This is something that is important to know of; propaganda is not necessarily delivering fake news. It can be foreign actors exploiting a country's problems, e.g., gun violence, racism, pandemic response, religious differences, etc., to sow division among the population. For example, Russian Facebook groups encouraged protests in Texas that riled Christians against supposed Islamization of the state and Muslims to counter-protest [1].
As I once explained in a previous comment on another HN post -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33847117 -- I was involved in a political campaign that involved using fake profiles on Twitter and Facebook to boost news that favored the politician and attacked their opponents (I was a naive college kid then). The Twitter account still exists today.
Mind you, this campaign was a small operation in a third world country with less than two dozen people. Imagine what governments with millions to billions of dollars at their disposal could do. America's opponents can obviously not invade it or place sanctions, so they'll try to attack it wherever they can, and you can be sure they are doing it.
After my experience, I stopped paying attention or believing anything from social media. The majority of it are outright lies or half-truths, and I have not the time or strength to sift through them...not to talk of social media being outrage farming for the purpose of securing ad dollars.
> It can be foreign actors exploiting a country's problems, e.g., gun violence, racism, pandemic response, religious differences, etc., to sow division among the population.
Doesn't even have to be foreign. I think most of the propaganda the majority is exposed to comes from our own media and the politicians they cover. When they tell us not to trust X and Y that's just them being scared of losing the narrative.
The US is the most extreme in a western context (don't know much about the east I don't speak their language), the level of polarization in their media is mind-blowing. From the outside it's fucked up to read, and even worse to see normal people acting like this is somehow the other sides' fault.
People need an enemy today, and it can't be those in charge they're making sure of that.
They don't have to be foreign. And tangentially, good propaganda is not recognized as such. For a borderline example, see how Call of Duty changed the attackers in the highway of death from the US to Russia [1]. But since it's only "inspired" by real events, they can claim they didn't falsify history, all the while contributing to a false perception of US forces.
Non-borderline cases are even subtler and more insidious, often indistinguishable from artistic intent, and can be anything from casting choices to subject matter (ever notice how some historical events get more attention than others?). Less overt, less coherent, but when so much media comes from California or New York, it makes their attitudes the default everywhere where that media dominates.
Imagine if the default, ambient culture, was shaped by Mumbai as much as it is today by Hollywood/New York. Yet even with your experience with propaganda, it slips under your radar. That's power.
I find it funny to blame the "Russian organizers" as opposed to the thousands of American people who are members of the groups and showed up on the street to protest and fight. Do you think they were brainwashed for $200 in Facebook ad spend?
People en mass will always have the gullible. It's either "allowing a system that amplifies such misinformation", or "the actors exploiting it", that deserve blame.
Why would you care to blame the gullible who don't know any better?
I think that people around here get antsy when this topic is raised because mis/disinformation is a cousin of advertising- the cash cow of silicon valley VC power-elite. The conversation often goes to combating these things which could turn into privacy/information regulation which would hurt their paychecks. So they clam up and blame the gullible. Just a thought.
I think you're not giving them credit when claiming they're all gullible. Who says your point of view is the correct one? If we take the analogy to the pandemic with social media putting the stamp of approval on posts confirming their narrative, while flagging official .gov links.
Then the so called gullible are simply normal people asking for open discussion. And some people on their high horses claim they're brainwashed, gullible, russian agents or bots. Now a lot of that so called misinformation is showing to be true, even the far-fetched lab leak with gain-of-function research funded by a US agency, in fucking China.
What's even real anymore. The most important thing humanity can do today is putting higher standards of truth on themselves and their allies instead of knee-jerk reactions and calling the opposite side gullible. They have their arguments if we take a breath and listen. And there's a good chance you're just as brainwashed as those you oppose.
The whole premise of this article is "believing misinformation". And on that note, it's also not "my point" either.
But, let's also allow words to mean what they mean, shall we? Gullible, "easily deceived or duped", is not too off the mark to describe those who fall victim to misinformation. Especially so when it was generalized to a large population always including those more prone to being gullible in whatever context.
From your last paragraph, I don't think we disagree, but I suspect that what I wrote would come across more accurately, if it wasn't assumed to be inflammatory. In fact, my argument was that it wasn't the fault of "the gullible", because they will always be there, to some extent. But that the blame should perhaps be directed at those aiming to exploit it, or allow it.
But your reply is in a context though so I can only assume it should be taken in context. Still here you refer to them as gullible from your perspective. I don't think they'd identify as gullible in their circle, and they call you gullible. Where can you even meet when that's your view of each other?
Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you're the gullible one?
Who is "them" to you? I'm referring to gullible people by the trait of being gullible. They are by definition gullible. Whether or not I'm within that group depends on the topic, though I'm sure for some, that I am. I don't think you understood that part of my argument. Or, maybe I didn't understand yours. In either case, it seems to me this is rather unproductive. Have a nice day.
They don't need to be individually gullible at all - the causes they fight for are real and important to them, and the social schisms already exists. Outright misinformation is not necessary to drive a people apart, it just helps if you can get away with it.
Long-lasting societies have a complex dynamic of cohesive and repulsive forces between people - causes that unite them and causes that divide them. It only takes
subtle nudges to move the balance, to de-emphasize compromise and stoke conflict. Modern internet surveillance makes it possible to do this with precision, like a finely monitored industrial process. We're not nearly at the end game yet and we don't know how to protect a society from this kind of attack.
The two-party system adds perverse intensives where you win by pushing people as far as possible to the extreme. Moving for conciliation and moderation is ceding ground to the other side.
People will always have social groups that can be exploited to sow discord. Like I said, my personal solution was to stop paying attention to social media altogether, but that obviously won't happen for everyone.
While you blame the "brainwashed", I blame the executives and workers at the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, et al. They know their platform is being exploited to rile up anger but it brings them the sweet ad dollars so they don't care. They can even feel better and feign some self-righteousness by blaming the "brainwashed" instead of the platforms they oversee...very difficult to get them to admit to the problem when their financial interest depends on it.
This reads like satire, but looking through your comments make me believe you're sincere. This here is a great example of when propaganda gets its own life and spreads by itself. Like malware but infecting humans.
Snowden was a russian spy too right? Let's forget the US was breaking its own laws because Russia. So simple.
Now, what the OP you responded to wrote wasnt very compelling to begin with, However...
It takes a sick kind of person to read through someone's comment history to determine where they fall politically so they can make judgements on their character, rather than what is written by the comment that sparked them to dig into their history.
This is a mish mash of your own sort of misinformation. You mention politically left leaning, left and center media outlets yet completely leave out right wing outlets that are inarguably (at least from any logical and fact based perspective) and objectively more likely to spread falsehoods.
You then toss out a salad of conspiracy tinged topics but lump things like this laptop topic with "masks work". The laptop thing is completely buried in conspiracy nonsense but one thing is certain, the only evidence for anything amiss comes from people with a very narrowly focused political agenda and that should raise doubts in anyone reasonable. Then you mention masks, as if there is something actually controversial there. There isn't (not to normal people, anyway). Health care professionals wear them for a reason and that reason isn't anything nefarious or political. Only the opposition to it comes from such a place. Even "you won't get covid if you take these shots" is silly and disingenuous. No one credible ever claimed that. They are a vaccine and they work by providing a degree of immunity. That's the gist of it. Always has been. Again, only people with an extreme political agenda claim otherwise.
They're "conspiracy tinged" because the media claimed they were conspiracy theories but that all turned out to be a lie.
Surgeons historically wear masks so they don't spit in open wounds.
Plenty of credible people claimed if you took the shots you wouldn't get the virus. Unless you don't think the director of the CDC or President Biden are credible.
According to who? The "conspiracy tinged topics" that you describe so fairly were some of the most over-covered stories, were substantially wrong, and were known at the time of being printed that they were substantially wrong.
> Then you mention masks, as if there is something actually controversial there.
There is. While masks were thought by scientists in authority to slow transmission, Fauci told everyone that masks were not only useless but harmful, and that people shouldn't be wearing them. He later admitted to lying about that. That may not be controversial to you, but if you can't imagine or empathize with people being upset that the government was lying to them in order to manipulate their behavior, you aren't very imaginative or empathetic.
> There isn't (not to normal people, anyway)
I think that when many people who agree with you see bad faith argument like this, they start re-evaluating their position.
Some anecdata: I've seen a big increase in pro-Chinese commentors on the internet in the past year or so. HN especially. It keeps popping up in subtle ways. I'm not saying it's necessarily propaganda or psyops, but we'd be fools to believe China isn't doing that quite extensively. Hell, America does it; we just had a scandal where the military was doing that when they shouldn't have been.
> I've seen a big increase in pro-Chinese commentors on the internet in the past year or so.
During the same period, I've noticed a huge increase in anti-Chinese sentiment and rhetoric, and an agreement among nationalists that China must be stopped, and that military conflict must be prepared for. An extreme escalation of Western chauvinism even after years of Uighur extermination stories.
This post isn’t excusing Chinese actions towards Uighurs, but is heavily critical of anti-Chinese criticisms of their Uighur policy.
Note that Uighurs are majority Muslim and they aren’t all being exterminated (certainly some are), but the primary efforts seem to be making that region and ethnicity much more similar in culture to Han-Chinese. It rings of the “white genocide” and “Jews will not replace us” slogans.
The Chinese government seems to use the 9/11 style “we are monitoring them so they don’t become radical Islamic terrorists”. The government efforts are to destroy practice of Islam, to restrict / deter the spread of Islam and criticisms of the government.
Interestingly the most anti-Chinese people in the US are the ones with the biggest intersection with these policies and claim the US is doing the exact same thing to them.American Christians who claim they aren’t able to practice their faith in the US, while simultaneously insisting that the US is a Christian nation, that Islam shouldn’t be practiced in the US, that Islam creates terrorism, that civil liberties should be rolled back in the efforts to reduce terrorism, and insist that Islamic Sharia law is endemic in the US.
American Anti-Chinese sentiment of the social type seems like a cry bully. There are some far more valid criticisms of the wider social controls and economic policy in China.
>Note that Uighurs are majority Muslim and they aren’t all being exterminated (certainly some are), but the primary efforts seem to be making that region and ethnicity much more similar in culture to Han-Chinese. It rings of the “white genocide” and “Jews will not replace us” slogans.
This is quite the impressive paragraph. What are you even saying?
It is important to remember the near-global admiration for China's lockdowns during the first year of the pandemic. Highly manufactured. Twitter was a huge incubator for it.
Oddly, I've noticed the opposite. Since around 2015 or so, I noticed a very sharp increase of anti-Chinese rhetoric (or any rhetoric for that matter) on the internet and news. Not that it was positive before, but it was barely mentioned. Now it feels like Chinese this and Chinese that come up in every other political conversation.
Not that I was around for the Red Scare or Cold War, but China feels like it replaced Russia as the Boogieman.
Then, again, it might just be a logical reaction to the fundamental political changes that have occurred in the PRC since Xi Jinping came to power in 2013, especially after he changed the constitution to remove term limits in 2018. Under his rule, private business has been increasingly marginalized, state security strengthened, public surveillance hugely magnified, and diplomacy changed from the prior Deng-era "taoguang yanghui" (keep a low profiles, bide your time) to the current "wolf-warrior" strategy. The result has been in countries such as South Korea a growing mistrust and disliked of China (now 80%+) compared to the Jiang Zemin - Hu Jintao eras.
The current "Two Assemblies" meetings in Beijing are likely only to exacerbate this trend, with, e,g. all control of the security agencies shifted away from the State Council to Xi Jinping himself.
No, I believe this was going to happen no matter what.
It happened with the Japanese in the 80s/90s as well where American media vilified Japan because it thinks Japan will become more powerful than the US.
China is trying to climb its way out of the "cheap labor" economy and into a developed economy. The US and the west are trying its hardest to prevent this from happening and this includes using every tactic possible including propaganda, sanctions, etc.
Under Xi Jinping China launched a series of security initiatives targeting outsiders. An emblematic case was that of Apple, whereby the Apple Book Store and iTunes Movie Store were abruptly shut down after prior legal approval.
"Apple Services Shut Down in China in Startling About-Face"
So, too, Wolf Warrior tactics against South Korea over China's anger at U.S. THAAD system, including the destruction of Lotte's entire business in China.
"One company [Lotte] is bearing the brunt of China's anger over U.S. missile system"
Ironically, China adopted Wolf Warrior tactics in large part because the claim you make about the perceived threat of the U.S. treating China like Japan in the 1980s is now a commonplace cliche all over China, used to justify a host of aggressive policies. This hostile posture, overseen by Xi Jinping, has helped achieve the near impossible: political unanimity in the U.S. Congress against China.
I've noticed this too. Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if people in the West were able to participate in conversations inside China the way advocates for China can in other countries.
Whatever the topic, they don't have to be right. Just by obsfucating, delaying, misdirecting, going off on tangents, quoting dodgy research, burying the topic with downvotes whatever...the subject matter just gets turned into a muddy swamp with no clear conclusion and then everybody moves past it to the next new thing. Mission accomplished.
That's probably only me. I've been more pro-China on HN because I believe western media is spreading way too much anti-China propaganda. I believe it needs better balance. The truth is always somewhere in between the propaganda on both sides.
The anti-china sentiment is completely over the top. Especially in the last couple months.
It is disinformation to say "both sides", but it is in some extent true. The real way to stop disinformation is teach information literacy, but that would stop propaganda being effective for everyone.
The site guidelines specifically ask you not to post like this because (a) internet users are notoriously prone to such perceptions, (b) such perceptions are notoriously unreliable, and (c) it invariably leads to low-quality, repetitive discussion and eventually nasty flamewar. Nasty nationalistic/ethnic flamewar is particularly unwelcome here.
If anyone cares, one reason why such perceptions are notoriously unreliable is that people generalize based on what they notice, and what they notice is conditioned by what they agree/disagree with, like/dislike, and so on: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
The truth is that HN is divided on divisive topics the same way that society at large is divided (or rather, societies at large, because this is also a highly international site, although mostly Western). You can't take the appearance of opposing views as signalling anything other than that a topic is divisive. As for perceptions of "HN is more X" or "HN is less X" - in my experience over many years, they're mostly random.
Scary. Next they might hire two white people, put them in front of a green screen, and do the exact same thing. That will be really terrifying because they won't even need to use deepfakes.
Have the Chinese discovered fiverr? They could generate hundreds of these a day.
You don't know that this has been going on for at least a decade (probably way longer)?
The Chinese government hires Western influencers to spread their propaganda all the time. Those who are on Youtube and elsewhere.
Getting paid for spreading that government propaganda (and for doing "normal" Chinese company ads) as a white person is referred to in China as going for "a white monkey job".
China has not invaded any country in decades, or imposed sanctions that have devasted the lives of millions in poor countries, unlike the West, led by the United States.
In yet another predictable win for USA, Fox News' non-AI low-tech approach has all the fakeness at a mere fraction of the cost!
See, for example: [1] concerning the unbelievably incorrect account of Boris Johnson's resignation [2] delivered by someone [3] billed as a former advisor to Johnson, who does indeed dissemble like someone who has sat at the feet of the master, but who seems rather to be a self-promoting ex-youtuber and social media guru wannabe.
People really need to get better at spotting BS. That's true of CCP sponsored BS and FOX and everything else. Until then, we cannot have a real democracy. I am concerned it will take a generation as people do not learn but instead have to die out and be replaced by people who grew up in the new paradigm...
This tech will save the Murdochs, Sinclairs, every purveyor of infotainment, so much money. No more salaries for anchors. No more huge payouts to settle (sexual) harassment and descrimination lawsuits.
Agitprop like this will be automated, turnkey, ubiquitous:
76 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 124 ms ] threadI didn't find the "Wolf News" segments, but other video using the same Synthesia avatars is available:
The male avatar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cm7Vl2kvfA
The female avatar: https://www.synthesia.io/features/avatars
As I once explained in a previous comment on another HN post -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33847117 -- I was involved in a political campaign that involved using fake profiles on Twitter and Facebook to boost news that favored the politician and attacked their opponents (I was a naive college kid then). The Twitter account still exists today.
Mind you, this campaign was a small operation in a third world country with less than two dozen people. Imagine what governments with millions to billions of dollars at their disposal could do. America's opponents can obviously not invade it or place sanctions, so they'll try to attack it wherever they can, and you can be sure they are doing it.
After my experience, I stopped paying attention or believing anything from social media. The majority of it are outright lies or half-truths, and I have not the time or strength to sift through them...not to talk of social media being outrage farming for the purpose of securing ad dollars.
1- https://www.npr.org/2017/11/01/561427876/how-russia-used-fac...
Doesn't even have to be foreign. I think most of the propaganda the majority is exposed to comes from our own media and the politicians they cover. When they tell us not to trust X and Y that's just them being scared of losing the narrative.
The US is the most extreme in a western context (don't know much about the east I don't speak their language), the level of polarization in their media is mind-blowing. From the outside it's fucked up to read, and even worse to see normal people acting like this is somehow the other sides' fault.
People need an enemy today, and it can't be those in charge they're making sure of that.
They don't have to be foreign. And tangentially, good propaganda is not recognized as such. For a borderline example, see how Call of Duty changed the attackers in the highway of death from the US to Russia [1]. But since it's only "inspired" by real events, they can claim they didn't falsify history, all the while contributing to a false perception of US forces.
Non-borderline cases are even subtler and more insidious, often indistinguishable from artistic intent, and can be anything from casting choices to subject matter (ever notice how some historical events get more attention than others?). Less overt, less coherent, but when so much media comes from California or New York, it makes their attitudes the default everywhere where that media dominates.
Imagine if the default, ambient culture, was shaped by Mumbai as much as it is today by Hollywood/New York. Yet even with your experience with propaganda, it slips under your radar. That's power.
[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/mbmwgn/modern-warfare-the-hi...
Why would you care to blame the gullible who don't know any better?
Then the so called gullible are simply normal people asking for open discussion. And some people on their high horses claim they're brainwashed, gullible, russian agents or bots. Now a lot of that so called misinformation is showing to be true, even the far-fetched lab leak with gain-of-function research funded by a US agency, in fucking China.
What's even real anymore. The most important thing humanity can do today is putting higher standards of truth on themselves and their allies instead of knee-jerk reactions and calling the opposite side gullible. They have their arguments if we take a breath and listen. And there's a good chance you're just as brainwashed as those you oppose.
The whole premise of this article is "believing misinformation". And on that note, it's also not "my point" either.
But, let's also allow words to mean what they mean, shall we? Gullible, "easily deceived or duped", is not too off the mark to describe those who fall victim to misinformation. Especially so when it was generalized to a large population always including those more prone to being gullible in whatever context.
From your last paragraph, I don't think we disagree, but I suspect that what I wrote would come across more accurately, if it wasn't assumed to be inflammatory. In fact, my argument was that it wasn't the fault of "the gullible", because they will always be there, to some extent. But that the blame should perhaps be directed at those aiming to exploit it, or allow it.
Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you're the gullible one?
Long-lasting societies have a complex dynamic of cohesive and repulsive forces between people - causes that unite them and causes that divide them. It only takes subtle nudges to move the balance, to de-emphasize compromise and stoke conflict. Modern internet surveillance makes it possible to do this with precision, like a finely monitored industrial process. We're not nearly at the end game yet and we don't know how to protect a society from this kind of attack.
The two-party system adds perverse intensives where you win by pushing people as far as possible to the extreme. Moving for conciliation and moderation is ceding ground to the other side.
While you blame the "brainwashed", I blame the executives and workers at the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, et al. They know their platform is being exploited to rile up anger but it brings them the sweet ad dollars so they don't care. They can even feel better and feign some self-righteousness by blaming the "brainwashed" instead of the platforms they oversee...very difficult to get them to admit to the problem when their financial interest depends on it.
Agreed. I deleted all my social media accounts except for this one and it helped immensely. I sometimes feel like I live in a different world.
Snowden was a russian spy too right? Let's forget the US was breaking its own laws because Russia. So simple.
It takes a sick kind of person to read through someone's comment history to determine where they fall politically so they can make judgements on their character, rather than what is written by the comment that sparked them to dig into their history.
His post lacked substance, sure. That's about it.
But pat yourself on the back to normalizing profile stalking in an anonymous internet forum. Go you.
You then toss out a salad of conspiracy tinged topics but lump things like this laptop topic with "masks work". The laptop thing is completely buried in conspiracy nonsense but one thing is certain, the only evidence for anything amiss comes from people with a very narrowly focused political agenda and that should raise doubts in anyone reasonable. Then you mention masks, as if there is something actually controversial there. There isn't (not to normal people, anyway). Health care professionals wear them for a reason and that reason isn't anything nefarious or political. Only the opposition to it comes from such a place. Even "you won't get covid if you take these shots" is silly and disingenuous. No one credible ever claimed that. They are a vaccine and they work by providing a degree of immunity. That's the gist of it. Always has been. Again, only people with an extreme political agenda claim otherwise.
Surgeons historically wear masks so they don't spit in open wounds.
Plenty of credible people claimed if you took the shots you wouldn't get the virus. Unless you don't think the director of the CDC or President Biden are credible.
I'm sorry if this is all upsetting to you.
According to who? The "conspiracy tinged topics" that you describe so fairly were some of the most over-covered stories, were substantially wrong, and were known at the time of being printed that they were substantially wrong.
> Then you mention masks, as if there is something actually controversial there.
There is. While masks were thought by scientists in authority to slow transmission, Fauci told everyone that masks were not only useless but harmful, and that people shouldn't be wearing them. He later admitted to lying about that. That may not be controversial to you, but if you can't imagine or empathize with people being upset that the government was lying to them in order to manipulate their behavior, you aren't very imaginative or empathetic.
> There isn't (not to normal people, anyway)
I think that when many people who agree with you see bad faith argument like this, they start re-evaluating their position.
During the same period, I've noticed a huge increase in anti-Chinese sentiment and rhetoric, and an agreement among nationalists that China must be stopped, and that military conflict must be prepared for. An extreme escalation of Western chauvinism even after years of Uighur extermination stories.
What did you think would happen?
Note that Uighurs are majority Muslim and they aren’t all being exterminated (certainly some are), but the primary efforts seem to be making that region and ethnicity much more similar in culture to Han-Chinese. It rings of the “white genocide” and “Jews will not replace us” slogans.
The Chinese government seems to use the 9/11 style “we are monitoring them so they don’t become radical Islamic terrorists”. The government efforts are to destroy practice of Islam, to restrict / deter the spread of Islam and criticisms of the government.
Interestingly the most anti-Chinese people in the US are the ones with the biggest intersection with these policies and claim the US is doing the exact same thing to them.American Christians who claim they aren’t able to practice their faith in the US, while simultaneously insisting that the US is a Christian nation, that Islam shouldn’t be practiced in the US, that Islam creates terrorism, that civil liberties should be rolled back in the efforts to reduce terrorism, and insist that Islamic Sharia law is endemic in the US.
American Anti-Chinese sentiment of the social type seems like a cry bully. There are some far more valid criticisms of the wider social controls and economic policy in China.
This is quite the impressive paragraph. What are you even saying?
The same idiotic argument of “extermination” is used by some people in our society.
It is important to remember the near-global admiration for China's lockdowns during the first year of the pandemic. Highly manufactured. Twitter was a huge incubator for it.
Not that I was around for the Red Scare or Cold War, but China feels like it replaced Russia as the Boogieman.
The current "Two Assemblies" meetings in Beijing are likely only to exacerbate this trend, with, e,g. all control of the security agencies shifted away from the State Council to Xi Jinping himself.
It happened with the Japanese in the 80s/90s as well where American media vilified Japan because it thinks Japan will become more powerful than the US.
China is trying to climb its way out of the "cheap labor" economy and into a developed economy. The US and the west are trying its hardest to prevent this from happening and this includes using every tactic possible including propaganda, sanctions, etc.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gung_Ho_(film)
"Apple Services Shut Down in China in Startling About-Face"
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/technology/apple-no-longe...
So, too, Wolf Warrior tactics against South Korea over China's anger at U.S. THAAD system, including the destruction of Lotte's entire business in China.
"One company [Lotte] is bearing the brunt of China's anger over U.S. missile system"
https://money.cnn.com/2017/03/07/news/china-lotte-thaad-sout...
Ironically, China adopted Wolf Warrior tactics in large part because the claim you make about the perceived threat of the U.S. treating China like Japan in the 1980s is now a commonplace cliche all over China, used to justify a host of aggressive policies. This hostile posture, overseen by Xi Jinping, has helped achieve the near impossible: political unanimity in the U.S. Congress against China.
Whatever the topic, they don't have to be right. Just by obsfucating, delaying, misdirecting, going off on tangents, quoting dodgy research, burying the topic with downvotes whatever...the subject matter just gets turned into a muddy swamp with no clear conclusion and then everybody moves past it to the next new thing. Mission accomplished.
That's probably only me. I've been more pro-China on HN because I believe western media is spreading way too much anti-China propaganda. I believe it needs better balance. The truth is always somewhere in between the propaganda on both sides.
It is disinformation to say "both sides", but it is in some extent true. The real way to stop disinformation is teach information literacy, but that would stop propaganda being effective for everyone.
On both sides...
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
If anyone cares, one reason why such perceptions are notoriously unreliable is that people generalize based on what they notice, and what they notice is conditioned by what they agree/disagree with, like/dislike, and so on: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
The truth is that HN is divided on divisive topics the same way that society at large is divided (or rather, societies at large, because this is also a highly international site, although mostly Western). You can't take the appearance of opposing views as signalling anything other than that a topic is divisive. As for perceptions of "HN is more X" or "HN is less X" - in my experience over many years, they're mostly random.
Have the Chinese discovered fiverr? They could generate hundreds of these a day.
The Chinese government hires Western influencers to spread their propaganda all the time. Those who are on Youtube and elsewhere.
Getting paid for spreading that government propaganda (and for doing "normal" Chinese company ads) as a white person is referred to in China as going for "a white monkey job".
See, for example: [1] concerning the unbelievably incorrect account of Boris Johnson's resignation [2] delivered by someone [3] billed as a former advisor to Johnson, who does indeed dissemble like someone who has sat at the feet of the master, but who seems rather to be a self-promoting ex-youtuber and social media guru wannabe.
1: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tucker-car...
2: https://twitter.com/JamesAALongman/status/154709789313961984...
3: https://scrutable.science/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3430&start=35...
This tech will save the Murdochs, Sinclairs, every purveyor of infotainment, so much money. No more salaries for anchors. No more huge payouts to settle (sexual) harassment and descrimination lawsuits.
Agitprop like this will be automated, turnkey, ubiquitous:
Sinclair's Local News Anchors all Read Same Script https://youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo
So much potential. These are exciting times for trolls and grifters.
The format is already perfected. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo [Sinclair Broadcast controversy]