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China Spreads Propaganda to U.S. On Facebook, a Platform It Bans at Home

168 points by QAPereo 9y ago

unpwn 9y ago
lol this is like some propaganda inception
altcognito 9y ago
Before someone points out that nations have always done this: It has never been this effective, targeted or difficult to uncover.
- xienze 9y ago
  > It has never been this effective Debatable, unless you're taking the claims that $100K of meme-tier ads on Facebook changed the outcome of the election at face value. > or difficult to uncover. Is it really? Facebook certainly seemed very sure of every little ad that was purchased by a Russian party.
  - altcognito 9y ago
    > Debatable, unless you're taking the claims that $100K of meme-tier ads on Facebook changed the outcome of the election at face value. It's not just Facebook, or Twitter, or 4chan, or Reddit, or HN, or IRC, or email, or TV ads, or superpac ads, etc.... Ads can be targeted moreso than ever, celebrities are more easily roped in willingly or as useful idiots. Content has wider possibilities ("verified" emails). People are much more primed for disinformation than they were in the past. > Is it really? Facebook certainly seemed very sure of every little ad that was purchased by a Russian party. They paid in rubles. They didn't seem to even think it was terribly important to hide.
- jdoliner 9y ago
  It's never been this effectively targeted at The US. US meddling has been much more effective than this, and the tactics much more extreme. It's also not exactly difficult to uncover, Facebook is telling us exactly what they did.
StavrosK 9y ago
I mean, it bans Facebook exactly because it's easy to spread propaganda through it. What the hell is up with this title? "Country attacks with weapons, the same thing it bans internally". Obviously?
- prklmn 9y ago
  No, not obviously. Why isn't it banned in every country that's not a US ally? Just China...
bognition 9y ago
China didn't ban Facebook b/c they don't think it should exist, they banned it b/c its a propaganda engine that they didn't want to compete with. In the world of international jockeying and competition it would be naive to assume they would use a tool like facebook against their economic rivals.
- mtgx 9y ago
  > they banned it b/c its a propaganda engine that they didn't want to compete with That's a good way to put it. Since China is so in-love with AI, I wonder if we could use AI with the same purpose - spreading "freedom" information in China. Something like this actually happened recently: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-chatbots-communist-party-ruling-critics-peoples-tencent-babyq-little-bing-a7875601.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-chatbots-...
  - penistives 9y ago
    Or maybe it'll just end up spreading racism and denying the Holocaust. Something like this actually happened recently: https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/24/microsoft-silences-its-new-a-i-bot-tay-after-twitter-users-teach-it-racism/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/24/microsoft-silences-its-new...
- StreamBright 9y ago
  They also banned it so the Chinese social graph is not leaked out to hostile countries.
- est 9y ago
  > they banned it b/c its a propaganda engine that they didn't want to compete with No, they banned it because they don't know how to take down posts.
deusofnull 9y ago
I'm so glad my government, the United States Government, has definitely never spread propaganda in foreign countries with the express interest of creating a more favorable political climate there for their interests.
- jdoliner 9y ago
  Yeah, even if they completely corrupt our political systems we can sleep well at night knowing that we've always taken the high ground on things like this.
  - deusofnull 9y ago
    Yeah, and it sure is a good thing we always pick the "moderate rebels" to provide material aid to, and i am so grateful that those "moderate rebels" we give weapons to never morph into horrific radical insurgencies that end up subsequently haunting us for decades.
- nscalf 9y ago
  I think this opinion is very narrow minded. Who is the person you're trying to convince with this thought? No one is doubting that we are doing this overseas, that doesn't make it any less concerning that it is happening here. It is a weapon that doesn't result in war, I hope my government, the United States Government, uses this more as an early option instead of going to war. If anything, I'm upset they are not more effective at this. When a foreign government disrupts my free elections though, I'm going to be troubled by it. What you're saying is effectively belittling the importance of hardening our own systems from this foreign influence.
  - milcron 9y ago
    > No one is doubting that we are doing this overseas The 2nd highest comment is "honestly curious" whether the US participates in propaganda campaigns.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
Splines 9y ago
Honestly curious - does the US spread propaganda to the rest of the world? If I had to guess it would be that hollywood historically did most of the work - exporting "American" values and culture to other nations, but I don't know if that's still the case. Anyways, it would be interesting to know if there is any kind of US presence on Chinese/Russian social networks (like, is there some bizarro mirror world /r/the_donald in Russian with posts pushing some kind of US agenda?)
- wyldfire 9y ago
  Yes, see Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, etc. for overt examples. IMO we should not do covert activity that reciprocates Russia's in this case. We should do overt things like trade sanctions or embargoes.
  - retailbuyout 9y ago
    I’m not so sure—propaganda can be both ethical and useful. The question is, can groups be ethical at the scale of government? If it’s about spreading information about freedom of speech, evading censorship, etc, it’s hard to see how this could hurt humanity. If it’s spreading “freedom”, that seems to be a dogwhistle for protecting domains of influence—pure imperialism. I mean, i think it comes down to whether or not you can sleep at night knowing what you’re doing. Much of the “voice of america” actions of the last century do not pass this sleep test.
- jdoliner 9y ago
  The US certainly does spread propaganda to the rest of the world. Voice of America [0] has historical been the main vehicle for this. They also seem to have pioneered a lot of the internet based methods that are being used now with their concept of memetic warfare. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America [1] http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a507172.pdf http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a507172.pdf
- owebmaster 9y ago
  House of Cards? Brazil faced a coup d'etat with the same script of the series, at the same time it was aired. I'm skeptical so I don't believe in coincidences.
xienze 9y ago
I was wondering when someone was finally going to get around to asking if countries other than Russia spread memes on Facebook. To the surprise of no one except apparently Democrats, they do. Now the million dollar question, will anyone investigate _China's_ involvement in influencing the election? Of course not, that would weaken the narrative that Russia acted alone in this endeavor (with Trump, of course).
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > Now the million dollar question, will anyone investigate _China's_ involvement in influencing the election? If at all, China would have helped Clinton. An isolationist like Trump is not good for China which depends on exports to the US and other western countries to fuel its growth, which China needs in turn to prevent social unrest caused by poverty. No one will waste resources in tracking down who helped the loser of the election.
- penistives 9y ago
  > To the surprise of no one except apparently Democrats, Didn't the Democrats have a huge astrotrufing campaign last year?
volgo 9y ago
At what point is "propaganda" just annoying advertising? I mean, I've seen these silly promotion ads where they interview random people who say China is great. They're annoying, but not unlike random mattress ads or ebook ads I see everywhere on the timeline. Most of the time i just ignore them always. Besides, they're no where near the level of nastiness of local political ads that denounce other sides as rapists and child molester (at least in my area, where they basically show latinos as gang members)
jstarfish 9y ago
It's not surprising. China just adds itself to the list of countries with "you do it over there, but you don't do it here" laws. * China fabricates propaganda on Facebook, but bans it at home. * Germany manufactures and exports firearms, but tightly regulates them at home. * The US manufactures and exports cigarettes and pharmaceuticals, but tightly regulates them at home. * Israel markets binary option trading scams to the rest of the world, but bans them at home. * Russia produces malware, but only punishes anyone who unleashes it at home. There's a lot to be said about the credibility of products and services that governments won't let their own people have access to but freely sell to the rest of the world.
- vslira 9y ago
  This should be a WTO principle or something: you’re only allowed to sell products/services to foreign countries thay you allow to circulate internally and on similar conditions.
  - jstanley 9y ago
    Why?
    - jdoliner 9y ago
      Because that's the globalist answer to everything. Find some organization that you feel is responsible for fixing some moral failing you perceive in the world. Lobby them, claiming that they are responsible for the moral failing and immoral if they don't fix it. Get some lame piece of regulation out of it that causes more harm than good. That harm becomes your next moral failing and the process repeats. But everyone involved gets to project the outward impression that they are making the world a better place.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - brianjoseff 9y ago
        How do you propose we better address perceived moral failings?
fludlight 9y ago
How is this news? Every global and regional power does this sort of thing to further their economic and political interests. They do it against both friend and foe. They've been doing it since newspapers first became popular. And there's nothing wrong with it. Sure it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but Facebook posts filled with misinformation, sponsored by foreign agents disguised as your countrymen are vastly preferable to the alternatives which have historically included sponsored coups, astroturfed bloody protests, economically crippling sanctions, and assassinations. [1] China, Russia, the US, the UK, Israel, KSA, India, Germany, etc. Yes, even Germany which many people on HN seem to think miraculously stopped spying in 1989 and ascended to ethical heaven. I wouldn't be surprised if Canada used it during the Keystone pipeline debate.
- eighthnate 9y ago
  > How is this news? It isn't news. It's propaganda. NYTimes and WaPo have been spearheading a political/propaganda campaign against social media ( fb, reddit, youtube, etc ) to reign them in. The last thing the nytimes wants is competition to the propaganda arena. Traditional media has been trying to get social media to fall in line for nearly a decade. The last election put a sense on urgency in the establishment and the media mouthpieces they control. Also it helps to scapegoat russia, china, etc for how ineffective the media was last election in shaping the narrative.
  - dingoonline 9y ago
    > It isn't news. It's propaganda. NYTimes and WaPo have been spearheading a political/propaganda campaign against social media ( fb, reddit, youtube, etc ) to reign them in. Traditional media has been trying to get social media to fall in line for nearly a decade. This gives these media companies way too much credit. If they had this much self-awareness and intelligence they wouldn't have been caught out by the rise of social media in the first place. "Traditional media" has had hundreds of years to get it's business model down and comfortably integrated into society, so of course new media is having the lion's share of the problems which is being reported on. This should all be totally obvious and expected - it's not really a massive conspiracy - it's innovative business models forcing new problems into the open. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have been in the public consciousness for less than 15 years.
libpcap 9y ago
It's time for Facebook and Twitter to start closing/banning Chinese and Russian mouthpiece from setting up pages on its platform.
outside1234 9y ago
I think they probably banned Facebook about 20 milliseconds after they realized it could be used as a weapon like this.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  They banned Facebook in 2009 because the 2008 Olympics were over and they no longer had to pretend to be opening up to the rest of the world (they used Uighur separatism discussion as an excuse). They’ll probably ban it before the 2022 Olympics to redo that show for face purposes only to reban it again afterwards.
pteredactyl 9y ago
“New York Times Spreads Propaganda to U.S. as it Realizes Their Monopoly on U.S. Propaganda is Coming to and End”
659087 9y ago
Perhaps Zuckerberg can ask another member of the Chinese government to name his next child to smooth this over.
- prklmn 9y ago
  https://twitter.com/MgtowExpat/status/927593680277348352 https://twitter.com/MgtowExpat/status/927593680277348352
throw2016 9y ago
For all the talk about democracy, freedom, diversity and dissent the country seems extremely uncomfortable and insecure in the face of diversity and dissent it has no control over, unlike tightly controlled narratives in traditional media and is now seeing gremlins everywhere. This is paranoia. This is a new form of McCarthyism and its a double edged sword. Other countries can use the exact same logic to ban hollywood and western media for propaganda and you can't then lecture them on free press or accuse them of authoritarianism. It should be taken for granted there is going to be fair share of propaganda and rumour mongering everywhere and always has been in human society. The only way to 'control' this is to establish a 'ministry of truth'. But given the level of double speak and paranoia I won't be surprised to hear folks advocating a tightly controlled 'ministry of truth' to 'protect' our fragile democracies.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  Diversity of opinion is one thing. Dissent from official US positions, OK. But very effective manipulation from very skillful people is something a bit beyond "diversity of opinion". You can present a diverse opinion without trying to manipulate, and without being dishonest about who you are. This is something above mere diversity of opinion, or even dissent. This is dishonest, covert propaganda.
  - BeetleB 9y ago
    >But very effective manipulation from very skillful people is something a bit beyond "diversity of opinion". You've just described the whole advertising industry.
    - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
      Yes, I noticed that. Honest advertising is also something beyond "diversity of opinion", but it's one that we accept. Dishonest advertising is another step beyond that, one that we don't accept, and that we try to keep out of society. This (China/Russia Facebook propaganda) is more like dishonest advertising; we should seek to eliminate it.
azangru 9y ago
I don’t understand why the media obsess that much about who spreads which propaganda where. If people uncritically eat up whatever they are fed by their newsfeeds, then we are hopeless. If, however, people can consume news critically, then propaganda may merely be annoying, hardly harmful.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  >I don’t understand why the media obsess that much about who spreads which propaganda where. Maybe because they're part of the problem?
firefoxd 9y ago
Oh, and this is an ad that ran in the U.S. airwaves. https://youtu.be/OTSQozWP-rM https://youtu.be/OTSQozWP-rM
drak0n1c 9y ago
At Quora there is a very strong presence of commentators who only focus on answering geopolitical questions about China. It is an area of inordinate size (quantity of questions + answers) compared to other topics of interest.
jorgec 9y ago
CNN spreads propaganda to U.S. On Facebook, CNN earns awards as fairness and freedom fighters.

168 points by QAPereo 9y ago

lol this is like some propaganda inception

Before someone points out that nations have always done this: It has never been this effective, targeted or difficult to uncover.

xienze 9y ago
> It has never been this effective Debatable, unless you're taking the claims that $100K of meme-tier ads on Facebook changed the outcome of the election at face value. > or difficult to uncover. Is it really? Facebook certainly seemed very sure of every little ad that was purchased by a Russian party.
- altcognito 9y ago
  > Debatable, unless you're taking the claims that $100K of meme-tier ads on Facebook changed the outcome of the election at face value. It's not just Facebook, or Twitter, or 4chan, or Reddit, or HN, or IRC, or email, or TV ads, or superpac ads, etc.... Ads can be targeted moreso than ever, celebrities are more easily roped in willingly or as useful idiots. Content has wider possibilities ("verified" emails). People are much more primed for disinformation than they were in the past. > Is it really? Facebook certainly seemed very sure of every little ad that was purchased by a Russian party. They paid in rubles. They didn't seem to even think it was terribly important to hide.
jdoliner 9y ago
It's never been this effectively targeted at The US. US meddling has been much more effective than this, and the tactics much more extreme. It's also not exactly difficult to uncover, Facebook is telling us exactly what they did.

StavrosK 9y ago

I mean, it bans Facebook exactly because it's easy to spread propaganda through it. What the hell is up with this title? "Country attacks with weapons, the same thing it bans internally". Obviously?

prklmn 9y ago
No, not obviously. Why isn't it banned in every country that's not a US ally? Just China...

bognition 9y ago

China didn't ban Facebook b/c they don't think it should exist, they banned it b/c its a propaganda engine that they didn't want to compete with. In the world of international jockeying and competition it would be naive to assume they would use a tool like facebook against their economic rivals.

mtgx 9y ago
> they banned it b/c its a propaganda engine that they didn't want to compete with That's a good way to put it. Since China is so in-love with AI, I wonder if we could use AI with the same purpose - spreading "freedom" information in China. Something like this actually happened recently: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-chatbots-communist-party-ruling-critics-peoples-tencent-babyq-little-bing-a7875601.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-chatbots-...
- penistives 9y ago
  Or maybe it'll just end up spreading racism and denying the Holocaust. Something like this actually happened recently: https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/24/microsoft-silences-its-new-a-i-bot-tay-after-twitter-users-teach-it-racism/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/24/microsoft-silences-its-new...
StreamBright 9y ago
They also banned it so the Chinese social graph is not leaked out to hostile countries.
est 9y ago
> they banned it b/c its a propaganda engine that they didn't want to compete with No, they banned it because they don't know how to take down posts.

deusofnull 9y ago

I'm so glad my government, the United States Government, has definitely never spread propaganda in foreign countries with the express interest of creating a more favorable political climate there for their interests.

jdoliner 9y ago
Yeah, even if they completely corrupt our political systems we can sleep well at night knowing that we've always taken the high ground on things like this.
- deusofnull 9y ago
  Yeah, and it sure is a good thing we always pick the "moderate rebels" to provide material aid to, and i am so grateful that those "moderate rebels" we give weapons to never morph into horrific radical insurgencies that end up subsequently haunting us for decades.
nscalf 9y ago
I think this opinion is very narrow minded. Who is the person you're trying to convince with this thought? No one is doubting that we are doing this overseas, that doesn't make it any less concerning that it is happening here. It is a weapon that doesn't result in war, I hope my government, the United States Government, uses this more as an early option instead of going to war. If anything, I'm upset they are not more effective at this. When a foreign government disrupts my free elections though, I'm going to be troubled by it. What you're saying is effectively belittling the importance of hardening our own systems from this foreign influence.
- milcron 9y ago
  > No one is doubting that we are doing this overseas The 2nd highest comment is "honestly curious" whether the US participates in propaganda campaigns.
  - emodendroket 9y ago

Splines 9y ago

Honestly curious - does the US spread propaganda to the rest of the world? If I had to guess it would be that hollywood historically did most of the work - exporting "American" values and culture to other nations, but I don't know if that's still the case. Anyways, it would be interesting to know if there is any kind of US presence on Chinese/Russian social networks (like, is there some bizarro mirror world /r/the_donald in Russian with posts pushing some kind of US agenda?)

wyldfire 9y ago
Yes, see Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, etc. for overt examples. IMO we should not do covert activity that reciprocates Russia's in this case. We should do overt things like trade sanctions or embargoes.
- retailbuyout 9y ago
  I’m not so sure—propaganda can be both ethical and useful. The question is, can groups be ethical at the scale of government? If it’s about spreading information about freedom of speech, evading censorship, etc, it’s hard to see how this could hurt humanity. If it’s spreading “freedom”, that seems to be a dogwhistle for protecting domains of influence—pure imperialism. I mean, i think it comes down to whether or not you can sleep at night knowing what you’re doing. Much of the “voice of america” actions of the last century do not pass this sleep test.
jdoliner 9y ago
The US certainly does spread propaganda to the rest of the world. Voice of America [0] has historical been the main vehicle for this. They also seem to have pioneered a lot of the internet based methods that are being used now with their concept of memetic warfare. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America [1] http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a507172.pdf http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a507172.pdf
owebmaster 9y ago
House of Cards? Brazil faced a coup d'etat with the same script of the series, at the same time it was aired. I'm skeptical so I don't believe in coincidences.

xienze 9y ago

I was wondering when someone was finally going to get around to asking if countries other than Russia spread memes on Facebook. To the surprise of no one except apparently Democrats, they do. Now the million dollar question, will anyone investigate _China's_ involvement in influencing the election? Of course not, that would weaken the narrative that Russia acted alone in this endeavor (with Trump, of course).

mschuster91 9y ago
> Now the million dollar question, will anyone investigate _China's_ involvement in influencing the election? If at all, China would have helped Clinton. An isolationist like Trump is not good for China which depends on exports to the US and other western countries to fuel its growth, which China needs in turn to prevent social unrest caused by poverty. No one will waste resources in tracking down who helped the loser of the election.
penistives 9y ago
> To the surprise of no one except apparently Democrats, Didn't the Democrats have a huge astrotrufing campaign last year?

volgo 9y ago

At what point is "propaganda" just annoying advertising? I mean, I've seen these silly promotion ads where they interview random people who say China is great. They're annoying, but not unlike random mattress ads or ebook ads I see everywhere on the timeline. Most of the time i just ignore them always. Besides, they're no where near the level of nastiness of local political ads that denounce other sides as rapists and child molester (at least in my area, where they basically show latinos as gang members)

jstarfish 9y ago

It's not surprising. China just adds itself to the list of countries with "you do it over there, but you don't do it here" laws. * China fabricates propaganda on Facebook, but bans it at home. * Germany manufactures and exports firearms, but tightly regulates them at home. * The US manufactures and exports cigarettes and pharmaceuticals, but tightly regulates them at home. * Israel markets binary option trading scams to the rest of the world, but bans them at home. * Russia produces malware, but only punishes anyone who unleashes it at home. There's a lot to be said about the credibility of products and services that governments won't let their own people have access to but freely sell to the rest of the world.

vslira 9y ago
This should be a WTO principle or something: you’re only allowed to sell products/services to foreign countries thay you allow to circulate internally and on similar conditions.
- jstanley 9y ago
  Why?
  - jdoliner 9y ago
    Because that's the globalist answer to everything. Find some organization that you feel is responsible for fixing some moral failing you perceive in the world. Lobby them, claiming that they are responsible for the moral failing and immoral if they don't fix it. Get some lame piece of regulation out of it that causes more harm than good. That harm becomes your next moral failing and the process repeats. But everyone involved gets to project the outward impression that they are making the world a better place.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - brianjoseff 9y ago
      How do you propose we better address perceived moral failings?

fludlight 9y ago

How is this news? Every global and regional power does this sort of thing to further their economic and political interests. They do it against both friend and foe. They've been doing it since newspapers first became popular. And there's nothing wrong with it. Sure it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but Facebook posts filled with misinformation, sponsored by foreign agents disguised as your countrymen are vastly preferable to the alternatives which have historically included sponsored coups, astroturfed bloody protests, economically crippling sanctions, and assassinations. [1] China, Russia, the US, the UK, Israel, KSA, India, Germany, etc. Yes, even Germany which many people on HN seem to think miraculously stopped spying in 1989 and ascended to ethical heaven. I wouldn't be surprised if Canada used it during the Keystone pipeline debate.

eighthnate 9y ago
> How is this news? It isn't news. It's propaganda. NYTimes and WaPo have been spearheading a political/propaganda campaign against social media ( fb, reddit, youtube, etc ) to reign them in. The last thing the nytimes wants is competition to the propaganda arena. Traditional media has been trying to get social media to fall in line for nearly a decade. The last election put a sense on urgency in the establishment and the media mouthpieces they control. Also it helps to scapegoat russia, china, etc for how ineffective the media was last election in shaping the narrative.
- dingoonline 9y ago
  > It isn't news. It's propaganda. NYTimes and WaPo have been spearheading a political/propaganda campaign against social media ( fb, reddit, youtube, etc ) to reign them in. Traditional media has been trying to get social media to fall in line for nearly a decade. This gives these media companies way too much credit. If they had this much self-awareness and intelligence they wouldn't have been caught out by the rise of social media in the first place. "Traditional media" has had hundreds of years to get it's business model down and comfortably integrated into society, so of course new media is having the lion's share of the problems which is being reported on. This should all be totally obvious and expected - it's not really a massive conspiracy - it's innovative business models forcing new problems into the open. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have been in the public consciousness for less than 15 years.

libpcap 9y ago

It's time for Facebook and Twitter to start closing/banning Chinese and Russian mouthpiece from setting up pages on its platform.

outside1234 9y ago

I think they probably banned Facebook about 20 milliseconds after they realized it could be used as a weapon like this.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
They banned Facebook in 2009 because the 2008 Olympics were over and they no longer had to pretend to be opening up to the rest of the world (they used Uighur separatism discussion as an excuse). They’ll probably ban it before the 2022 Olympics to redo that show for face purposes only to reban it again afterwards.

pteredactyl 9y ago

“New York Times Spreads Propaganda to U.S. as it Realizes Their Monopoly on U.S. Propaganda is Coming to and End”

659087 9y ago

Perhaps Zuckerberg can ask another member of the Chinese government to name his next child to smooth this over.

prklmn 9y ago
https://twitter.com/MgtowExpat/status/927593680277348352 https://twitter.com/MgtowExpat/status/927593680277348352

throw2016 9y ago

For all the talk about democracy, freedom, diversity and dissent the country seems extremely uncomfortable and insecure in the face of diversity and dissent it has no control over, unlike tightly controlled narratives in traditional media and is now seeing gremlins everywhere. This is paranoia. This is a new form of McCarthyism and its a double edged sword. Other countries can use the exact same logic to ban hollywood and western media for propaganda and you can't then lecture them on free press or accuse them of authoritarianism. It should be taken for granted there is going to be fair share of propaganda and rumour mongering everywhere and always has been in human society. The only way to 'control' this is to establish a 'ministry of truth'. But given the level of double speak and paranoia I won't be surprised to hear folks advocating a tightly controlled 'ministry of truth' to 'protect' our fragile democracies.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
Diversity of opinion is one thing. Dissent from official US positions, OK. But very effective manipulation from very skillful people is something a bit beyond "diversity of opinion". You can present a diverse opinion without trying to manipulate, and without being dishonest about who you are. This is something above mere diversity of opinion, or even dissent. This is dishonest, covert propaganda.
- BeetleB 9y ago
  >But very effective manipulation from very skillful people is something a bit beyond "diversity of opinion". You've just described the whole advertising industry.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    Yes, I noticed that. Honest advertising is also something beyond "diversity of opinion", but it's one that we accept. Dishonest advertising is another step beyond that, one that we don't accept, and that we try to keep out of society. This (China/Russia Facebook propaganda) is more like dishonest advertising; we should seek to eliminate it.

azangru 9y ago

I don’t understand why the media obsess that much about who spreads which propaganda where. If people uncritically eat up whatever they are fed by their newsfeeds, then we are hopeless. If, however, people can consume news critically, then propaganda may merely be annoying, hardly harmful.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago
>I don’t understand why the media obsess that much about who spreads which propaganda where. Maybe because they're part of the problem?

firefoxd 9y ago

Oh, and this is an ad that ran in the U.S. airwaves. https://youtu.be/OTSQozWP-rM https://youtu.be/OTSQozWP-rM

drak0n1c 9y ago

At Quora there is a very strong presence of commentators who only focus on answering geopolitical questions about China. It is an area of inordinate size (quantity of questions + answers) compared to other topics of interest.

jorgec 9y ago

CNN spreads propaganda to U.S. On Facebook, CNN earns awards as fairness and freedom fighters.