
Hacked emails reveal China’s Internet propaganda machine - vincvinc
http://qz.com/311832/hacked-emails-reveal-chinas-elaborate-and-absurd-internet-propaganda-machine/
======
Someone1234
It will be interesting to learn to what extent the USG does this. Certainly
not at this scale or we would have already heard about it, but there have
definitely been leaked US Army Intelligence reports which suggest it does go
on to some degree.

I will say a far more common thing from the USG is seeing people edit
Wikipedia pages, however those attempts are almost laughably unsophisticated
(often being trivially traceable to the offices of the people they're
editing).

I strongly suspect a certain controversial country in the middle east does it,
as every time they come up in any discussion you get inundated with pro'
people who have little posting history (or none) and who come across very
unnaturally pro (like talking heads). I won't name the country since the same
thing might happen here.

PS - I'm neither pro nor anti this middle eastern country, I've just noticed
very unusual posting patterns when they're discussed. Particularly during
large scale controversies (which seem to occur about once a year).

~~~
Brushfire
I'd be pretty surprised if the US employed people to do anything like this on
domestic US sites at any scale. What would they post? Wouldn't a smart
individual from a US site have detected this and shared, or a whistleblower
have disclosed it?

That said, I'd be pretty unsurprised if we employed people to do it on
specific, foreign sites in places like Iran, China, Syria, Lybia, etc.
Monitoring + Posting + Commenting. That would be smart and part of normal
intel gathering.

More interesting than the human commentary, however, would be bots running
analysis on posts and comments, and then upvoting, downvoting, or spamming in
the comments (with intent to ruin experience) based on content and sentiment
-- allowing programatic and rule-driven propaganda effects.

~~~
fiblye
>I'd be pretty surprised if the US employed people to do anything like this on
domestic US sites at any scale. What would they post?

Call me a conspiracy nut, but now that social media is how most young people
get their news, I wouldn't be surprised if the US gov paid people to post and
promote bullshit fluff to keep people distracted from major events in the
world. When those major stories do make it to the masses, there are people to
comment about how it's a "non-issue" and "we need to focus on more important
things" or that the US is doing what's necessary to protect its interests and
the world's.

Just a couple examples:

All throughout the build up to the Manning trial, I distinctly remember most
commenters on tech news sites supporting Manning. Upon conviction, I checked
the comments on Ars Technica and the comments were overwhelmingly along the
lines of "Let this be a sign to all future traitors.", "Lock HIM up and throw
away the key!!" There was a comment about how suspicious the shift was, and
the next three pages of comments were along the lines of, "How do we know YOU
aren't working for someone?", "We never supported TRAITORS like YOU.", etc. It
was bizarre.

The overwhelming coverage of The Interview days after the CIA torture report
came out. People were outraged, but then every corner of the internet was
plastered with patriotism and how we need to release some awful comedy to
stick it to some dirt poor totalitarian state. Now people have forgotten about
that movie, as well as the CIA's issues.

I also recall a huge amount of support for an invasion and increased funding
of rebels in Syria back when the US government claimed Assad was using
chemical weapons against his people. What shocked me was that the people most
calling for war was liberal/feminist discussion circles. That all seems to be
forgotten now that a group of rebels called ISIS is our enemy of the week.

~~~
freshhawk
If you are a conspiracy nut for not being surprised what am I? I would be
surprised if they aren't. Because ... why wouldn't they? It would be effective
and easy. We know the tech exists already, we know it's used around the world.
It would be less illegal than the things we know they do.

~~~
Estragon
In fact, it's known that there are organizations which do exactly this.

    
    
      Team Themis was developing a “persona management” system — a program,
      developed at the specific request of the United States Air Force, that
      allowed one user to control multiple online identities (“sock
      puppets”) for commenting in social media spaces, thus giving the
      appearance of grass roots support.  The contract was eventually
      awarded to another private intelligence firm.
    

[http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/the-real-
war...](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/the-real-war-on-
reality/?_r=0)

------
hackuser
I wonder how many private (i.e., non-governmental) groups in the U.S. use this
practice, either for business purposes (e.g., Yelp and Amazon reviews, Twitter
posts and responses, or popular and influential forums (such as HN!)), or
political purposes.

On one hand, it's the 'Big Lie': People naturally doubt such deception is
occurring until they see a smoking gun, and even then many deny it.

On the other, it is such an obvious, inexpensive way to drive public opinion,
I'd be shocked if it wasn't widely used. Even paying U.S. minimum wage, you
probably are paying under 50 cents/post. That's 10,000 comments in your favor
for < $5K -- without knowing data on the influence of such things, it seems
cost-effective compared to advertising. Imagine a local politician or a super-
PAC doing it before an election in just one locality.

Also interesting: Many people I know think they can detect astroturfing when
they see it. I'm sure that's true sometimes, but the astroturfers have more
experience and are more sophisticated in their craft than we are -- they do it
all day, every day. They know what makes something look credible, and you can
see that discussed in the article.

EDIT: I just found this:

Grassroots for Hire: Public Affairs Consultants in American Democracy by
Edward T. Walker

 _Although 'grassroots' conjures up images of independent citizen organizing,
much mass participation today is sponsored by elite consultants working for
corporations and powerful interest groups. This book pulls back the curtain to
reveal a lucrative industry of consulting firms that incentivize public
activism as a marketable service. Edward Walker illustrates how, spurred by
the post-sixties advocacy explosion and rising business political engagement,
elite consultants have deployed new technologies to commercialize mass
participation. Using evidence from interviews, surveys and public records,
Grassroots for Hire paints a detailed portrait of these consultants and their
clients. Today, Fortune 500 firms hire them to counter-mobilize against
regulation, protest or controversy. Ironically, some advocacy groups now
outsource organizing to them. Walker also finds that consultants are reshaping
both participation and policymaking, but unethical 'astroturf' strategies are
often ineffective. This pathbreaking book calls for a rethinking of
interactions between corporations, advocacy groups, and elites in politics._

[http://www.amazon.com/Grassroots-Hire-Consultants-
American-D...](http://www.amazon.com/Grassroots-Hire-Consultants-American-
Democracy/dp/1107619017)

~~~
cryoshon
I will be sure to read the book that you suggested, as this topic is of great
interest to me.

A few thoughts:

1\. Astroturfing has been the norm for a few years now-- probably more years
than I suspect, but the biggest difference was pre-2011.

2\. Most people don't even have astroturfing on their radar, and if the public
ever did get any ideas, you can be sure they would be astroturfed into
actually believing that astroturfing is a legitimate marketing technique
rather than repugnant lying.

3\. Astroturfing varies wildly in quality, and I'm sure that some people could
spot the weaker campaigns-- the most recent major campaign that was weak was
probably the pro-Russia astroturfing of Reddit during Russia's invasion of
Crimea.

4\. The quality of astroturf is inversely proportional to the time and thus
money it requires to produce. A cheap statement "X is great, support X"
blasted into every topic is easy to spot, whereas custom tailored shilling and
misdirection is often far more insidious.

5\. I'd expect that most governments engage in astroturfing and shilling
heavily-- if not on their own population (which is extremely likely) then on
other populations. As evidence, consider that Eglin AFB is the "most addicted
to reddit" community. I'm not sure what to do about this other than call it
out when I see it, which is woefully ineffective.

~~~
rhino369
>Sure, the majority of sales happen in this timespan, but that doesn't mean
someone intent on pirating the game will give up and pay just because it isn't
available now.

I'm not really surprised that a base full of youngish men with a heavy tech
background (its a test base for air planes) like reddit.

------
codyb
From the article

 _Zhanggong district is Ganzhou’s administrative center and home to about
460,000 people._

 _“There are at least 5,000 districts this size or bigger,” said Qiang Xiao_

Am I missing something here? Do districts in China overlap? The population in
China is currently standing at around 1.357 billion [0] according to World
Bank, United States Census Bureau. Quick math puts 5,000 * 460,000 at 2.3
billion.

The list of districts in China [1] is _quite_ long. And when sorting for 2010
population there are quite a lot above 500,000 but it certainly can't be
5,000. Must be a misquote.

[0] - [https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=population%20china)

[1] -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_districts_in_China](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_districts_in_China)

~~~
efbbbf
It never explicitly states that the "this size or bigger" refers to its
population, it could be area.

~~~
codyb
Good point.

------
im2w1l
It is amusing and fascinating that there is (as of this post) zero discussion
of China's internet propaganda machine.

>“When transferring the attention of netizens and blurring the public focus,
going off the topic is very effective.”

------
zghst
I find it alarming, this thread already mimicking a USSR disinformation
campaign. See below "Israeli shills".

As usual, the HN crowd (or state propagandists) turn to whataboutism and
pointing fingers than discussing the topic on hand. This really isn't the
place for any political discussion, it is so biased and factually divergent,
half the time the threads here do not even match the articles.

------
simonebrunozzi
> "Zhanggong district is Ganzhou’s administrative center and home to about
> 460,000 people. “There are at least 5,000 districts this size or bigger,”
> said Qiang Xiao, editor of China Digital Times (CDT), a news site affiliated
> with the University of California Berkeley that first reported on the
> emails."

So, this means that China is home to at least 2.3B people??? The math doesn't
add up.

~~~
veb
> It never explicitly states that the "this size or bigger" refers to its
> population, it could be area

