
The Chinese media model - subsonico
https://china-underground.com/2019/03/26/chinese-media-model/
======
taneq
I'm always amused by the indignation expressed by people when some nation
other than their own is shown to be using their resources to to exert
international influence. The British Empire did. The USSR did. The United
States does. Of course China does too.

~~~
happytoexplain
I can't even begin to relate to this point of view. Why does everything have
to be side-taking, where nobody is allowed to be accused of anything if
somebody else, now or in the past, has committed even just the same genre of
crime? And why the smug "amused" line? To me, it's all terribly demoralizing.

~~~
coldtea
> _I can 't even begin to relate to this point of view. Why does everything
> have to be side-taking, where nobody is allowed to be accused of anything if
> somebody else, now or in the past, has committed even just the same genre of
> crime?_

Because when you criticize one side, you are side-taking. And everything you
say or write is used to justify global politics (and is primed to do just
that). There's no "impartiality" when you single out one side to criticize.

Either put it in context, or make a statement criticizing all parties doing
the same. It's not really difficult to study and learn about things, and put
them in perspective, instead of singling out a party as some unique "evil".

And it is doubly insulting to countries and peoples who have suffered your
version of doing the same thing to see you point out others and demand their
heads for it. It's adding hypocrisy to injury.

> _To me, it 's all terribly demoralizing._

To me people making accusations only for others, and neglecting their side's
serious complicity in the same thing, is not only terribly demoralizing, not
only hypocritical, but also strategic.

The 60s anti-culture movement could simultaneously criticize USSR, the Prague
invasion, etc AND Uncle Sam and Vietnam. Not just in their media, even in a
single song oftentimes.

Now it's 1000 articles criticizing one side as uniquely evil with not even a
whisper of own actions, and 10 giving the internal perspective. Not exactly
balanced (talking about foreign politics here. In internal politics, I guess
it's more like "Hurray for the democrats/republicans establishment ideas, down
with Trump" what passes for criticism of both democrat/republicans and Trump).

(And anybody attempting to correct that is hit with the thought-stopping
accusation of "whataboutism")

~~~
PavlovsCat
> There's no "impartiality" when you single out one side to criticize.

This "singling out" is a fabrication though, and that's the problem here.

> people making accusations only for others

Again, who's doing that? You use the people who do that as fig leaf to ignore
the people who don't. You dodge the strongest interpretation in favor of a
weaker position that is conjured before anyone even shows up who is actually
holding it.

> neglecting their side's serious complicity in the same thing

Same here, just because some people are doing that, doesn't mean all do.

Either way, even the hypocrisy of that hypothetical person doing that would be
utterly dwarved by the monstrosity of the atrocities the reaction to which is
diluted by games such as this.

~~~
coldtea
> _Again, who 's doing that? You use the people who do that as fig leaf to
> ignore the people who don't. You dodge the strongest interpretation in favor
> of a weaker position that is conjured before anyone even shows up who is
> actually holding it._

You can read a forum or a media outlet for days, and you'll see single one-
sided mentions 90% of the time, with no context, and with hypocritical framing
as if it's only one side doing it.

And I remember times when they weren't doing so, where coverage was not so one
sided, and where people (e.g. 60s and 70s media, influenced by people looking
for wider truths, and looking into alternative media and counter-culture)
would be critical of all sides, and offer more perspective.

> _Same here, just because some people are doing that, doesn 't mean all do._

I don't care for all, I care for what most do. Especially most media.

It's of little comfort if most of the people do X and some conscientious
minority doesn't. The noise of what most do still prevails and informs public
opinion and policy.

~~~
PavlovsCat
> You can read a forum or a media outlet for days

In other words, nobody is doing it here, in this context.

> And I remember times when they weren't doing so, where coverage was not so
> one sided, and where people (e.g. 60s and 70s media, influenced by people
> looking for wider truths, and looking into alternative media and counter-
> culture) would be critical of all sides, and offer more perspective.

You call it "more perspective", I call it dilution and spam. It could be
attached to any discussion, and it doesn't tell us anything new. All the
hallmarks of comments that end up flagged and admonished by people piling on,
if the context is different. That's the only interesting data here.

> I don't care for all, I care for what most do.

As I said, "You use the people who do that as fig leaf to ignore the people
who don't."

> It's of little comfort if most of the people do X and some conscientious
> minority doesn't.

That doesn't change what you and the comment you found so spot on are doing,
which is not responding to the actual article, or any actual comment.

Does "but the US is doing it too" provide comfort to anyone? Nope. So the
argument that X doesn't provide comfort falls flat in light of nothing else
providing said "comfort" either, whatever that would even mean in concrete
terms.

~~~
coldtea
> _You call it "more perspective", I call it dilution and spam. It could be
> attached to any discussion, and it doesn't tell us anything new._

It wouldn't tell someone "anything new" presumed they already knew their side
was doing the same shit. Most don't. And being predominantly told about the
evil others doing it (in accordance with whatever the current enemy/ally du
jour is, and which agenda is to be pushed at any time), doesn't make them any
favors. That's the actual noise.

> _As I said, "You use the people who do that as fig leaf to ignore the people
> who don't."_

No, I'm interested in actual outcomes, and those have to do with frequency of
something being done. You can find some people doing the right thing at every
point in history and on every matter. Their existence doesn't make it less of
a problem -- as long as the majority (or a big enough segment, or those with
more power) are not doing the right thing.

I'm not sure what the "fig leaf" accusation is supposed to settle. If someone
speaks about e.g. tourist's polluting a national park, would you go and tell
them "there are some people who don't throw garbage when they visit there", as
if that somehow makes the problem go away? And you'd be mad at them when
insisting the problem exists, because they "use those that do as a fig leaf to
hide those that don't"?

> _That doesn 't change what you and the comment you found so spot on are
> doing, which is not responding to the actual article_

That's called "agency". As an individual, I don't have to respond to the way
something is phrased and stick to that like an automaton.

Nor is it always to the detriment of the discussion not sticking to the narrow
scope something was presented in. Especially in politics (this is not a
technical matter).

~~~
PavlovsCat
> That's called "agency". As an individual, I don't have to respond to the way
> something is phrased and stick to that like an automaton.

Speaking of that, I think I already have wasted more time on this tripe than I
can justify.

------
justforfunhere
I think Internet has become the easiest way to spread propoganda. China is not
the only one doing this.

It's so easy to spread ideas using Internet these days, that almost all
business, political and social entities around the world are involved in the
spreading whatever ideas they deem worthy.

The bigger entities are able to spread them more effectively which is
expected.

Internet may eventually turn out to be a bigger monster for modern human
civilization than other threats in the past like World Wars and Cold War.

~~~
jbob2000
Easy to spread but easy to ignore. The internet cheapened communications to
the point where propaganda has about the same worth as cat memes.

~~~
yorwba
You can only ignore the propaganda if you recognize it as such. Western
audiences don't really have the background knowledge to evaluate what they
read, and Western media tend to focus on the foreign policy of their country
as it relates to China.

The two highest-quality (in terms of professionalism and level of detail)
English news sources reporting on China are
[https://scmp.com](https://scmp.com) and
[http://sixthtone.com](http://sixthtone.com) . The South China Morning Post
has somewhat retained their independence, but Sixth Tone is a government-
backed propaganda outlet, existing only to counter negative reporting on
Chinese politics with news in other domains. Someone reading a lifestyle
article on Sixth Tone isn't easily going to realize that they're reading
propaganda unless it's pointed out to them.

------
phoe-krk
Mirror: [https://web.archive.org/web/20190326103055/https://china-
und...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190326103055/https://china-
underground.com/2019/03/26/chinese-media-model/)

------
sovietmudkipz
Speaking of propaganda, can we talk about how good the movies Wolf Warrior and
Wolf Warrior 2 is? Both films feature Chinese military protagonists and both
films feature western villains.

These films remind me of Rambo even including the jingoistic pro-nation-of-
origin message.

I think the international market accepted Rambo because they thought USA was
cool. I wonder if we will find ourselves consuming “Chinakana” (riff on
“Americana”) when we think China is “cool.”

~~~
thejohnconway
Rambo isn't pro-USA is it? Surely It's the story of man fucked over by his
country, and the opposite of what you're saying?

~~~
yodon
The original Rambo film is a remarkably thoughtful study of the challenges
Vietnam veterans faced reintegrating into society, including a look inside
PTSD (the book even more so than the film... the book was commonly included in
high school history and civics courses in the decade after it was written).
The sequels, which are the films best remembered today, were of course nothing
but pure adrenaline rides with nothing to recommend them, but don't taint the
original film with the sins of its sequels. Even the portrayal of the "evil"
small town sheriff Rambo battles is remarkably interesting and nuanced. Yes,
it's still a popcorn film, but it's one of the most thoughtful and intelligent
action films you're likely to find (there is much more than meets the eye in
Sylvester Stallone, writer of both the original Rambo script and the Rocky
script).

------
yorwba
This seems to be blog spam of
[https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/en_rapport_chine_web_fin...](https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/en_rapport_chine_web_final.pdf)

I thought they at least did some work to summarize the report, but even the
text of the "Summary" section is lifted directly from the foreword.

------
317070
I cannot access this website (from London). I get "Web server is down" and
ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT.

Since people are upvoting and commenting, can someone share this article?

~~~
tasnimreza
Same here, from Sweden can't access

~~~
parmesan
I'm accessing it from Sweden.

------
peter_retief
Well the site is down for me, sort of seems to support the gist of the
articles title (Got 521 error - Web site down), can ping the domain. Would
"they" really bring down a site that is critical of "them" or is it
coincidental?

------
IntelAMDVia
Moderators: Why was this submission removed from the front page as soon as it
started to gain traction?

The risk of nationalistic flame wars needs to be weighed against important
discussion potential. But the submission is interesting enough even if the
comments are disabled.

Is there any statistics on changes to Hacker News censorship since Sam
Altman's China strategy was announced?

~~~
yorwba
Stories gaining traction in the form of comments affects the ranking
negatively if it's not upvoted at the same tame. It indicates that people are
more interested in voicing their opinion than whatever the submission had to
say. If you disagree with that reasoning and want to see lively discussions
anyway, you should probably browse
[https://news.ycombinator.com/active](https://news.ycombinator.com/active)
instead of or in addition to the traditional front page.

We've also had plenty of China-related flame wars stay on the front page for
longer, so I don't think you can accuse the moderators of applying a double
standard compared to other political topics.
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=China&dateRange=pastWeek](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=China&dateRange=pastWeek)

~~~
IntelAMDVia
Was the removal from the front page algorithmic or a manual step by
moderators?

The lack of transparency with the soft censorship is alarming, particularly
given YC's financial conflict of interest.

~~~
yorwba
Since the article title is different now, I assume a moderator looked at it at
some point. IIRC, they check all instances of the flame war detector firing,
to prevent false positives. In this case, they probably didn't find the
comments salvageable.

On the other hand,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19493033](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19493033)
is currently on the front page after previously disappearing, so the mods seem
to have intervened in that case.

