
How the Chinese Government Fakes Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction [pdf] - pulisse
http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/50c.pdf
======
paradite
Not sure about others but I find myself practicing doublethink when juggling
between Chinese media and Western media and have no symptoms of cognitive
dissonance. To me it's just a matter of perspective.

Maybe we need to take that into account when discussing the impact of
propaganda.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink)

~~~
musage
ElsaGate, enabled by Google and Disney (which owns at least network which owns
at least one involved channel) and consisting faked videos for toddlers for
strategic destruction and some sort of weird grooming. needles? taping people
up? humiliating parents? kids driving cars? adults drugging people and getting
them pregnant including minors? eating loads of feces? brand products left,
right and center? verified accounts? monetized videos? people begging for
removal since last year? but oh yeah look what China is doing.

anyone feel like data crunching? crunch this.

[https://gitlab.com/elsagate/blacklist/raw/master/blacklist.t...](https://gitlab.com/elsagate/blacklist/raw/master/blacklist.txt)

and while the data is downloading -- because it's not possible that a
community of hackers would look the other way when blatant child abuse (that's
defined by what happens to the child, not what the perpetrator gets out of it)
is going down directly under their nose or even hands, right? _right?_ it's
brain hacking, it's technology, it's mystery, it's capitalism, it's SV, what
more do you want? nevermind the material responsibility, the real harm done
to, the needless additional pain in the lifes of _kids who 'just' get left to
autoplay on youtube for long enough_ \-- read this maybe:

[https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-
in...](https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-
internet-c39c471271d2)

edit: whoever downvoted this without argument, you'll think back to this and
feel bad, if you're _lucky_ and both informed and human enough. no more needs
to be said. the info is there, CRUNCH THE DATA.

~~~
QAPereo
From the Medium article: _Someone or something or some combination of people
and things is using YouTube to systematically frighten, traumatise, and abuse
children, automatically and at scale..._

Um... hell of a claim, a giant list of videos and a blog post don't scream
evidence of anything to me. A search for the keyword ElsaGate turns up little
more than r/Conspiracy threads, which is a warning flare IMO. The Guardian
article on it seems more reasonable, and basically makes the unstated point
that this is a shitty parenting issue more than anything else.

Don't let your toddler hook up to the damned internet unsupervised!!!

~~~
musage
> A search for the keyword ElsaGate turns up little more than r/Conspiracy
> threads, which is a warning flare IMO.

So is the fact that you either lie so blatantly, or did look into this so
little. I told you about it, the ball was in your half of the field, this is
what you did with it. May you live a long life. You victim blaming, hands
washing...

> Don't let your toddler hook up to the damned internet unsupervised!!!

Says the person who wrote the above? The fuck outta here, I want to speak to
your parents.

------
marmight
The authors are overstating their case when they assume that why the 50 cent
party posters are not engaging in discussion must be a result of an
intentional Chinese government strategy. The moniker "50 cent party" comes
from the idea that the members make 50 cents for each post they make. They
aren't really making 50 cents per post, but if they are operating in a system
which incentivizes them to make more posts, then they are not going to engage
in discussion because that takes too much time. To get a higher post count it
is easier to spam cheerleading posts that would be appropriate in any
discussion context. The more simple explanation for the observed behavior is
human nature rather than an intentional Chinese government strategy.

~~~
simonh
The 50. Ent strategy has evolved though. It’s named that way because
originally government porpaganda farms paid 50 cents per post, but the Chinese
government isn’t a bunch of idiots. They have adapted and evolved their
astroturfing strategies. There almost certainly are simple 50 cent style post
farms operating, but they are also operating taste-maker and influencer
programmes as well. It’s a spectrum from the original 50 cent guys at one end,
right up to the presenters on state television talk shows at the other. The 50
cent moniker is used just for convenience.

------
TaylorAlexander
Whenever I read this stuff, I imagine similar articles about the US
government.

We don’t do it the same way. US government officials will “leak” certain
information to the press, knowing the press will take it and run.

The goal is the same. The government wants to strategically distract the
populace.

~~~
colordrops
Yes. The Chinese are learning this from the US. A powerful disinformation
capability is so much more important in the US because of free speech.

~~~
meri_dian
How is China learning this from the US? Chinese manipulation of social media
is well known to be vast and incredibly coordinated. There just isn't evidence
that the US government is engaged in anything approaching the Chinese scale.

Sure we have tremendous surveillance capabilities, but we use them to detect
criminal and terroristic behavior, not to police thought crime in the same way
that China does. Don't be silly.

It's so fashionable for pseudo-intellectuals to adopt a cynicism-all-the-time
mentality, especially about America, but it's really just lazy thinking.

~~~
wybiral
It makes me wonder how the conspiracy people think this stuff is orchestrated.
Does it all get planned out by one council of secret overlords masterminding
the flow of public information? How many people are in on the secret? What is
their end goal?

...Or maybe social dynamics and global relationships are more complex than
that and patterns emerge even without the need for a conspiracy behind them...

~~~
colordrops
It doesn't take but a modicum of research to know these answers. I'd expect HN
commenters to be better than speaking out of ignorance.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_in_the_United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_in_the_United_States)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Informatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Information)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Information_Agen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Information_Agency)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_Secretary_of_State_for_P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_Secretary_of_State_for_Public_Diplomacy_and_Public_Affairs)

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-brown/propaganda-
public-...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-brown/propaganda-public-
diplomacy_b_1547214.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent)

And this doesn't even begin to get into the deep collusion between the
government and the media with lobbying, regulatory capture, government
appointments, politicians on corporate board seats.

~~~
wybiral
"Propaganda" is an ambiguous word. By some definitions every country engages
in ongoing propaganda. Especially in times of war (where the majority of these
"modicum of research" you provided took place) there is sometimes a need to
establish channels of communication and leadership.

Maybe it's easier to believe in a massively orchestrated conspiracy machine
masterminding all of this, but I believe that the world and ongoing
international affairs are slightly more nuanced than that.

~~~
colordrops
What are you on about a "massively orchestrated conspiracy"? No one but you is
talking about that.

~~~
wybiral
Sorry, it seemed like that was being implied here but I must be mistaken.

Perhaps you were simply referring to the normal complexity one would expect
out of a diverse crowd of interests from bodies of government and businesses
acting in ways that sometimes overlap when you said:

> "deep collusion between the government and the media with lobbying,
> regulatory capture, government appointments, politicians on corporate board
> seats"

------
zghst
I wonder if these researchers ever visited the Chinese internet? They dissect
their heirarchy and composition, yet not their effectiveness or reputation?

The Chinese people see 50 mao bots from 10 miles away. The very nature of the
internet makes humanity question truth and authority. So many sources to
visit, so many opinions and so angles to reflect upon. Themes and patterns
don’t go so quietly unnoticed on the internet.

It seems that even many, many of these sources are far behind, though it is a
new policy that US researchers are encouraged to dissect Chinese institutions
publicly.

This paper would have been groundbreaking in 2010-pre Snowden. Sadly, it is a
hay in the growing stack of a US-engineered lashing at Chinese domestic
policies.

~~~
smilekzs
> The Chinese people see 5[0] mao bots from 10 miles away > The very nature of
> the internet makes humanity question truth and authority

The short answer would be, these aren't really targeting people who can tell
the difference and/or ask questions. Instead, the tech-illiterate, senior
citizens (largely regardless of education level), rural "guest workers", etc..

It's the Nigerian scam game. Maximize # people affected per $.

------
azifali
It would be good to do a similar analysis of the Indian government.

~~~
pvelagal
Indian Govt is totally inefficient. It is impossible as there are too many
states, too many languages, too many view points and first of all, it is not
even needed. Political parties (Be it state level or central) have enough
money, machinery to throw dirt on each other through every kind of media.
Coupled with the age old methods of vote buying, throwing freebies or use of
religion/region/language/caste "cards" always work !

------
r1b
Today the white house boasted about US capabilities with respect to 0days and
vulnerability disclosure. [1]

Their silence on the topic of state-sponsored astroturfing is deafening.

[1] [https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2017/11/15/improving-and-
mak...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2017/11/15/improving-and-making-
vulnerability-equities-process-transparent-right-thing-do)

~~~
gowld
[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/under-bush-a-
new-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/under-bush-a-new-age-of-
prepackaged-tv-news.html)

Back in 2005, the White House was shipping propaganda to be broadcast by local
TV news stations across USA

~~~
r1b
Thank you for sharing, I was not aware of this.

