[HN Gopher] Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and...
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Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter
Author : bale
Score : 313 points
Date : 2021-12-22 19:49 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| fc373745 wrote:
| When the western world propagandized and was incredibly quick to
| accuse the Chinese Government of "Genocide", which is not only
| false, but extremely aggressive, I don't see any reasons why the
| Chinese Government also shouldn't play dirty.
|
| In fact the actions taken by Israelis against the Palestinians
| fit much closer to the definition of Genocide than what is
| happening in Xinjiang.
|
| You forget that the US Navy is stationed perimetering the Chinese
| Seas, and has over 200 foreign military bases, whereas China only
| has 1.
|
| Calling the Chinese the aggressors is propaganda and you are
| naive to think that the US Government, or any western government
| for that matter, isn't capable of producing state media that
| would accumulate hatred for the Chinese.
|
| The real reason why there is tension between us and China right
| now, is because they exploded from the 6th largest economy to the
| 2nd in 20 years, and the US feels threatened by it.
|
| If you are unable to grasp of the rapid rise of China, take a
| look at their architectural projects.
| (https://www.archdaily.com/search/projects/country/china?ad_m...)
|
| In 2011, Obama gave a speech to the British Parliament that the
| growth of China should be welcomed due to them welcoming a market
| like economy after Deng, and then subsequently denied the thought
| that China's rise is a threat to the hegemony that is the West,
| but instead to work in cooperation towards a peaceful future.
|
| https://youtu.be/fp85zRg2cwg?t=665
|
| That thought is now long gone, and the leaderships of western
| countries do feel threatened by it and both are now playing
| dirty.
|
| I will not take part of this dirty behavior as I believe it will
| just eventually lead to warlike futures.
|
| I believe our government (US) is playing just as dirty as China
| is, if not more.
|
| Sincerely, a non-chinese us citizen, born and raised in Texas.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| All the grandstanding and whataboutism notwithstanding, there's
| really no excuse for what China is doing to Uyghurs atm.
| justicezyx wrote:
| > there's really no excuse for what China is doing to Uyghurs
| atm.
|
| First make sure everyone agrees upon what happened to Uyghurs
| first.
|
| China is closed to foreign examination in the sense that they
| do not want to show all the details. But BBC and western
| media decide that that's a legitimate excuse to allow
| manipulative reporting:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS8EceIa1MQ&t=101s
|
| You are not going to get people to be honest, if you try to
| force that with lies.
| fc373745 wrote:
| I don't really believe people have such a genuine empathy for
| the Uyghurs - I think there are ulterior motives - the main
| one being to disrupt China.
|
| If it was truly the case that there exists genuine empathy
| for something that is 6000-9000 miles away from us, then it
| must be consistent that this empathy must be shared for the
| Ethiopian Genocide, Palestine, the US southern Border and the
| list goes on and on.
|
| But that wide stretching empathy does not exist.
|
| I don't even care that much for a lot of the atrocities in
| the world, and neither do you.
|
| I have too much on my plate back in my own backyard.
|
| There are ulterior motives as to why China's treatment of the
| Uyghurs is on blast right now.
|
| It's not genuine empathy.
|
| It's almost evil.
| mcphage wrote:
| > But that wide stretching empathy does not exist.
|
| Yeah, it really does.
| fc373745 wrote:
| Then it should be the case that the US Government should
| start removing Casinos from Native American Land as it
| brings in, on a massive scale, drugs, alcoholism, and
| crime, and find other methods and ways to promote a
| healthy economy for the Native Americans.
|
| This should be first and foremost.
|
| But by reading this do you agree with empathy, or do you
| get filled with antagonism because I'm supplying
| "whataboutism" (what a redditor move), or because I'm not
| fulfilling my patriotic duty to hate China.
|
| I believe its the latter.
| mcphage wrote:
| > the US Government should start removing Casinos from
| Native American Land
|
| Lol. If the US government _could_ do that, it would
| happily have done so.
| fc373745 wrote:
| Yeah, just like they're trying to prevent the rape,
| kidnapping, and murder of Indigenous women along the US
| Canada border, right?
| johnsolo1701 wrote:
| This might be hard for you to believe, but there are a lot
| of people who have genuine and consistent empathy for
| needless suffering, no matter where it happens. You might
| not hear from us much online, because we often get crushed
| under the relentless cynicism your comment chillingly
| embodies.
| fc373745 wrote:
| Sure, I am willing to be corrected in the sense that some
| people truly have that wide stretching empathy.
|
| But to say that there are absolutely no ulterior motives
| hidden for the focus on Xinjiang is also false.
|
| In fact, I personally think the ulterior motives take the
| lion's share of the reason why there is focus on Xinjiang
| and Uyghurs.
| seibelj wrote:
| Have you read this book? https://www.amazon.com/Red-Roulette-
| Insiders-Corruption-Veng...
|
| Desmond Shum fled China with his son after his wife, one of the
| richest women in China, was disappeared back in 2017. He was
| told all sorts of things, like a bullet was put in her head,
| but supposedly she called him briefly shortly after the book
| was published (he doesn't know for sure). His son (12 years
| old) often cries uncontrollably, as his mother has disappeared
| and not contacted him in years. He gives a detailed explanation
| of how business and power works in China, and to say it is
| _anything_ like America or other Western liberal countries
| would be patently absurd.
| justicezyx wrote:
| What's the connection of this to the parent?
|
| High power is always corrupted. Even today we have Kennedy
| assassination, Eperstein, Assange. Desmond Shum is connected
| to Wen Jiabao. No 2 in China at its time. You think dealing
| with these people is not dangerous?
|
| CCP is bad in different way than any other political
| organizations. That does not make China unique in any
| significant way at all.
| liuliu wrote:
| There is a gradient from cultural assimilation -> cultural
| genocide -> genocide. People quickly jump from former to the
| later.
|
| Are there re-education camps? Yes. Is it cultural assimilation
| or cultural genocide? I don't know.
|
| Are there genocide as we understood as Armenian genocide or the
| Holocaust? I don't think there are many data to support that
| claim. If we say these two are the same, from what I can
| gather, it also trivializes Holocaust.
| jtdev wrote:
| china wrote:
| hi!
| [deleted]
| raimundjoss wrote:
| So much of social media pre-supposes that no entity would spend
| the kinda money to influence an issue. They didn't take a state
| with limited resources into account.
| ska wrote:
| Forget state level resources, plenty of distortion is created
| by corporations with relatively modest resources. Assuming
| anything on social media is "untainted" is pretty naive.
| celeduc wrote:
| *Unlimited resources
| blitzar wrote:
| It turns out you can spice things up on social media with
| relatively modest ad spends, the mob are so desperate to be
| incited that you dont even need to light the match.
| the-dude wrote:
| audunw wrote:
| Consent for what exactly? A direct war with China is not going
| to happen (MAD). I could see USA pushing to set up more
| defences for Taiwan, if Taiwan would allow it. And that would
| be a good thing. Far better to spend money on setting up
| defences for a peaceful and valuable ally than to spend on wars
| in the middle east.
| monocasa wrote:
| I'm not sure that MAD is always a bulwark. China only has a
| few dozen ICBMs that can hit the US, plus another couple
| dozen SLBMs probably on three to four submarines.
|
| It's a very dangerous game to play, but I can see the same
| sort of group think that led to the Iraq war saying "our
| defense systems could totally handle that".
| itisit wrote:
| This comment is parroting Chomsky.
| the-dude wrote:
| Doesn't make it less true.
| chroem- wrote:
| Chomsky spent a good part of his career claiming the
| Cambodian Genocide was just US propaganda.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| That would be news to me, src?
|
| Quick search suggest, that this statement is just
| propaganda.
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-01/brull---the-
| boring-tr...
| chroem- wrote:
| Nice try
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide_denial#C
| hom...
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I do not read anything, close of a statement "cambodian
| genocide is just us propaganda"
|
| What I read is:
|
| "What filters through to the American public is a
| seriously distorted version of the evidence available,
| emphasizing alleged Khmer Rouge atrocities and
| downplaying or ignoring the crucial U.S. role, direct and
| indirect, in the torment that Cambodia has suffered"
|
| a much more nuanced statement.
| chroem- wrote:
| Are we reading the same quote? He is calling reporting
| about the genocide propaganda.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I am reading, he is calling some reporting possible
| propaganda.
| skavi wrote:
| the best propaganda is the correct truth, no?
| the-dude wrote:
| This too doesn't make it less true.
| bloqs wrote:
| Of course it does, it offers a pervasive arguement that
| the source is unreliable.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Nothing you say makes your comment any _more_ true,
| either. At the moment, we 're at "That's just, like, your
| opinion, man."
|
| [Edit: Do you have any evidence that the NYT is
| deliberately seeking to manufacture consent? Or even that
| they are unwittingly being used to manufacture consent?
|
| Or are they just reporting what's actually happening,
| namely that China is manipulating western media?
|
| And, even if the NYT _is_ manufacturing consent, that 's
| still pretty much a "whataboutism", unless you're
| claiming that China is _not_ manipulating Facebook and
| Twitter.
|
| End of edit.]
| the-dude wrote:
| Dude. This is not Vietnam.
|
| Let us compare the NYT manufacturing track record
| considering ... Iraq.
|
| This will not stand.
| the-dude wrote:
| Since you've editted, I will use a new comment.
|
| Propaganda is among others what to say, or not to say.
| When to say it. What words to use.
|
| 1) Where the NYT uses _manipulating western media_ , I
| would say _China is engaging with world leading social
| networks_. Basically China is _buying likes_. Big frickin
| ' deal. But the NYT calls this _manipulates Facebook and
| Twitter_ ( as if they are influencing the companies in
| itself ).
|
| 2) Manufacturing consent implies war : _foreign
| adventures_. It is not whataboutism because the US has a
| track record of these adventures and China has not.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Do you regard Tibet as an internal Chinese matter?
|
| The US has _more_ of a track record, I 'll admit. On the
| other hand, China keeps forever in a way that the US does
| not.
|
| I asked if you have any evidence. You didn't even hint
| that you had any, so I will assume that you do not. So
| we're back to "That's just your opinion."
| the-dude wrote:
| Asking for evidence of _manufacturing consent_ is not
| understanding _manufacturing consent_. Without being
| told, the media knows what is supposed to report on and
| what not to report on.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| "It's clearly true, no evidence needed"? At a minimum,
| that's not very persuasive to anyone who doesn't already
| agree with you.
|
| But worse, that kind of thinking is how you wind up with
| beliefs that no external evidence can persuade you are
| false. It's the same approach of both religious cults and
| conspiracy theorists.
|
| Mind you, you could in fact be right. But the thinking
| pattern has, at best, disreputable fellow travelers. Be
| cautious of that pattern of thinking.
| guerrilla wrote:
| In this case it means you misunderstand the model [1]
| which doesn't require conspiracy or malicious intent. The
| book they published on it is just a mass of evidence that
| this is how it works, check it out if that's what you
| want.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
| chroem- wrote:
| If a preconceived belief will make you blind to genocide,
| what else will it make you blind to?
| pphysch wrote:
| Might it make you uncritically believe anything the NYT
| and Washington establishment media claims? Even if their
| primary sources are extremely dubious?
| chroem- wrote:
| My daily first-hand encounters with China's 50 cent army
| suggest it's more than just dubious claims. If anything,
| the NYT is late to the party.
| pphysch wrote:
| Sorry, but this is just naive. Washington/NY media
| invented "yellow journalism" long before the PRC or your
| scapegoat "wumao" bogeyman even existed.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism#Hearst_in
| _Sa...
| chroem- wrote:
| No, I mean I _myself_ am bombarded by people who self-
| identify as wumao on the various internet forums I visit.
| I don 't read the New York Times or other "mainstream"
| journalism outlets. The 50 cent army has become extremely
| pervasive and obnoxious with their off-topic spam over
| the last 12 months. It's very frustrating to use most of
| my usual forums because of just how intensely the wumaos
| spam them now.
| k4c9x wrote:
| This comment is parroting Chomsky critics that stretched
| pretty damn hard to find some way to defame him.
|
| He compared the US media coverage of 2 similar genocides,
| nowhere does he claim either was "just US propaganda",
| nor does he downplay the seriousness of either, just that
| the coverage of it was handled different than the other.
| chroem- wrote:
| Wikipedia has an entire section dedicated to his denial
| of the genocide.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide_denial#C
| hom...
| k4c9x wrote:
| Oh, I stand corrected.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| I don't think that says what you're claiming it says. In
| fact, my reading of the content is contradictory to my
| reading of your comments. Am I missing something?
| chroem- wrote:
| Are the quotes where he calls reporting on the genocide,
| propaganda, not good enough for you?
| justicezyx wrote:
| The issue of this behavior is that CCP built an apparatus that
| information flow is managed across the whole country. As a
| result, one can no longer trace this document on any official
| channel. Since there is no public trace of this document, one is
| impossible to pinpoint the chain of evidence.
|
| So block chain has been touted as an advanced tech by Xi, you'll
| notice that it's adoption is never free. The line that crossing
| would result into hard to predict consequences is itself
| intractable.
| 323 wrote:
| Why would that be a bad thing?
|
| The Republicans influence FoxNews.
|
| The Democrats influence CNN.
|
| Why wouldn't China also influence some outlets?
|
| It's a free market, you don't like a media source, you are free
| to use one suitable to your bias.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| The Republicans and Democrats are the same as US gov.
|
| > It's a free market
|
| It is not a free market. The US govt. can't influence popular
| media inside China.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| It's not a free market for manipulation.
|
| There are laws and rules designed to safeguard open and free
| exchange of information and opinions, and covert influence is
| regularly forbidden.
|
| The big difference is that domestic influence is much easier to
| (eventually) unveil (see Watergate, Snowden, panama papers
| etc.). Foreign influence is harder to detect if it comes from a
| country that executes its whistleblowers and disappears its
| critics.
| 323 wrote:
| > _It 's not a free market for manipulation._
|
| Advertising, lobbying, PR, think tanks, ... are all legal.
| They are all in the market for manipulation.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Right, these are legal and regulated forms of manipulation.
|
| Covert manipulation is mostly sanctioned through platform
| TOS and laws.
| 323 wrote:
| You confuse "legal and regulated" with "transparent to
| the public".
|
| When Ford pays money to product place one of it's cars in
| a movie, that might be declared and invoiced in some
| contract, but you as a film watcher will never know it
| (unless they make a point of announcing it). So please
| explain how movie product placement is not covert.
|
| The same with PR, think tanks, and a lot of advertising.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| I am not confusing these terms.
|
| As usual, they represent a spectrum of desirability,
| harm, regulation and sanctions. Complete transparency to
| the public is of course an utopian goal.
|
| The key here is that political influence is handled
| _very_ differently from commercial influence. Regulation
| of un-branded advertisements vary by country with some
| being more lenient and others more strict.
|
| But political content is frequently held to higher
| standards, and should be.
| 323 wrote:
| Commercial content can be political content these days.
|
| Product placing a Ford truck and guns versus a Tesla car
| and rainbow t-shirts.
| thomasahle wrote:
| Advertised content is supposed to be marked as such; not
| guise as organic content and upvoted by lots of bots
| disguising as real users.
| 323 wrote:
| Product placement is not marked. That's the whole idea
| before product placement, not marking it so that it
| appears "organic".
|
| When a think tank expert comes on TV and talks in favor
| of (or against) building an oil pipeline, they will
| briefly announce that "X is from the Open House think
| tank", but not mention "a know oil company defender".
| mdasen wrote:
| When watching FoxNews or CNN, we know that someone is making
| editorial decisions. When looking at something popular on
| Twitter, we assume that the number of likes is "real" and not
| made-up.
|
| This is akin to FoxNews or CNN presenting a poll where they
| just made up fake data.
|
| This is akin to FoxNews or CNN interviewing someone and saying
| that they're "an independent voter" when they're actually a
| paid spokesperson for a political party.
|
| If comments and votes/likes/etc. come in without someone saying
| that they're paid-for views, it's very different.
|
| China can certainly influence media outlets in ways that one
| would consider fair. They can push CNN to have a Chinese
| Government Spokesperson interviewed. They would say a pro-China
| message, but viewers would be aware that they're a paid
| spokesperson.
|
| In the US, the FTC requires that paid promotion be disclosed
| because there's a difference between someone pushing a product
| because they're getting paid for it and someone talking about
| something they like. Similarly, there's a certain moral duty to
| disclose when you're being paid to push certain views/agendas.
|
| Likewise, we all hate fake reviews on products. This process is
| basically getting lots of fake social media accounts to give
| you "fake reviews" along with the impression of many people
| (who are actually fake) validating those fake reviews as real.
|
| We see it here on HN. People writing from mostly anonymous
| accounts will say things like, "full disclosure, I work at X,
| but not on anything related to Y." The reason why is that we
| feel we should be honest. We're (hopefully) not pushing agendas
| on here for money. We're just saying things that we think.
|
| I think China should be able to tweet things from government-
| labeled accounts to try and influence people. But what the
| article describes is basically a fake review problem. Shady
| companies hire people with fake accounts to post positive
| reviews. There's a reason people hate that.
| andreilys wrote:
| It's more akin to a CNN guest not disclosing the fact that
| they're on the CCP payroll and will have their opinion
| influenced as a result.
| oblak wrote:
| bsedlm wrote:
| there seems to be a really powerful group of people that don't
| approve of facebook selling access to "eyeballs" fairly and
| equally to anybody willing to buy this.
|
| I conjecture that they'd prefer if somebody (i.e. them) had
| preferential access
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Who's "they"?
| duxup wrote:
| [deleted]
| endisneigh wrote:
| Which countries don't do this? What China is doing is bad, but is
| this some sort of new development? Russia, Germany, France to
| name a few have been caught doing the same thing. Not to mention
| the USA.
|
| Facebook and Twitter need to handle this issue. This type of
| stuff is going on meanwhile they're banning people for the
| stupidest most innocuous actions.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| It would be very helpful if you provide some links to your
| claims.
|
| There are many platform reports on state-sponsored influence,
| and they routinely do not name Germany and France.
|
| Instead, the overall picture of perpetrators is that of
| authoritarian regimes.
| hetspookjee wrote:
| Platform reports by whom?
| uniqueuid wrote:
| By platforms.
|
| Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms regularly publish
| (and in some countries are required by law to publish)
| reports on coordinated inauthentic behavior.
|
| Example:
| https://about.fb.com/news/2021/07/june-2021-coordinated-
| inau...
| hetspookjee wrote:
| I don't understand why you'd expect anything from
| Facebook to be a reliable source? Or from any platform
| about their own integrity? Their historical record on
| truthful reporting is dismal, and they have every
| incentive to report what the moral fashion of the day is
| about.
| monocasa wrote:
| Here's the GCHQ unit that somehow never shows up in the
| coordinated inauthentic behavior reports. We know some of
| the specifics because of the Snowden leaks.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Threat_Research_Intel
| lig...
|
| > Campaigns operated by JTRIG have broadly fallen into
| two categories; cyber attacks and propaganda efforts. The
| propaganda efforts (named "Online Covert Action"[3]
| utilize "mass messaging" and the "pushing [of] stories"
| via the medium of Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and
| YouTube.[2] Online "false flag" operations are also used
| by JTRIG against targets.[2]
|
| I's pretty clear to me that every country does this, and
| it's only the countries without any political sway over
| Facebook, et al that end up in the 'inauthentic behavior'
| reports.
| andreilys wrote:
| It's ultimately a gradient, some countries are more aggressive
| with their astroturfing effort.
|
| China's astroturfing for example has gotten so bad, that the
| "50 cent army" meme has become pervasive and well-known to
| mostly anyone that spends time online.
|
| I honestly worry that with the development around language
| models like GPT-3, the internet as we know it will be
| completely blanketed with astro-turfed content by language
| models and low-paid contractors.
| trasz wrote:
| It certainly looks like this, until you look at facts. What
| did the "50 cent army" actually achieve? Anything even close
| to manufacturing American consent to invade Middle East and
| kill million random people?
| foverzar wrote:
| > It's ultimately a gradient
|
| It's actually not. In global politics actors rarely engage in
| things their peers don't. It seems to me that this is rather
| ultimately something more like finding the most wildly
| looking thing about how other culture manages information
| flows and PR and focusing optics on it.
|
| > I honestly worry that with the development around language
| models like GPT-3, the internet as we know it will be
| completely blanketed with astro-turfed content by language
| models and low-paid contractors.
|
| Tbh I think that we had already passed this point, with all
| the low-grade SEO and myriads of copy-paste clickbait
| internet-tabloids. The internet has already drowned in low-
| grade media-content and language models would hardly change
| anything fundamentally in that matter.
| dirtyid wrote:
| >focusing optics on it.
|
| Basically. Western reporting trying to overindex PRC
| influence campaigns as part of manufacturing consent has
| gotten so bad that useful idiots in the west start to
| reflexively accuse 50C everywhere. And brainwashed enough
| to genuinely believe it. Official 50C operates
| domestically, not abroad. Even then, 50c posting is
| characterized by spamming low effort platitudes instead of
| high effort engagement. PRC isn't wasting valuable human
| capita with English proficiency to argue/troll on platforms
| like HN or Reddit. Millions sympathetic to PRC opinions
| like diaspora / VPN users do that on their own free time.
| To date, PRC influence campaigns are limited to a hundreds
| / low thousands of accounts boosting discourse of official
| accounts on Twitter and Facebook. So far, they've been low
| effort campaigns with poor reach. But repetitive headlines
| tries to insinuate otherwise.
|
| PRC will probably harness GPT-3 to exploit asymmetry in
| censorship ability. They just haven't yet.
| foepys wrote:
| I am very certain that within 10 years we will all fail at
| distinguishing bots from real people posting online. What
| that future holds is scary and I hope that humanity will be
| smart enough to not destroy democracy just because Russia,
| China, et cetera told them lies via those bots.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| The turing test is still far away from solving.
|
| And generic troll posts are nothing new and the comment
| sections under most news articles not worth reading as of
| today already.
|
| And if wars could be started because of shitposting bots -
| then there is something very wrong with the decision making
| of when to start wars.
| hetspookjee wrote:
| It would be foolish to think that either of the companies would
| move an inch in tackling this. Governments need to enforce
| policy to lower the ridiculous amount of influence this
| platforms have. They can start by forcing open standards on
| these platforms like SMS used to be for messaging. There is
| barely any technological challenge to the basics of Facebook
| and Twitter. Here in the Netherlands the PM had a phase where
| he exclusively posted his messages on Facebook instead of
| government websites. Acts like that are ridiculous and only
| feed the hand. Of course the PM and his party gets helpful
| marketing in return which fuels the cycle.
| fsckboy wrote:
| I agree that the platforms have too much market power... but
| astroturfed propaganda from a centralized authoritarian power
| requires a centralized defense; a true "open competitive
| marketplace" of ideas and discussion would have just as much
| astroturfing and more.
|
| I'm not arguing in favor of Facebook at all, shut them down
| and lock up Zuck, but I'm simply saying "careful what you
| wish for".
| hetspookjee wrote:
| I agree entirely with you. Open competitive marketplace is
| definitely not an easy goal.
| csee wrote:
| Then what good would open standards do? Genuine question,
| since I have the same fears about decentralized social
| networking that the above poster mentioned.
| thanhhaimai wrote:
| The line of reasoning in this post is a fallacy. If you're not
| familiar with the concept, it's worth a read:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
| endisneigh wrote:
| Ironically mentioning this is whataboutism per your link. If
| you have an actual comment I'd like to hear it though.
| asxd wrote:
| Ideally, countries would just not do this. "Everybody does it"
| is not a convincing argument to move the conversation elsewhere
| and let it slide. FB/twitter is trying to mitigate this to some
| extent, but it's a weird notion that companies are expected to
| regulate governments now. When an actor abuses a platform, the
| blame should be focused on the actor.
| mzs wrote:
| Excuse me? Please link to articles of German and French police
| doing this:
|
| >The Shanghai police are looking to create hundreds of fake
| accounts on Twitter, Facebook and other major social media
| platforms. The police department emphasizes that the task is
| time sensitive, suggesting that it wants to be ready to unleash
| the accounts quickly to steer discussion.
| dragonelite wrote:
| It just weird seeing how China's propaganda is so good that
| western nation went from positive and neutral toward China too
| wanting to sit on a throne of Chinese skulls.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| China is good at internal propaganda (which, you know,
| repressing dissent makes easier), less so at external
| propaganda.
| endymi0n wrote:
| TechnoTimeStop wrote:
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| What happened with all that hysteria a few years ago that russia
| was using FaceBook and twitter to manipulate Brexit and American
| elections?
| johnsolo1701 wrote:
| https://www.justice.gov/storage/report_volume1.pdf
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Pillars-of-...
|
| https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...
|
| > the Committee found ample evidence to suggest that the
| Russian government was developing and implementing capabilities
| to interfere in the 2016 elections, including undermining
| confidence in U.S. democratic institutions and voting
| processes.
|
| Calling it hysteria is counterproductive. With that said, I'm
| not sure what happened or what has been done since.
| papertokyo wrote:
| Looking at the 2020 elections and aftermath, it seems they
| were highly successful in undermining confidence in the
| election process.
| jessaustin wrote:
| They were wise to keep Maddow et al. on the "don't trust
| elections" beat for the full four years Trump was in
| office.
| anamax wrote:
| Voice of America, BBC... (I suspect that both France and
| Germany have something similar. I'd be surprised if Finland
| did.)
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| It was, because they were claiming it all the way along, even
| before any real evidence was apparent. Thus guaranteeing the
| issue would not be adequately dealt with, and showing Trump
| the way to undermining election results in his defeat.
|
| Also, weaponising facts is not a good way to increase public
| confidence in a democratic process.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Doesn't the US broadcast regime change propaganda into the
| country via Radio Free Asia / Radio Free Liberty etc?
| creato wrote:
| Radio Free Asia/Liberty/etc. don't pretend to be someone else
| while they are broadcasting.
| foverzar wrote:
| What exactly do you mean by "don't pretend to be somebody
| else"? They often operate under an umbrella of media projects
| that act as "local" news.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| https://www.rfa.org/about/info/mission.html
|
| Says right in their about page they are under a govt.
| mandate. The local language pages also have this
| information.
|
| > Radio Free Asia operates under a Congressional mandate to
| deliver uncensored, domestic news and information to China,
| Tibet, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Burma,
| among other places in Asia with poor media environments and
| few, if any, free speech protections. All broadcasts are
| solely in local languages and dialects, which include
| Mandarin, Tibetan, Cantonese, Uyghur, Vietnamese, Lao,
| Khmer, Burmese, and Korean.
|
| Edit: A discussion like this wouldn't even happen inside
| China.
| foverzar wrote:
| Well one can argue that the Shanghai police was also
| quite transparent about it, given the following:
|
| > On May 21, a branch of the Shanghai police posted a
| notice online seeking bids from private contractors for
| what is known among Chinese officialdom as public opinion
| management.
| Tostino wrote:
| One would be disingenuous if they argued that.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Don't you see the difference between that and posting a
| notice on the Facebook domain visible to all?
| foverzar wrote:
| I see what you mean, but it is only evident when you
| actually know of RF as a political entity. It's not as
| evident when they operate under localised brands posing
| as "just small local news".
|
| In Russia RF's news outlets were the ones who resisted
| the foreign funded media explicit labeling regulations
| the most and were the slowest to comply and start
| labeling their content explicitly.
|
| What I mean is their degree of transparency is quite
| debatable and raises some red flags.
| pphysch wrote:
| And yet, mysteriously, Twitter doesn't label them as "State-
| affiliated media" like it does with the Big Bad Guys.
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| Growing up in the USSR I used to listen to pirate radio - Voice
| of America, BBC, and likes. They never called for regime
| change. They broadcasted news, music, and interviews with
| Russian speaking dissidents like Solzhenitsyn.
| [deleted]
| the-dude wrote:
| Sometimes the US broadcasts bombs too.
| cyb_ wrote:
| > Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about...?") is a
| variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy, which attempts to
| discredit an opponent's position by charging hypocrisy without
| directly refuting or disproving the argument
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
| foverzar wrote:
| The idea of "whataboutism" and attempting to present it as
| something inherently wrong awfully seems like a convenient
| way to dismiss uncomfortable points of the discussion and
| turn it into yet another two minutes hate.
|
| Comparing how different agents deal with similar problems is
| not a thoughtcrime, you know. It is quite a healthy way of
| understanding how such problems arise and how to deal with
| them.
| Jerrrry wrote:
| whatboutism is whataboutism
| foverzar wrote:
| So where exactly do you draw the line between
| "whataboutism" and asserting similarities?
| georgeecollins wrote:
| The point is that if you disagree, counter the argument.
| Asserting similarities does not counter the argument. If
| I say: "Bob is bad because he steals apples." Saying "But
| you also steal apples!" does not counter the argument at
| all. It's changing the subject.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| If someone wants to assert those similarities in a
| separate conversation, that's fine. Trying to derail an
| existing conversation about the actions of one country by
| mentioning actions of another country is a distraction at
| best, and arguing in bad faith at worst.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Whataboutism is not "compare and contrast". It's "shut
| up" or at best "look at the wookie".
|
| Not every "let's look at what other countries do" is
| whataboutism. One-line "X does Y" almost always is.
| (Longer posts can also be, but the one-liner is a heavy
| signal.)
| Tostino wrote:
| If there are actual comparisons between them, it's much
| less likely to be "whataboutism".
| guerrilla wrote:
| This doesn't answer the question, it's literally begging
| the question by assuming there aren't such similarities.
| pphysch wrote:
| "Whataboutism" was popularized by Western propagandists
| at the height of the Cold War to deal with the
| uncomfortable reality that the USA and USSR, as modern
| empires competing for global
| economic/military/ideological domination, had far more in
| common than either would like to admit. Food for thought.
| tehjoker wrote:
| The American media is attempting to frame China as worth of
| fighting over Taiwan by demarcating it as exceptionally evil
| by demonstrating that it does things that no acceptable
| country would do. Unfortunately for that argument, usually
| the US is doing something more exceptional and extreme than
| the demonstrated behavior.
| throw10920 wrote:
| > usually the US is doing something more exceptional and
| extreme than the demonstrated behavior
|
| Actually, it's almost always the opposite.
|
| CCP requiring Chinese companies to hand over all user data
| unencrypted > USG occasionally sending NSLs to specific
| companies for information on specific persons.
|
| CCP stealing IP from the US, EU, Japan, and other countries
| > ???.
|
| CCP Operation Fox Hunt[1] > ???.
|
| CCP police threatening the family of a student in the US
| speaking about Tianamen Square[2] > ???.
|
| CCP hiring massive numbers of 50c posters to write hundreds
| of millions of social media posts under false aliases > USG
| operating Free Radio Asia with the explicit notice that
| it's controlled by the government.
|
| CCP restricting children to _three hours of video games a
| week_ > USG preventing those under age 21 from smoking or
| drinking.
|
| CCP massacring unarmed students in Tiananmen Square with
| tanks > ???.
|
| CCP censoring all information about Tiananmen Square inside
| the Great Firewall > USG asking newspapers not to publish
| classified information.
|
| CCP operating a concentration camp in Xinjing with about a
| million people indefinitely in it for no reason other than
| their religion > USG holding a few thousand refugees in
| cages for a limited time until they can be returned to
| their country because they crossed the border illegally.
|
| CCP blackmailing various companies for stating that Taiwan
| is a separate country > ???.
|
| CCP invading Taiwan for holding the former rulers of the
| country that fled after a bunch of murderous
| revolutionaries overthrew the government and killed
| millions of people > USG invading Afghanistan to find a
| terrorist group that flew planes into our buildings and
| killed thousands. (note that in the first case, the
| perpetrators (or associates thereof) are doing the
| invasion, while in the second case, it's the victims).
|
| In almost every single case that China is doing something
| bad, America's equivalent is either far less bad or
| _nonexistent_.
|
| Even beyond that - no country is perfect (especially not
| the US), but when the USG (or governments of most other
| countries) does something bad, the citizens usually get
| angry about it, and the officials responsible either try to
| hide or eventually reverse course. With the CCP, the
| citizens _defend_ it, and the officials claim that they 're
| actually doing the right thing, deny that it exists at all
| (e.g. the Uyghur concentration camps), or counter with
| misinformation.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt
|
| [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/Purdue/comments/ri95tp/in_resp
| onse_...
| avgcorrection wrote:
| It's not a logical fallacy. It's rhetorical tactic.
|
| Whataboutism is often used to generalize the subject, which
| isn't a fallacy.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.md/zKqzu
|
| http://web.archive.org/web/20211222201356/https://www.nytime...
| trasz wrote:
| tl;dr they do it the same way western countries do
| [deleted]
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Imagine living somewhere like China and not liking it. It would
| be hellish, you couldn't even talk about it without a police
| visit or your boss passing trouble along to you. A giant human
| spirit grinder
| baybal2 wrote:
| Most people going to China to make money don't come there
| wearing pink glasses. It's a Faustian bargain. Eat your soul
| for money, and an opportunity to run a factory without being
| sued by everybody on the day 1.
|
| The remaining minority is unfortunately a big problem, and
| higher up on the status ladder the bigger.
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/china-s-president-...
|
| Such people come with real delusions. Either delusions of
| grandeur, or delusions of being so smart that they think they
| will trick communists, people who grew giving their whole lives
| to intrigue, and insane political culture which makes GOP look
| like kindergarteners.
|
| The worst kind are ones who come there with genuine believe,
| and gravity towards fascism. A foul wish for "an orderly
| society" where they think they will be made into elites
| https://beyondinfinity.com.au/project-dragonfly-is-google-he...
|
| I call both types "ones stupid enough to survive." Were they
| not, they would've been crushed long ago.
| manuel_w wrote:
| > that they think they will trick communists, people who grew
| giving their whole lives to intrigue
|
| Please don't do that here.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| spoonjim wrote:
| You are confusing China with North Korea.
| baby wrote:
| I'm sometimes thinking about the bigger picture, and wondering
| what will happen in hundreds of years? Will Western country end
| up more and more divided, and will China become more and more
| united and like-minded? One variable that seems to indicate to
| the contrary is that transparency is a huge factor in allowing
| a society to improve itself, and China is becoming more and
| more opaque.
| dnautics wrote:
| Imagine living somewhere like China where it's gotten to the
| bad state it is in now - when 5-6 years ago there was a real
| trajectory away from where it is now, and the world (including
| myself) was cheering on China.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| what are you talking about? have you ever lived there? people
| complain all the time. just go there, work here, talk to
| regular people and you hear them complain.
|
| i wonder how people here inte west think of china. do you
| really think that GESTAPO will come and beat the shit out of
| you just because you were talking shit?
|
| naive people... seriously. but ok, i also used to think that. i
| went there and started to "educate" people about tiananmen and
| how bad it was that the state censored everything so they didnt
| know that. unfortunately, i was wrong. people are fully aware
| of that and had an opinion. i remeber fixing one girl's macbook
| and talking about it. she said that the soviet union collpsed
| because of political opening. tiananmen protests demanded
| gorbachev's support. deng supposedly was unsure whether to open
| or not polically. we all know how it ended: 3000 deaths for 30
| years of stability, she said. she also mentioned how the gdp of
| the soviet union dropped to the 1960s levels and that while the
| west was celebrating the collapse of the ussr, the average live
| expectancy of males dropped from 65 to 50 (or so, i dont
| recall).
|
| i was surpised and still am.
|
| for me it is like this:
|
| as long as my shit city in germany is planning a 10km subway
| line for 15 years already is projects the opening of it in 2038
| (if everything goes well).. while china is builing the best
| infrastructure in the world, i will prefer the chinese system.
|
| If i could vote for the CCP here in germany, i would.
|
| EDIT: As i was now "limited" by the mods for my wrong opinion
| and i can only edit, not reply. here it my FREE (tm) opinion on
| synergy20' post:
|
| " I lived there may be longer than you did. if you curse Xi
| just for fun on any street for 3 minutes you will be in jail
| quickly without access to attorneys."
|
| >but if you curse Xi just for fun on any street for 3 minutes
| you will be in jail quickly without access to attorneys.
|
| why should i do that? if i want to change, then i dont make
| dumb jokes "on the street for 3 minutes", but i join the shit
| system, work off my ass and change it within the limits.
|
| this american "HAHAHAHA LET US MAKE FUN OF EVERTHING BECAUSE IT
| IS THE CORE OF DEMOCRACY" is kind of lame. It works here, but
| it does not work universially.
|
| You claim to have been there for a long time. Then you will
| remember how much those Chinese understood your western humor.
| Yes, it was 0. They did not understand it.
| Permit wrote:
| > i wonder how people here inte west think of china. do you
| really think that GESTAPO will come and beat the shit out of
| you just because you were talking shit?
|
| I have no idea what it is like generally, but this video[1]
| (which I admittedly cannot confirm the authenticity of)
| depicts a man who has been arrested for comments he made on
| social media. He is chained to the table and his arms are
| restricted as he tries to apologize for comments he made
| about the police to a WeChat group with 75 people in it.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/rbTXb6bEMfI?t=30
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| edit
| catillac wrote:
| This happens quite a lot, the answer is yes. One of the
| travesties of the American system though is that it's
| often these videos that cause justice to be done when it
| would not be done otherwise.
| Permit wrote:
| If someone in this thread claims otherwise, you should
| post those videos.
|
| I was responding to this point:
|
| > i wonder how people here inte west think of china. do
| you really think that GESTAPO will come and beat the shit
| out of you just because you were talking shit?
|
| My point is that it does appear that the police in China
| will come and arrest you if you speak negatively about
| them. My point is not "The American system is better than
| the Chinese system". We should speak candidly and
| truthfully about the failings of each system.
|
| Does that make sense?
|
| Edit: I just now realize you were the original poster.
| You made a comparison between Germany and China and when
| an inconsistency was pointed out to you, you responded by
| point out faults in the American justice system.
|
| It would likely do you good to reflect on this. When
| flaws with China are pointed out, why would you jump to
| point out wrongdoings in America? It had as much
| relevance as pointing out police brutality in Brazil or
| some other unrelated country. You should try to better
| understand why you have reacted this way.
| tiahura wrote:
| "as long as my shit city in germany is planning a 10km subway
| line for 15 years already ... while china is builing the best
| infrastructure in the world, i will prefer the chinese
| system."
|
| And people wonder how Hitler came to power in Germany.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| edit
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The air gets better because they shut down the pm2.5
| sensors:)
|
| China is turning on more coal plants and sacrificing
| their lungs to build gadgets for the world.
|
| It's sad in a way.
| Swizec wrote:
| I haven't been to China but I grew up in post communist
| Europe.
|
| A concept unfamiliar to westerners are "open secrets". Things
| that everyone knows, everyone talks about with each other,
| and never get mentioned in any official capacity. If someone
| asks with a camera, the answer is whatever it needs to be. If
| an official asks in the line of duty, the answer is the
| correct answer. If the same person asks as a friend 3 hours
| later, you both talk shit.
|
| Kinda like schoolyard rules. We can be fighting to the death
| to the death but if a teacher asks, we're best friends having
| fun together.
| er4hn wrote:
| Since I am posting old russian jokes elsewhere in this
| thread.. here's an example of an "open secret":
|
| A man yells in the street: "Nicholas is a moron!". He is
| taken away by the police on charges of _lese majeste_
| (insulting the monarch).
|
| He tells the policemen "Please let me go, I meant another
| Nicholas!".
|
| The police chief replies: "Do not lie. If you said 'moron',
| you certainly meant the Tsar!"
| rudedogg wrote:
| https://vimeo.com/44078865
|
| Why is everyone afraid to talk in this video?
| synergy20 wrote:
| I lived there may be longer than you did.
|
| The brainwash has been going on for 70 years, when internet
| became a concern, the great firewall covered for that.
|
| You ended up being brain-washed in no time.
|
| There is no doubt CCP made infrastructure a priority, and did
| 10X better than the west socializing countries as a whole,
| but if you curse Xi just for fun on any street for 3 minutes
| you will be in jail quickly without access to attorneys. When
| you have absolutely zero individual rights where it is needed
| the most, you will miss your Germany dearly.
| whoevercares wrote:
| I get the point but reality is unless you cursed Xi with
| more than 5 people cursing together as well - otherwise
| people will just think you lost your mind
| aerosmile wrote:
| You would be handing over full political and military control
| to a group of individuals, with no way of taking it back. If
| those individuals turn out to perform as well as the current
| Chinese leaders, you would be ahead. If they turn out to
| perform more like the past Chinese leaders, you would be
| behind. Over the past 5,000 years, China got it more wrong
| than right, which is the only reason that they haven't been
| the undisputed world leader with the highest GDP, which is
| where they belong given their vast human and natural
| resources.
|
| Democracy was never meant to be as efficient as a
| dictatorship. In fact, inefficiency is baked in by design to
| hedge against bad leadership (at the cost of good leaders
| having their potential impact massively reduced). Think of
| democracy as a political system with an expensive but
| effective insurance policy.
| whoevercares wrote:
| > ...GDP, which is where they belong given their vast human
| and natural resources.
|
| That's so not true. China has long been relying on critical
| resources like oil, hell even pork. Russia fit this better.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| My Chinese colleague was randomly walking by a protest in his
| city recently.
|
| He didn't even know there was a protest nearby until he was
| 'visited' all day by police and had to sing the praises of
| the ccp.
| hardlianotion wrote:
| Yes, all true. The treatment of post Soviet Russia was
| extremely opportunistic and shameful. It is not a great
| surprise that Putin's Russia regards the West as an
| existential threat.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| edit
| forty wrote:
| Fast infrastructure has a cost that you might not be willing
| to pay in practice (especially if you happen to be the guy
| beaten by the police)
|
| https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211221-human-cost-
| of...
| fishtacos wrote:
| You forgot the /s tag, methinks:
|
| "If i could vote for the CCP here in germany, i would."
|
| You could not vote for a system like that - if you did, you'd
| stop having a right to vote for a different system RIGHT
| after. 'nuff said.
|
| It's unfathomable someone in 2021, that is not a Xi-paid
| troll (precisely what this article is about) would advocate
| for more authoritarian control, rather than less. The people
| you spoke to (including your farcical example) didn't exist
| or were fully brainwashed by propaganda. Again, IF they
| exist, THEIR PERSPECTIVE would have necessarily been skewed
| and manipulated by their internal propaganda, which is again,
| what this article is about.
|
| China pretends to exist in a vacuum, but it does not. Many of
| its citizens and residents seem to, but they are wrong.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| "EVERYONE IS BRAINWASHED EXCEPT OF US BLESSED AMERICANS"
| _F15 flyover_ _bombing of some random civilians_ _cool
| individualism that was build on exploitation of the planet
| and the 90% of the world_ KEK, sustainable, mate.
|
| China workd. I lived there for years and people were
| happier than here in Germany.
|
| I am just sooooooo sick and tired of those anti-China
| sentiment here in HN. EVERY SINGLE TIME a china article is
| posted, you just read shit. If it was balanced, i would not
| care, but it is so predictable. I just want to rant and
| vomit.
| adamsb6 wrote:
| Agreed, there's a lot of unthinking Sinophobia.
|
| I wish we had visa-less travel so more people could visit
| and see that it's not a scary place. It's a different
| system for sure, and you can be jailed for saying certain
| things, but that's true for almost everywhere except
| America. Germany jails holocaust deniers.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| I met an English teacher who did visit China not too long
| afo. They were arrested and interrogated for days in a
| concrete room until his government paid a bribe (called a
| fine) for his release. His crime was teaching English
| after some regional goon changed the rule silently near
| the end of his visit in order to extort people. My
| professor at the time talked about how this was common
|
| No thanks for the visit. Not to mention how china is
| detaining foreigners lately with death penalty sentences
| to blackmail other nations into obeying them (most recent
| example I can think of was Canada)
|
| State driven kidnapping and extortion really kill tourism
| nebula8804 wrote:
| At least for Americans, I don't think many can afford to
| travel and those who do probably have considered visiting
| or have visited. Only ~1/3 of Americans have a valid
| passport. I assume part of it is due to the US itself
| being so vast and diverse that you can really explore
| this country and probably be content but also that ~51%
| of Americans have less than three months of emergency
| savings. Combine this with no legal mandated days off and
| its not looking good for a lot of the country.
| dang wrote:
| Please stop "ranting and vomiting" on HN. Not only does
| it not help, you're reinforcing exactly the situation
| you're deploring. That damages this community in a deeper
| way.
|
| HN is a highly international community but it is also
| highly Western. You can't expect attitudes on topics
| remote from Western understanding to be either balanced
| or informed--especially not when the topic is politically
| and nationally charged. The same would be true of any
| group of HN's size and regional composition. That's a
| baseline condition we can't do a thing to change. The
| question is how we should handle it.
|
| I've expended a huge amount of effort trying to protect
| this place for minority voices (including about China -
| here's a list I put together for another user some time
| ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/chinamod). I regularly
| get accused of being a communist agent and all the rest
| of it (which expresses the stupidity-of-the-collective in
| a way that would be scary if it weren't so trivial), and
| I can tell you for sure that accounts like yours, making
| the opposing case in a name-calling, ranting way, are a
| big part of the problem on this. So please stop.
|
| Anyone who wants to represent a minority view to a
| majority (especially a highly-charged majority) has a
| special responsibility not to "rant and vomit" in a wake-
| up-sheeple fashion. If you do that, all you achieve is to
| recharge the majority and reinforce its righteousness in
| precisely the places you want to see change. Should you
| happen to be arguing in favor of the truth (or some
| aspect of the truth), then you discredit the truth, which
| hurts everybody. I've been trying to make this point to
| people for years, on a wide range of topics: https://hn.a
| lgolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor....
|
| Arguably it's not fair that the minority has an
| additional burden that the majority doesn't have, but
| it's the way these conversations work, and we can't do a
| thing to change that either.
| kwere wrote:
| i envy 996 in Shangai with the freedom to die from food
| poisoning ever other day while keeping my head down in
| name of "social armony".
| dang wrote:
| Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and
| flamebait to HN? You've unfortunately been doing it
| repeatedly, and we ban that sort of account. We're trying
| for a different sort of forum here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| fishtacos wrote:
| This is not anti-chinese sentiment. This is an objective
| take on geo-political matters regarding an outwardly
| belligerent anti-western world power functioning under
| authoritarian rule (which is freely admitted by them,
| btw). T
|
| This same power is also allied with another major anti-
| western power, the russian federation, forming an
| alliance meant to disrupt and expand. An empirial mindset
| that is threatening global stability.
| dnautics wrote:
| > lived
|
| Past tense. Things have been getting worse in china. Many
| of us who are shitting on china are doing so out of love
| and out of pain because it looked like there was a chance
| it would have become an awesomer place.
| ronsor wrote:
| _worked_
|
| China is very good at pretending that everything is OK.
| echelon wrote:
| America is the worst place in the world, according to social
| media. Meanwhile America remains one of the most popular
| destinations for immigration.
|
| Americans can say anything, even if it's proudly proclaiming
| "fuck [current politician]". Americans can assemble, protest,
| and defend their home with a gun. If they don't like where they
| live, there are fifty States with a variety of political
| leanings and things to do. If that isn't enough, they have a
| passport that can let them go almost anywhere else.
|
| America isn't perfect, but it's pretty damned good.
| boznz wrote:
| Same in Europe and Australasia but without the guns.
| will4274 wrote:
| And the free press, if we're talking about Australia. It
| doesn't count if one billionaire owns it all. Or being
| forcibly drafted by your government to spy on your
| employer.
| jessaustin wrote:
| While Assange is not free, neither USA nor Australia have
| any credibility with respect to a free press.
| baby wrote:
| The Americans really love their guns don't they
| nebula8804 wrote:
| ~60% of Americans don't own a gun. Just 3% of American
| adults own a collective 133m firearms out of a supposed
| 265m.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| We'd be Brits otherwise.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| I think it's called American Exceptionalism. But i do agree
| that America is not bad, that's probably because they never
| managed to completely shake off their British roots.(before
| you downvote me that was a joke). I sometimes wonder if the
| main consequence of the Rebellion is that they have George
| Washintons face on their money instead of the Queen.
| gerdesj wrote:
| Don't be soft, the USA is way, way more complicated than
| simply "British roots". All that throwing off the
| shackles of imperial rule is sort of true but mostly
| bollocks (that's how you invite a major DV frenzy!)
|
| Presumably the portrait of George W that is on the note
| is from post revolution ie mid 1770s otherwise there is a
| depiction of a British citizen on rather a lot of
| greenbacks.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Presumably the portrait of George W that is on the note
| is from post revolution ie mid 1770s
|
| It is from 1796.
| gerdesj wrote:
| Ahh, so from the terrorist/traitor part of his life 8)
| hunterb123 wrote:
| > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation;
| don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't
| sneer, including at the rest of the community.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Wouldn't that be roughly 1775-1781?
| bgroat wrote:
| I'm a Canadian, but I often watch American rallies on the
| news.
|
| I always laugh when some American protestors say they're
| being oppressed/the current regime is fascistic.
|
| I mean, you're gathered, in a crowd, often armed, with your
| message being broadcast, with a reasonable expectation (I
| know, I know, not always - especially for certain
| demographics) of going home/surviving.
|
| I'm not sure they really understand what fascism is
|
| EDIT: I'm completely supportive of gathering/protesting. But
| be clear that you're protesting particular, discrete issues.
| And probably not fascism in the general sense.
| seibelj wrote:
| I'm happy when people are motivated to protest, regardless
| of the issue or political affiliation. Better than just
| taking it on the chin, over and over, slowly boiling as
| politicians make things worse.
| bgroat wrote:
| I'm going to edit my parent comment for more context,
| because I realize my initial comment was unclear
| nebula8804 wrote:
| The problem is that little by little these freedoms are
| being chipped away so it requires constant fighting and
| pushing back in an extreme fashion to hopefully slow it
| down.
|
| For example: You want to protest Israel? Great but now in
| 35 states you cannot accept any government jobs.
|
| [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws#Anti-
| BDS_laws_in...
|
| Another example: NSA is slurping up every last detail of
| Americans complete being. That we know thanks to snowden.
| If we keep going down this slope, what is to prevent them
| from using this data on you? Already we saw examples of
| them targeting Trump cabinet officials. If a real hard left
| candidate makes it anywhere close to the white house, you
| can be sure any skeletons will come out thanks to this data
| trove.
|
| And finally an example closer to protesting: How is a
| country not creeping closer to fascism if they are
| literally kidnapping protesters and putting them in
| unmarked vans?
|
| [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XomXxmJTrLI
|
| So yeah I guess you can say that America is a lot more
| polite about oppressing people. They don't typically pull
| their citizens into a back alley and shoot them. These days
| that is less effective than their current strategy. They
| accomplish the oppression in smarter more tangible ways
| through the ease of passing restrictive laws in addition to
| making trouble and asking forgiveness later(this is what
| happened with the unmarked van story although I don't know
| how the investigation turned out).
| throw10920 wrote:
| > NSA is slurping up every last detail of Americans
| complete being. That we know thanks to snowden.
|
| If you've actually read the Snowden papers, you'd know
| that they don't say anything remotely resembling this.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Well the report is circa 2013 based on years old
| documents from before that and it details bulk data
| collection of US nationals' phone related material. It is
| feasible that in the post smartphone world and the
| collapse of storage tech costs it is entirely possible
| that this has been expanded to any device that receives
| and transmits IP packets. That is enough to piece
| together everything needed to personally know about a
| specific individual. Storing this info for later use
| (even in encrypted form) is exactly what I was detailing
| and that is a foregone conclusion based on what we do
| know.
| icelancer wrote:
| You know that relative freedom exists when people are free
| to protest and discuss openly incredibly stupid ideas. It's
| a feature, not bug.
| nitrogen wrote:
| The existence of worse problems does not make other
| problems go away. It's reasonable and desirable to strive
| for a better future no matter how good the present is.
| throw10920 wrote:
| The issue is that calling America a "fascistic regime" is
| flat-out wrong (at this point in time). It's just
| completely false - it doesn't matter that there _are_
| some issues, because it 's crystal-clear to anyone who
| has read a few history books (or lived under an actual
| fascist regime, as one of my relatives has) that America
| ain't it.
| bgroat wrote:
| Upvoting this because I agree with you.
|
| Edited the parent comment to provide some more context
| dominotw wrote:
| Wouldn't that imply people are forever oppressed because
| things can be better.
| Syonyk wrote:
| If your line of work is "being one of those who can
| properly identify and point out oppression," and then
| "sell training/books/seminars/etc to make people feel
| like they're doing something to resolve it," it would be
| bad for business to _actually_ change the state of
| things.
|
| Greer did some writing on this state of things, and
| termed it "The Rescue Game" [0].
|
| It's notably static, in that the people who claim the
| high position in the game really don't want to be removed
| from that position.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-04-14/american-
| narra...
| nebula8804 wrote:
| No because if the law is applied equally to all people
| regardless of background by definition the reason to
| protest does not exist anymore. Think about it, this was
| the whole point of BLM: Please stop
| shooting/killing/maiming unarmed Black people at a
| disproportionally higher rate than members of other
| groups.
| adamisom wrote:
| Welcome to the news cycle! The world improves, but one
| thing remains constant (stubbornly disconnected from
| whether or not, and how much, things are improving):
| amount of outrage
| trasz wrote:
| Americans are allowed to say anything, because it doesn't
| matter. In the end all you can do is to choose between two
| largely identical parties.
| [deleted]
| er4hn wrote:
| > Americans can say anything, even if it's proudly
| proclaiming "fuck [current politician]"
|
| as the joke goes:
|
| The American says: ''I can walk in front of the White House
| and shout 'Down with Reagan,' and nothing will happen to
| me.'' The Russian retorts: ''I can walk in front of the
| Kremlin and yell 'Down with Reagan,' too, and nothing will
| happen to me, either.''
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > Americans can say anything
|
| Well, less so these days than 20 or even 10 years ago - the
| suppression just doesn't come from the government now. There
| are a _lot_ of things you really can 't say in America and
| there are a lot more of them than there used to be.
| dnautics wrote:
| that's an entirely fair criticism, but peer-led opinion
| suppression is via taboo and taboos are transient and
| organically go through cultural waves -- have been for
| centuries. When a state starts doing it it usually requires
| catastrophic change that, maybe if you're lucky, won't hurt
| too many people -- but it's almost always painful, and
| sudden.
| baby wrote:
| > and defend their home with a gun
|
| that policy has had quite the downsides on people's lives
| dang wrote:
| Please stop posting this sort of generic flamewar dross to
| HN. I realize you mean well, but you do this so often that
| I've started to wince when I see your username.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28793135 (Oct 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28226812 (Aug 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27280089 (May 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25994722 (Feb 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25994701 (Feb 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25709648 (Jan 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25585980 (Dec 2020)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25389847 (Dec 2020)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22629858 (March 2020)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22263891 (Feb 2020)
|
| This is seriously not cool. If you keep ignoring the intended
| use of this site, we're not going to have any choice left but
| to ban you, much as I don't want to.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >America isn't perfect, but it's pretty damned good.
|
| And this is because of generations who got blasted for
| fighting against the current norms at the time. Whether it
| was fighting against slave holders or during times like the
| civil rights era when the southerners were willing to make
| some compromises but in regards to full civil rights they
| pushed back and said "lets not move too fast on this, its too
| much change too quickly". No, it took the real brave people
| who were that generations extremists to drag the country
| kicking and screaming in to the future. Even then the rebels
| were only successful because of circumstances beyond their
| control (eg. JFK assassination paved the way for pushing the
| civil rights bill through).
|
| So yeah you seem to be implying that the Americans whining
| and complaining today should look at places like China and
| see how good they have it(the standard right wing trope
| displayed on places like the Joe Rogan podcast) however you
| fail to see how this messy process that unfortunately
| involves things like wokeism, BLM and this constant extreme
| push for other real progressive causes will hopefully
| eventually lead to an America that the next generation can
| say with more confidence that "America isn't perfect, but
| it's pretty damned good."
| [deleted]
| dools wrote:
| Have you watched any of the interviews conducted on the street
| in China on the Asian Boss YouTube channel?
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Have you watched any of the interviews conducted on the
| street in China on the Asian Boss YouTube channel?
|
| Why should anyone care about "man on the street" interviews
| on some Youtube channel? I mean, it's not like someone in a
| repressive country is going to open up with all their
| complaints about their repressive government to some rando
| with a camera.
|
| Plus, Youtube is easy to manipulate (in some ways) if you
| have the resources of a government: https://www.nytimes.com/i
| nteractive/2021/12/13/technology/ch....
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| True. But you also just made the assertion un-falsifiable.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > True. But you also just made the assertion un-
| falsifiable.
|
| How so? Even if a quiet dissident won't open up to some
| obnoxious youtuber creating content, they may express
| their true feelings in other ways. My main point is you
| have to be pretty careful with what you "learn" from
| Youtube, and "have you seen this rando youtuber" (with
| the implication they should change your mind) is not a
| very strong response.
| Lhiw wrote:
| blitzar wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh88g_EKlqw Pedestrians Being
| Dumb for 10 Minutes Straight. I guess this is the finest
| america have to offer?
|
| _What is the largest country in South America? ... Africa_
|
| _Can you name a book? ... ummmmmmm_
|
| _How many stars on the American flag? ... 32_
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| Plenty people who have lived under communist regimes can tell
| you a lot what it feels like. In a way, you learn to live with
| it. You can talk about it with your family, your close friends.
| But not with colleagues - as you can't be certain who is and
| who isn't a spy. You need to be careful not to get involved in
| any provocation. If you have kids, you need to be extra careful
| - also about them. When you think about it, it's a bit tragic:
| normally you worry about your kid taking crack, but you'll
| probably notice that. But in a totalitarian regime, your kid
| can go to jail not for dealing drugs, but for being a
| sensitive, honest individual, naively believing they can change
| their country to be a better place. But most of the time it's
| not jail but things like being expelled from the university,
| your job (and not being able to find a new one), and similar
| forms of harassment to your family. But deaths were not
| uncommon, even after the Stalinist regime ended.
| synergy20 wrote:
| This did not get to the bottom, the police will visit all your
| family members actually. You will simply give up and shut up as
| the cops will harass/threaten your family members. It's a
| common practice for many years and it's getting 10X worse under
| Xi, who is said to be the designer of "Culture Revolution 2.0"
| these days, who already painted every other
| countries(especially USA) to be enemies(except for North Korea,
| Russia, Iran and Taliban).
| akomtu wrote:
| On a related note, we have here in the US a sudden wave of
| "culture revolution 3.0" with its proponents using the very
| same tactics. It's well known that Xi is preparing to enter
| the chip manufacturing business in 10 years, and since US is
| the only real opponent, Xi wisely chose to disarm us with the
| adapted version of "culture revolution". For this reason, I
| believe, he'll massively increase investments in pushing this
| movement in the coming years.
| kwere wrote:
| xi wasted tens of $ billions in chip manufacturing
| subsidies. In that field you cant buy success
| lovecg wrote:
| > On a related note, we have here in the US a sudden wave
| of "culture revolution 3.0" with its proponents using the
| very same tactics
|
| What on Earth are you talking about?
| [deleted]
| nfkrk8j wrote:
| vmception wrote:
| So I actually paid for subscriptions to a couple of these news
| sites and they keep forgetting my session _and_ lack a
| deeplinking feature to their app which doesnt forget my session
|
| I would rather they starve due to lack of revenue at this point
| so they actually do something competitive
| [deleted]
| WC3w6pXxgGd wrote:
| zhoujianfu wrote:
| I don't understand why a site like a news site would EVER time
| out your session. Or at least not unless there's been like 6+
| months of inactivity. So crazy every time I visit nytimes.com
| (from the same phone) I have to sign in again.
| datavirtue wrote:
| They're probably afraid of people sharing cookies.
| MBCook wrote:
| Because pissing off the few people who actually DO pay for
| you is clearly the winning business model.
| Aunche wrote:
| Before you use this as an excuse to accuse the commenter you
| disagree with as being a Wumao, note that China's propaganda
| strategy serves to distract rather than directly engage, as they
| would rather minimize engagement. It's the same principle of
| "don't feed the trolls."
|
| Here's a Harvard paper that covers this topic more in depth,
| though it's about domestic propaganda:
| https://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/50c.pdf
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > a Wumao
|
| For reference, the initial W doesn't represent a sound, so this
| would be "an wumao". (Same for Wuhan.)
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| The "w" sound is in the u, so unless you also write "an
| western movie" a wumao is correct.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| What are you talking about?
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| Wuhan starts with the same (or at least something very
| similar and indistinguishable to me) semivowel as the
| English word west.
|
| Pinyin w + ang is [?] + uang. Either way there's a w
| sound in there.
| bozhark wrote:
| abmrolp wrote:
| frenchyatwork wrote:
| In English, Wuhan is typically pronounced with a "w"
| (/wu:haen/ or /wu:ha:n/), see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan.
| [deleted]
| throw10920 wrote:
| > Before you use this as an excuse to accuse the commenter you
| disagree with as being a Wumao
|
| Well, most people generally shouldn't be doing that in the
| first place (it's against the HN guidelines in particular and
| bad form in general, with the exception of blatant repeated
| bad-faith low-effort posts).
|
| Even so, using "is this propaganda a distraction or direct
| engagement" as a heuristic for "is this post propaganda" is
| _also_ not a great thing to do. Any large organization engaging
| in propaganda will have multiple large sub-orgs, stakeholders,
| and inconsistencies due to misaligned incentives,
| miscommunications, and the squishiness that comes along with
| propaganda.
| Aunche wrote:
| >Well, most people generally shouldn't be doing that in the
| first place
|
| I'm mostly reminding them for when they post on Reddit, where
| I occasionally get accused for taking a Realpolitik stance of
| China issues. Even here, someone mentioned the pervasiveness
| of the "50 cent meme" as evidence of China's state sponsored
| propaganda.
|
| >Even so, using "is this propaganda a distraction or direct
| engagement" as a heuristic for "is this post propaganda" is
| also not a great thing to do.
|
| I agree it's not a perfect heuristic, but I don't think it
| matters in practice. A spammer is a spammer regardless of
| whether they're working for the CCP, and should be treated as
| such. There's no need to make a spicier accusation that you
| have no evidence for.
| chunghuaming wrote:
| Being a Chinese citizen right now means:
|
| - You cannot travel abroad (no passport for average citizens,
| except for those that study/work abroad)
|
| - You cannot go beyond China's intranet
|
| - You cannot transfer money out of country legally, pretty soon
| can't invest in other countries's stocks
|
| - You cannot watch Spiderman, BTS, squid games, porn and many
| many more things legally
|
| - You have very little rights as LGBT
|
| - You have to work 9-9-6. Which is why many citizens are lying
| flat
|
| - You are constantly watched, monitored, "invited" to police
| station for tea, banned for posts that contain any words that
| are on the growing banned list
|
| - You should not get rich (1/3 of billionaires have died or
| disappeared)
|
| - You have little recourse as a woman who is abused by men in
| power
|
| - You are constantly subjugated to random mass testing
|
| - Oh and there's the yearly flood + crashing economy + crashing
| real estate + aging workforce + factory jobs leaving +
| dictatorship
|
| Zhong Jiu Huai Chuai De Bu An ,Shi Yu Lai Yu Jin De Sang Zhong
| Sheng
| justicezyx wrote:
| None of these can be attributed to authoritarian, or some
| form of CCP brutality, when moderate amount of scrutiny is
| applied ...
|
| > - You cannot travel abroad (no passport for average
| citizens, except for those that study/work abroad)
|
| This is of course because of China's CVOID policy, which is 0
| tolerance. That's a rational decision of China's high-density
| population, and manufacturing-based economy. I do not think
| it's inherent anti-human-rights, as the death count is
| fractional to open-co-existence policy. Life itself is a
| human right, and probably the most precious one.
|
| > - You cannot go beyond China's intranet
|
| VPNs are legal in China. You just need to be technically-
| sophisticated enough to find the correct VPNs, and make sure
| it falls in the boundary of Chinese law.
|
| > - You cannot transfer money out of country legally, pretty
| soon can't invest in other countries's stocks
|
| This is just not true... You can use various services to
| transfer money out. The only issue is that they are subject
| to certain limitations, which are far more restrictive than
| US. But again, US dominates world financial system, there is
| a view that financial imperialism is a key part of US
| capitalist exploiting Chinese workers. Thus the financial
| limitation. I doubt that anyone other than the rob-barrons
| are affected by this. I personally know a lot of Crypto super
| riches, trust me, they are absolutely a net negative force in
| society.
|
| > - You cannot watch Spiderman, BTS, squid games, porn and
| many many more things legally
|
| You can. VPN to netflix. And a lot of pirated content. They
| were just not allowed to go through the official channel. Of
| course, CCP is wrong here. But let's not paint a picture that
| Chinese people are sheeps.
|
| > - You have very little rights as LGBT
|
| Not sure what you are talking about. LGBT is not
| discriminated officially in any form in the CHinese society.
| Society still holds stigma over these people. One primary
| reason is that these groups are associated with higher chance
| of sexually-transmitted diseases.
|
| And dont assume me a CCP associate, I have a good friend who
| is gay. He is my college friend. He is pretty happy.
|
| > - You have to work 9-9-6. Which is why many citizens are
| lying flat
|
| This is probably what forced upon by the private firms. These
| are punished heavily by CCP recently. Jack Ma and Alibaba are
| the defender of 996...
|
| > - You are constantly watched, monitored, "invited" to
| police station for tea, banned for posts that contain any
| words that are on the growing banned list
|
| This is not true. I have several wechat groups discussing
| serious political issues in China. None of the 50 people ever
| had any sign of being bothered. I mean, there is no way that
| one is constantly watched in China. If that's true, China
| either already have an AGI, or what we bought everyone are
| not actually made in China, because there are simply not
| enough cheap labor to produce them in the first place, and
| most of them are employed in watching others.
|
| > - You should not get rich (1/3 of billionaires have died or
| disappeared)
|
| 1/3 of billionaires have died or disappeared...
|
| First, the number of billionaires are unknown. Chinese
| society had a tradition of the rich become victims during the
| terminal phase of the dynasty. So the rich is very well aware
| of this fact, and they hide. Do you know that Mr. Deng
| Xiaoping's son is astronomically rich, but you'll never see
| anywhere his net worth is published?
|
| Second, please give a citation... To engage this discussion
| is putting legitimacy on this ridiculous claim...
|
| > - You have little recourse as a woman who is abused by men
| in power
|
| Come on... This becomes ridiculous... Gender equality in
| China is pretty high. Ranked 38th out of 157
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_inequality_in_China I
| mean it's not spectacular, but your statement is just
| outlandish...
|
| > - You are constantly subjugated to idiotic mass
| testing/lockdown
|
| What do you mean? I said a lot of bad words about CCP. I was
| not distant by my family or friends...
|
| > - Oh and there's the yearly flood + crashing economy +
| crashing real estate + aging workforce + factory jobs leaving
| + dictatorship
|
| If you read western media, then these are what they said. But
| these are not true according to what I hear from my friends
| and family.
| abmrolp wrote:
| theunspoken wrote:
| pal, your comment history is for the majority made up of
| you defending China and criticizing the US. I sincerely
| hope they are paying you enough for this
| schleck8 wrote:
| The issues will start arising at some point.
|
| Things like banning porn simply don't work unless
| substituted. People have already turned to amateur recordings
| instead. That's things the elderly rulers don't want to or
| can't understand. Ultimate control is not possible with human
| beings, especially in the 21st century.
| IsThisYou wrote:
| > (1/3 of billionaires have died or disappeared)
|
| How did that happen? Iirc, according to Hurun Report 10 years
| ago, some 80% of the upper class Chinese had an escape plan
| ready. You'd think, as a billionaire they have a plane
| waiting for them 24/7 to get out of the country.
|
| > You cannot travel abroad
|
| In the border with Vietnam, at night you can cross the border
| for 5 yuan on one of the smuggler boats.
|
| > You have little recourse as a woman who is abused by men in
| power
|
| Only country in the world with more female suicides than male
| suicides.
|
| Also, no recourse if CCP thugs steal your stuff. Guy I knew
| had his Ferrari stolen. Couldn't do anything because the
| thief was a local party functionary's son.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >You cannot travel abroad (no passport for average citizens,
| except for those that study/work abroad)
|
| Really? What accounts for all the Chinese tourists visiting
| Europe/UK/USA? I have a friend who runs a hostel in Edinburgh
| and the majority of her guests are Chinese so much so that
| they have had to print signs in Mandarin asking people to
| abide by certain rules.
|
| >You cannot transfer money out of country legally, pretty
| soon can't invest in other countries's stocks
|
| This must not be enforced that severely given how much
| capital has flowed into other countries real estate market.
| In fact this is a common loophole used to get US citizenship.
| (invest 500k and you can get a green card).
| adamsb6 wrote:
| Why would Shanghai police care to manufacture opinion abroad? I
| consume a decent amount of news and rarely see Shanghai mentioned
| in American newspapers.
|
| Or is this supposed to be one part of a larger effort, tasked to
| work on stories that are actually of global concern, having
| nothing to do with Shanghai?
| nl wrote:
| Manufacturing opinion is only one part of what they do:
|
| _The authorities used a phrase common among China's internet
| police that refers to tracking down the actual person behind a
| social media account: "touching the ground." With growing
| frequency, the country's internet police have hunted down and
| threatened internet users who voice their opinions. At first,
| its agents focused on local social media platforms. In 2018,
| they began a new campaign to detain users of Twitter inside
| China -- account owners who had found ways around the
| government's blocks -- and force them to delete their accounts.
|
| Now, the campaign has extended to Chinese citizens who live
| outside of China. The document spells out how the Shanghai
| police want to discover the identities of people behind certain
| accounts and to trace their users' connections to the mainland.
| Its officers can then threaten family members in China or
| detain the account holders when they return to the country in
| order to compel online critics to delete posts or even entire
| accounts.
|
| The supplier should publish designated content on overseas
| forums. They should increase the number of views of the post
| and ensure that the post appears at the top of the forum. The
| service should be provided at least 10 times per month. Page 14
| of the bidding document detailing what services the police
| required._
| andreilys wrote:
| It's the same reason that the NBA came under fire after one of
| their GM's sent a tweet out in support of Honk Kong [1].
|
| Of course it's important for the CCP to shape opinion abroad,
| it's seeking to supplant the US as a global power and needs the
| soft-influence that the US has.
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/07/houston-rockets-gm-morey-
| del...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yeah, threatening civilian organizations isn't how you gain
| soft power.
|
| The has the power it does because, aside from being very
| rich, before the 20th century they made extremely reasonable
| foreign policy decisions.
| [deleted]
| clusterfish wrote:
| I don't think modern US soft power has much to do with 19th
| century politics. More than enough happened since then to
| completely override whatever was before.
| cardosof wrote:
| Yes and that's why many people look at both countries as
| equals, or equally bad actors. That wasn't always the
| case, though.
| jarboot wrote:
| Shanghai is a city with a unique role in the progression of the
| CCP and its global efforts. Also PLA Unit 61398 is in Pudong,
| the shanghai district mentioned in the article. Overall there's
| a lot of CCP/PLA-adjacent tech talent in the area, and of
| course the local police still ultimately report to the CCP.
| adzm wrote:
| On a relevant note, the Tiananmen Massacre monument at the
| University of Hong Kong was removed last night. They were careful
| to barricade everything to prevent any videos or images of the
| monument being destroyed.
|
| https://hongkongfp.com/2021/12/23/breaking-fears-for-condemn...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5041987
|
| Print it out again and reassemble?
| johnsolo1701 wrote:
| When something negative about China is posted: "Everyone does
| it!"
|
| When something negative about the US is posted: "Downfall of an
| empire!"
| [deleted]
| krelian wrote:
| There is saying or idea or something, I don't remember how it's
| called, but the gist of it is down to that you are always going
| be more extreme when those closest to you go out of line. A
| religion can tolerate and live peacefully around other people
| that are part of a different religion but if a heretic group
| starts blooming in the midst, things are going to get ugly
| really fast.
|
| It's sort of the same with politics. You expect more from
| countries you see as sharing most of our cultural values.
| That's one of the reasons Israel for example is criticized much
| more than worst human rights offenders.
| emodendroket wrote:
| That does not describe HN dynamics at all.
| tiahura wrote:
| Why wouldn't you have high expectations of the US and low
| expectations of China?
|
| The rise of King Xi should demonstrate that culturally China is
| still hundreds of years behind the West.
| pphysch wrote:
| What compelled you to make such a wildly uninformed and
| bigoted comment?
| tiahura wrote:
| People get the government they deserve. If Chinese society,
| in the 21 century, is still elevating monarchs to engage in
| genocide and totalitarianism, I'm not persuaded that it's
| bigotry to conclude the society is not something to be
| admired. YMMV.
| pphysch wrote:
| Spouting such random nonsense might earn you engagements
| on social media but will leave you sorely unprepared for
| the coming decades.
| chroem- wrote:
| Is this comment supposed to be some kind of threat? It
| seems wildly out of place for HN.
| the_af wrote:
| I don't think this is true.
|
| I think for most of HN's readership, China is the current Big
| Bad. There will be exceptions, like there always are for
| anything, but in general this will be true.
|
| The US is something to be criticized because many HN readers
| either live in the US or interact with US companies/tech.
| Critiquing what one knows is to be expected. But they do not
| consistently describe every action of an American company,
| business or initiative as some sort of lie or conspiracy to
| suppress dissent. Some companies, they do; but many they do
| not. What would be HN's readership instinctive reaction to a
| mainland Chinese company that claimed to be like YC?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I don't think this is true.
|
| I think the parent comment was referring to this comment
| section. If you scroll down and read the grayed-out comments,
| there are indeed quite a few people trying to argue that
| "everybody does it" as a way of downplaying this.
| the_af wrote:
| His/her comment reads more like a general indictment. The
| assertion is false both in this comments section and in HN
| in general.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into generic flamewar, and
| certainly not generic nationalistic flamewar. It's tedious,
| predictable, nasty, and not what we want here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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