Maybe because there might exist propaganda against the Chinese government? If Twitter has evidence for Chinese propaganda on a US-based site that's inaccessible to the Chinese population, wouldn't it be reasonable to suspect that US propaganda that targets the Chinese government exists too?

The above is just my opinion, but I think we're detracting from the main issue in the parent comment, that the term "WuMao" can be considered a derogatory term. Tell me if I'm wrong, but many terms started off neutral, but turned derogatory over time. The example that comes to mind is the N-word that rhymes with aggro, I'm not even sure if it's okay to use that so I'm self-censoring.

> Maybe because there might exist propaganda against the Chinese government? If Twitter has evidence for Chinese propaganda on a US-based site that's inaccessible to the Chinese population, wouldn't it be reasonable to suspect that US propaganda that targets the Chinese government exists too?

This is making the false assumption that "propaganda" is symmetrical and equivalent. From the CCP perspective, "propaganda against the Chinese government" would be to dispute its false and self-serving account of history or to suggest the Chinese people should enjoy Western-style human rights -- basically anything that questions the ultimate authority and dominance of the party.

See: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/asia/chinas-new-lea... and https://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation.

1) Twitter is accessible by Chinese nationals in Hong Kong, Taiwan and abroad which is whom they are trying to sway.

2) US doesn't need to spread propaganda through Twitter. Trump administration will routinely just come straight out and accuse China of doing X or Y.

We're all replying to the article about the Chinese propaganda Twitter has evidence of, do you have evidence of US propaganda to submit into the discussion?

Regardless, I don't see how more wrong it is to call someone a "WuMao" than it is to call them a "trump supporter", they should both be allowed.

No I don't have evidence, and I was going to include that I don't have evidence in my comment, but didn't. I was merely stating a possibility in answer to your question. Maybe you should reply to my second paragraph instead.

Edit: I don't know about the intricacies of political correctness, but somehow "trump supporter" feels ok, maybe because it has two words and "supporter" balances "trump". Personally I think "50 cent army" isn't as bad as "WuMao" even though they mean the same thing, go figure.

The essence of my analogy was both are terms that denote the ideology of a person, something they CHOOSE, not are born into like race.

If you believed your government was good, why would you care about a label that targeted you as a supporter for them?

Calling someone a "WuMao" is saying that the person is PAID to support the Chinese government, regardless of their actual opinions, and the target of support isn't in the term itself. Calling someone a "trump supporter" doesn't include the part about getting paid.

There seems to be a negative connotation with getting paid to support something, that you're just in it for the money and don't actually mean it.

Of course there are many nuances to the whole issue of labels which I don't have the knowledge or time to go into.

I agree with the paid part adding an extra amount of bad connotation, that was an oversight in my analogy.

Regardless, being called any form of a shill should not be censored and the root of it's usage comes from a legitimate cause, especially when you're not using the phrase at a specific person, just an event like the GP did.

Using the phrase the way he did, he didn't target anyone but the CCP.

> being called any form of a shill should not be censored

It doesn't need to be censored, but calling people shills just for disagreeing makes a civilized discussion less likely.

The GP didn't call anyone a shill, he called the group of bots shills. I don't see why we're talking about the word he chose to call the bots, not the bots themselves. He didn't attack anyone, he was referencing the high number of CCP bots found by Twitter.

I thought it's well known that the government hired moderators are for propaganda purpose, right?

Random question: what's the word for propaganda in chinese? I am also chinese but can only speak with poor vocab. Google translating it yields 宣传, which is a word that I do know but it means something more like "publicity" which loses all the negative connotation of the word propaganda.

I just want to make sure it's not a common mistranslation and that people aren't talking past each other. One side is saying the government is actively lying in order to manipulate people. And the other side might be interpreting as the government working on their public image... which is uh a lot more reasonable when put that way.

Funny how language shape the way we think.

It also works the other way around: Chinese organizations with 宣传 in their name will frequently translate it as "propaganda", apparently unaware of the negative connotation it has taken on in English due to the association with "enemy propaganda".

When the Chinese government accuses someone of "actively lying in order to manipulate people", they tend to call it 谣言, i.e. "rumors".

I tried translating with Baidu and it comes up with "宣传" and "鼓吹". The latter seems more appropriate for propaganda that puts something in a positive light, but doesn't apply to other types of propaganda. So I think a good translation would have to depend on the context.

Exactly, my question essentially is, why do you think the CCP needs propaganda?

Because if many people thought they were good and supported them they could win on merit alone, not propaganda.

I don't think you need to convince me that Chinese government have inherent flaws.

And you might be wrongly thinking I am one of those supporting Chinese government and CCP here.

You can see my other reply above to see more explanation of my position.

After viewing your other reply, I do not believe you are supporting the CCP, but I also disagree with your stance.

I believe we should stand up against dictatorships and challenge them even when we have ties to them.

Being able to say anything and challenge anything is the foundation of freedom, ANY form of censorship threatens that.

People in the U.S. appreciate being able to call out their government leaders I'm sure.

Imagine if you were hauled off at night because of what you posted online.

We should all be standing with Hongkongers on this one.

tldr: the answer to government censorship is not more censorship of phrases ("五毛”) that call them out

What government doesn’t use propaganda?

Well, the article is about the discovered government propaganda by mainly the CCP.

If you have other reports about services finding bots that shilled government propaganda from other state actors you're welcome to share them.

I certainly don't like the mainstream media in the US and I do believe they peddle domestic propaganda, that doesn't mean we divulge in whataboutism and distract from this specific article we are all discussing though, definitely not without specific evidence or events.

That’s like asking why does Taylor Swift pay people to moderate her social media if many people like her.

I didn't realize Taylor Swift's social media uses bots to manipulate other people's feeds.

I figured it was a normal situation where they blocked people and tweeted for her, do you have evidence otherwise?