

Pro-China Astroturfers - ulysses
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/280000-pro-china-astroturfers-are-running-amok-online.ars

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jamesbressi
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, no, not the fact that it is China, but
the fact that it is happening. Just a digital form of propaganda and digital
rogue social influential propaganda.

But, I did find this part entertaining in the beginning "imagine how much
worse it would be if the US government employed a couple hundred thousand
people to "shape the debate" among online political forums. Crazy, right? What
government would ever attempt it?"

Arguably, the US does. Maybe not the US "government", but the employees of it
(politicians, the President's cabinet, etc.), those looking to become
employees of it, lobbyists and so on...

An oversight of the last decade? e.g.'s: President's Cabinet - "Weapons of
Mass Destruction", Healthcare Reform Bill - Both sides of the debate guilty,
The Media - let's not even go there, And what was that fake grassroots
incident on FaceBook that was exposed last year or earlier this year?

Well, you can go ahead and add a million other examples.

~~~
megaduck
As somebody who has lived in both countries, I don't think this argument holds
any water. While the U.S. government does indeed engage in propaganda, it's
like comparing a candle to a forest fire.

The Chinese government controls every news organization in China. Every single
one. All television is state-run, and shows hours of pure propaganda every
day, as well as entertainment programs that push certain agendas. Every book
published requires government approval, and many are written for the sole
purpose of propaganda. Opposition stances are strictly prohibited, across the
board. Virtually every street on every town has large red banners and posters
pushing the 'message of the day'.

This digital form of propaganda is no different. Yes, the United States
engages in abuses. However, they're not even close in scale, and therefore
qualitatively quite different.

Oh, and if anyone wants to see what this digital astroturfing looks like in
the wild, I had some of it show up on my personal blog a while back:

<http://www.varvel.net/david/?p=9#comment-19>

~~~
grandalf
All this means is that the US has managed to achieve a propaganda state
without the explicit threat of force...

Do you recall when GWB took office and long time members of the press core
were kicked out if they asked tough questions?

This happens all the time which is why you don't find certain stories/angles
covered in the mainstream press.

Consider that Tim Russert was considered the most hard nosed journalist
because he had the gumption to ask a tough question or two... usually all he
did was quote a few things the person had said in the past and ask them to
explain their current claims (which usually turned their faces quite red). If
this is hard nosed journalism we're all in deep trouble.

Most news today is full of stories that make Americans feel morally
superior... stories about how women are mistreated in all sorts of other
countries... how politicians are corrupt, and how the economic opportunity
stinks (elsewhere).

There is also tremendous deference paid to titles and institutions in the US
that should not be -- and would not be paid to titles and institutions of
another country.

Why, for example, should we take the term "Chairman of the Federal Reserve"
seriously, but take some other country's "Minister of Economic Affairs" less
seriously?

All this is part of a media whose purpose is to help Americans feel that they
have the moral high ground so that wars can be waged whenever necessary. The
media doesn't have to overtly support a war -- in fact it is expected to
question it (but by asking the wrong questions).

There are a _lot_ of things you decide not to say/think if you expect to be on
a national TV show, quoted in a national paper, be appointed to a cabinet
post, etc. Why the voluntary censorship? Because all that stuff is such a
downer. Why worry about it when we can just order another burger and get free
healthcare and feel good about our google searches because google is taking a
stand against horrible china. Why would anyone fight these memes when they
make everyone so happy?

In the US the entrenched interests have been so successful, in fact, that we
see all of this as perfectly normal and reasonable.... and, of course, we
amplify differences with another country (like China) out of moral superiority
and righteous indignation... Nothing makes us feel better than feeling sorrry
for some poor victim of a propagandizing state, after all.

This isn't a conspiracy (or a conspiracy theory) it's just what you get when
entrenched interests flourish in a stable, prosperous country.

~~~
cturner

        Do you recall when GWB took office and long time
        members of the press core were kicked out if they
        asked tough questions?
    

Helen Thomas got the cold shoulder for a while, but GWB started asking her
questions again to try and gain credibility. The scale is incomparable, which
was the point of the parent.

    
    
        All this is part of a media whose purpose is to
        help Americans feel that they have the moral high
        ground so that wars can be waged whenever necessary. 
    

If you really meant what you said here, it would indeed be a conspiracy
theory, despite your insistence that it's not.

You would need a lot more evidence than you're supplying to support the sort
of assertions that you're making.

What the US government does isn't even particularly relevant to the article.

~~~
grandalf
My post was not meant as proof, it was just intended to trigger a thought
process in the reader.

We make a lot of arbitrary distinctions about the legitimacy of institutions.

When we see the leader of an Afghan city state traveling around in an SUV with
a bunch of guys with machine guns, we call him a "warlord", yet we offer
utmost deference to the US presidential motorcade.

Look at it this way, society has winners and losers. Winners generally want to
continue being winners, so they end up in control of coercive force (guns,
military, etc.) and they end up with the tools of propaganda at their disposal
(newspapers, puppet officials).

What differentiates one nation's winners from those of another is far less
than we tend to think, since much of our "consent" to the status quo is built
upon our belief in certain doctrines and institutions.

Surely our democracy is worth something, and many of our institutions are
worthy of some deference and respect, but so are China's and Mexico's and
Iran's...

There are a variety of other fallacies which add to our distorted view of the
rest of the world, which I could also go into detail about.

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nsoonhui
When I read this article, I thought for a moment about the China apologists,
and those who repeatedly jumped to China's defense whenever the CCP was casted
in unfavorable lights on HN. And I laughed.

~~~
garply
I don't think HN is the target demographic for the propaganda - the targeted
demographic, I believe, would be more blue collar (if such a category can even
accurately describe the social segmentation in China). I suspect most of the
astroturfers don't even speak English.

~~~
Retric
Most young well educated people in China read and write at least some English.

~~~
garply
I'm well aware of this. I do not believe the propaganda is aimed at them.

Violent revolution is not going to come from that demographic. What the
government is worried about is the less-educated, general population having
unfiltered access to certain 'unpleasant' pieces of information. The gov't is
concerned about uprisings like what has been going on in Xinjiang. It is not
concerned so much about some Chinese ibanker learning that a bunch of people
died in Tiananmen Square in 89. The ibanker already knows that.

~~~
Retric
Tiananmen Square was a direct result of young well educated people taking a
stand. Educated people are behind a lot of the world revolutions and I think
the non violent revolution is probably more dangerous to China to the
interests of Chinese leadership than a purely military coup.

Anyway, my point is the lack of a language barrier means a site like HN is as
dangerous to the Chinese government as better regulated site within their
borders. While the government has significant military power, you can’t keep a
billion people in check without some control over how they think. So even with
the Great Firewall of China popular world opinion is still important because
it shapes how people inside China think.

PS: Also you can easily come up with a post that is corrosive to the Chinese
government which does not touch any of the current third rail issues in such a
way that automated software could detect what is going on. EX: An academic
discussion of the economic costs of export oriented monetary policy where
china’s is not even mentioned.

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maxklein
Great. Now anybody who takes a non-comformist line in the china debate is
going to be accused of being paid by the Chinese government. Great way to go
with making sure there is only one opinion on this issue.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I'm with you Max.

Unfortunately the Chinese didn't seem to think that honest opinion differences
would result in the outcomes they wanted.

Now anything pro-China is tainted. And rightly so, unfortunately.

~~~
raganwald
> Now anything pro-China is tainted.

Why? An argument is an argument is an argument. If it holds water, let it
carry the water. Saying that a pro-China argument is tainted just because
there is a possibility that the person making the argument is paid to make the
argument is fallacious, it's a kind of reverse Appeal to Authority.

Of course, there are certain arguments that are tainted. For example,if
someone says "I counted 280,000 signatures on this Kick Google Out of China
petition," that argument is suspect. As is the "My friends and everyone I know
see no value in Free Speech" anecdotal argument.

And I'm sure there are some others that are subject to scrutiny. But if
someone makes a good argument backed up with reasonable premises, it could
come straight from their Premier for all I care.

~~~
celoyd
> An argument is an argument is an argument. If it holds water, let it carry
> the water.

The thing is, until now, most of the arguments I trusted most about China were
anecdotal. Not because I distrust numbers, but because numbers about China are
so untrustworthy. If someone reputable in a forum like this one plausibly
presents themselves as an old China hand and explains conclusions they’ve come
to from a wide range of experience there — about what average citizens think
of the web censorship, etc. — I’ve tended to assume that it’s as close to the
truth as I’m likely to get.

So sure, this only taints anecdotal evidence about China. But for a country
where nearly all non-anecdotal evidence about important things is already
tainted by the government, that’s a big blow.

(Some acquaintances have traveled in China and explained things about life
there that really raised my opinion. Now I’m a little scared to bring them up
— despite being generally pretty darn wary of the Chinese government — for
fear of looking like an astroturfer.)

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chrischen
Grass mud horse is a homonym for "fuck your mom" i believe.

Anyways I don't think swearing in Chinese is that big of a deal. _Everyone_ I
knew as a kid said it and I said it to my parents all the time... Or maybe we
were obscene.

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mahmud
They are known as the 50-cent party:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party>

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DanielBMarkham
_China, which allegedly employs 280,000 people to troll the Internet and make
the government look good._

 _...Many more people do similar work as volunteers—recruited from among the
ranks of retired officials as well as college students in the Communist Youth
League who aspire to become Party members..._

That's truly a staggering number.

Key up "but everybody does it" posts...

~~~
jongraehl
queue up?

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c1sc0
The more important questions for hackers would be: are there ways to
automtically detect astro-talk much like spam-mail?

