>My friend and I have been analyzing this trend for a long time. You can spot the 50 cent army on youtube on any video that has US and China in the title. The three go to arguments are

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.

sorry, but how do we know that this is an 'infiltration' or paid for content and not just angry Chinese people shitposting on youtube? Because I can go to just about any political video and find comments like this from any nationality.

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.

This is not an obvious example of 50 cent army; in fact you're unlikely to find anything that you can incontrovertibly call the CCP. This was an example of Chinese nationalism in general. I watch a ton of US China trade war stuff, the closest thing I could give you to an example of what legitimately appears to be a state actor was triggered by something like this: 'yeah China might be good but gdp per capita america = 60k gdp per capita china = 9k'

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.

You said "The level of infiltration of the 50 cent army on YouTube is absurd" and gave an example which you now say "is not an obvious example of 50 cent army". If the infiltration level is absurd, and you and your friend have been analyzing it for a long time, why not give a clear example in the first place?

Sorry you are right, I refer to the 50 cent army as Chinese nationalists in general. Given that there is no way to literally verify, to me it’s all the same. My definition would be closer to “those who go out of the way to champion the ccp party line.” For example, going on a multi paragraph rant about the glories of the chinese communist party, or complete non sequiters.

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

But then why call it "infiltration"? Infiltration implies a plan and sinister intent.

> 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.

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

It's both. A combination of propaganda and propaganda doing its job

Isn't Youtube banned in China?

pretty trivial to get around with a VPN, or might be Chinese expats I suppose given that they're commenting in English.

Not as easy as you might think as most vpn servers are banned in China too.

One thing you can do it reply to those comments with some copypasta about the Tiananmen Square protests. Something like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/aphqv6/for_every...

Okay, but won't you be the other side of the '50 cent' this way? It seems as if even a regular Chinese netizen will be seen as a shill/troll by speaking what they have heard just as Joe from the West copy pasting the same embarassing events over and over. It blocks off honest communication on public forums.

Does this mean if they reply back to that comment, then they are not bots or shills?

Pretty frightening to see the propaganda machines win so hard. We don't know who's behind this, it could for example be a third party looking to cause turbulence between the superpowers. Everybody not allied to the US or China win when the two start fighting. I feel like the gloves have yet to come off, though, in this trade war.