.
Beyond Hybrid War: How China Exploits Social Media to Sway American Opinion https://www.recordedfuture.com/china-social-media-operations...
>While researchers have demonstrated that China does want to present a positive image of the state and Communist Party domestically, the techniques of censorship, filtering, astroturfing, and comment flooding are not viable abroad. We discovered no English language equivalent to the 50 Cent Party in Western social media.
50c also don't engage in political arguments like the comments you're concerned with:
How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, not Engaged Argument https://datasociety.net/events/databite-no-94-jennifer-pan/
>In contrast to prior claims, her research shows that the Chinese regime’s strategy is to avoid arguing with skeptics of the party and the government, and to not even discuss controversial issues. Her work infers that the goal of this massive secretive operation is instead to regularly distract the public and change the subject, as most of the these posts involve cheerleading for China, the revolutionary history of the Communist Party, or other symbols of the regime
Anti Chinese bots however do - this one is particularly ironic since the researchers went out looking for pro CPC bots only the find the opposite.
Chinese computational propaganda: automation, algorithms and the manipulation of information about Chinese politics on Twitter and Weibo. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2018.14...
>In line with previous research, little evidence of automation was found on Weibo. In contrast, a large amount of automation was found on Twitter. However, contrary to expectations and previous news reports, no evidence was found of pro-Chinese-state automation on Twitter. Automation on Twitter was associated with anti-Chinese-state perspectives and published in simplified Mandarin, presumably aimed at diasporic Chinese and mainland users who ‘jump the wall’ to access blocked platforms.
The only somewhat legitimate claims of Chinese bot on western MSM was the Twitter release with zero method or attribution. Independent analysis show the scope of activity is trivial. https://www.aspi.org.au/report/tweeting-through-great-firewa...
>The amount of content directly targeting the Hong Kong protests makes up only a relatively small fraction of the total dataset released by Twitter, comprising just 112 accounts and approximately 1600 tweets, of which the vast majority are in Chinese with a much smaller number in English.
People are too paranoid over pro-China voices, there's plenty of Chinese diaspora out there willing to call out US hypocrisy. There's also billions of people in non western aligned countries who feel the same way. US has more skeptics than just China, especially after the last few years. Instead of viewing people as Pro-China, consider many people are just not anti-China. Alternatively, people aren't so much as Pro-China as anti-US. There are non Sinophobic bubbles out there. The most parsimonious explanation is just people with different opinions.
I don't think anyone doubts that there is a large contingent of nationalistic internet users in China which is very often on display, but going from that to asserting that this is coordinated is quite a leap.
Followed by an 8 paragraph monologue about American imperialism, the prison industry, etc.
Of course this isn't verifiable, and maybe you're right, perhaps it is just one angry guy in China. I do not really care who it is, I am just trying to point out how we're quick to flip out about Facebook ads bought in Rubles, yet when it comes to Chinese troll artistry we are completely silent meanwhile Russia is a declining power and China is a mercantilist adversary.
So yes by absurd infiltration I’m talking about Chinese nationalists in general. Why not give a clear example? Because there is no verification of identity on YouTube or any social media
You don't have to worried about things that are "obviously propaganda." If you even mention a nuanced take on what the CCP is doing in Xinjiang, you'll instantly get downvoted to oblivion (like this comment) and branded a shill, so the same would happen to legitimate disinformation. The Russian propaganda used in the US was designed to create more divides in order to weaken democracy. For example, an fake advertisement may advocate to "teach the controversy" of evolution in a blue state to encourage atheists to be hostile to Christians and vice versa.
Smarter every day has an interesting miniseries about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PGm8LslEb4&vl=tr
Note that these complaints of mine are against the Party, not the people of China as a whole. Xi Jinping and his cronies are a fresh brand of evil.
edit: And HN too, apparently. Like clockwork, downvotes galore. I'm willing to hear someone on the other side out on the Uyghur genocide if they'd like to offer their perspective on it.
It doesn't matter how infrequent the comments we dislike are relative to the whole. What matters is the absolute number of them that an individual reader encounters. If it's more than some threshold value N, they will conclude that the entire place is hostile, even if the hostile comments are a tiny minority. At a psychological and even a biological level, that makes sense: once a place has generated N painful experiences, it's dangerous. Percentage of the total is irrelevant. Indeed, it makes a place even more dangerous if most experiences there are pleasurable, since one will be inclined to stay—exposing oneself to future smacks—and to let one's guard down, making the next smack even more painful. We all have a version of this, and though N may vary per person, I bet it's lower than most of us would predict.
This phenomenon has some interesting consequences. One is that it enables you to guess with high confidence what someone's views on a topic are, based on how strongly they believe HN (or whatever forum) is biased against them. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but the feeling that it is shows what they find painful and therefore what they disagree with. Also, the intensity of the belief in bias grows with the intensity of their view on the topic. That is, the more passionately you believe X, the more pain an anti-X comment causes, the more strongly you will believe that the forum is anti-X.
Another consequence is that the closer a forum gets to being unbiased, the more all sides will believe that it's actually hostile to their views. That seems weird in the wild, but it's simple: the more diverse the comment stream is, the more likely all sides are to notice disagreeable comments and thus receive painful impressions.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
It's always a joy reading your thoughts on moderation and communities in general--keep up the awesome work!
> Reddit is overrun with pro-PRC shills and trolls
I challenge you to link one example in any popular post. My experience is that if you dare to say anything remotely pro-China, you will get downvoted to oblivion.
I'm becoming concerned about PRC influence in my country (USA). From my perspective the PRC (government) is blatantly evil, and happily engaging in cultural warfare, and nobody seems to be fighting back.
I see absurd astroturfing and shilling on social media here (Reddit, Twitter, Facebook). It's always obvious - whereas a genuine criticizer of the Hong Kong protestors might ask about violence, the shills will always use the word "ISIS" somewhere in their message.
It's everywhere and we don't seem to be fighting back. I browse Chinese social media and while my Mandarin isn't great I'm not seeing any level of AstroTurfing at all. So am I just a crazy conspiracy person? Is the PRC astroturfing not a big deal? Maybe my concerns are valid but that doesn't justify further concern about the influx of PRC messaging vectors to the USA, i.e. tiktok?
When I worked in the PRC I got to see first hand the strong-arm of the Party. Every business involved in communication had a government official whose entire job was to ensure the company "protected the social wellbeing of the people of the PRC" or similar. I can only assume tiktok has the same and I can only assume it's a matter of time before the Party starts directing the company to leverage their access to a massive US audience in a way that benefits the "social wellbeing," i.e. by disseminating PRC propaganda.