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The Chinese global trollism is getting worse. From Airlines who don't label Taiwan under China to kids in primary school in Australia who paint a Taiwanese flag

The Chinese global trollism is getting worse. From Airlines who don't label Taiwan under China to kids in primary school in Australia who paint a Taiwanese flag on a bull, the Chinese are really becoming more and more belligerent. The Chinese internet army of "hurt feelings" and stupid whataboutism and fake moral equivalence is entering HN as well. Whenver there is any negative story about china, the downvotes happen immediately and "defends of the honor of china" pop up magically throwing dirt everywhere. I'm sure when PG made this, having nationalistic Chinese trolls degrade the forum with their "China is always right" bs was probably not on the top of his mind. I wonder if we can ask the mods. Is there a pattern of downvotes whenver there isa negative story about China? I wonder if a bunch of Tencent/Alibaba "patriotic chinese" simply created lots of accounts and upvoted themselves to get to the point they can downvote across their accounts to "keep the internet clean" of anything that embarasses Xi Jinping and his stupid uneducated bimbo of a wife

ericjang 8y ago
I think the last remark about Xi Jinping's wife was uncalled for (I'm Taiwanese American).
- foodislove 8y ago
  Yet it is a fact. Not only do trolls seek to degrade and destroy freedom and democracy, they defend a bunch of corrupt morons who's only real ability is to either steal or exploit their own people.
  - Lionsion 8y ago
    It might be a fact (I don't know), but certainly it detracts from your point. I think you should edit out the stuff about her.
  - che_shirecat 8y ago
    >his stupid uneducated bimbo of a wife that is most definitely not a fact, it is an opinion, namely your opinion. It's also a pointless and needlessly inflammatory insult that engenders no productive discussion. Would you say the same about the first lady of the US?
  - alexandercrohde 8y ago
    It is the exact type of ad-hominem, inflammatory, and irrelevant distraction that this article is pointing out.
vthallam 8y ago
I agree with a sibling comment, you put together a good observation about how the posts get down voted and eventually getting out of the first page every time, but I think you should edit the last comment about his Xi Jinping's Wife.
- Lionsion 8y ago
  I agree as well. Maybe she's uneducated and unintelligent, I don't know anything about her, but there are more polite ways of saying that and it distracts from the overall point.
Lionsion 8y ago
> Whenver there is any negative story about china, the downvotes happen immediately and "defends of the honor of china" pop up magically throwing dirt everywhere. Maybe a little, but the main thing I see in stories like that is dozens of comments that that derail the comments into a "the US is just as bad!" flame-war, and kill discussion of the negative story. It's really effective, because Western users are often ignorant of China and/or indifferent to it, but will happily jump into a flame-war about Western countries when presented with the bait.
- rdlecler1 8y ago
  Or it’s a false flag operation: create flame wars and toxify certain subjects.
nothrabannosir 8y ago
The HN moderating skew on anything regarding China is palpable. Anecdotal, but I’ve witnessed it every single time I participated (both ways). And I systematically see posts buried which otherwise would not have been. It’s becoming a nuisance, which is fine. But I fear what will happen if the trend continues. It may very well end up suffocating thoughtful discussion about China and their policies. Which, ironically, would make it all the more important to have those :) I find myself wondering if it’s astroturfing or blind nationalism. (I agree the comment about his wife is in poor taste, by the way :/ I would support an amendment to your post, but I guess that’s your call.)
- alexandercrohde 8y ago
  > And I systematically see posts buried which otherwise would not have been. I'm skeptical that mods are deliberating burying such posts. What can happen is 1 - it gets flagged then vouched, but still has a huge karma hit. This happened to all the Damore discussions. 2 - it has a much greater ratio of comments to upvotes. This is taken as a marker of bickering and leads to penalization
  - nothrabannosir 8y ago
    I see the confusion, my apologies; I was referring to moderation of comments by users. This is very susceptible to astroturfing and manipulation, as discussed elsewhere in this thread.
reaperducer 8y ago
On HN it's not unique to China. Anything negative about India is downvoted into oblivion. You can almost time it to the rising of the sun in India Standard Time. I'm not saying that it's being orchestrated by the Indian government, but it does happen.
- vthallam 8y ago
  This is the distraction the linked study was talking about. I'm not sure if it happens about articles related to India, but since we are on the topic about China's article getting down-voted (anecdotally I have seen multiple times), I think we should focus on that atm.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Agreed. Not trying to divert attention from the topic at hand (like the people cited in the Harvard study do).
- Theodores 8y ago
  How many Indian people live in India and in the global diaspora? How many Chinese people live in China? How many Americans are there? I have not counted them all myself, however this discussion has not talked the numbers and there are a fair few Chinese and Indian people and not so many American people, therefore some presence online is to be expected by people that don't go along with what Washington says. Regarding whether it is bots or not, the guys in the China office where I work sometimes send out company wide emails that do not look like they have been written by humans. Particularly salient are the 'employee of the month' nominations that should be sent to HR and not 'cc all'. These emails definitely look like they could be written by an auto-translating bot. Reflected in these emails are different values and different ways of praising people that cause us in the UK to chuckle a bit.
foodislove 8y ago
This proves the point. I added the "bimbo of a wife" comment as an example. If you look on web forums, there are unmitigated attacks of similar calibre towards Tsai (President of Taiwan) calling her a "old whore", "old maid", "japanese collaborator", and such. The first time you see such nonsense like the "bimbo" reference, you call it out. However, after you see it 50 times, you just ignore it. For you, you ignore it, but since nobody calls it out, it is gradually asserted as fact. This is the same trend online by the organized trolls whereby nobody even bothers to call them out when they pretend Taiwan is part of China; that the South China Sea belongs to China; and that Xi Jinping is the new Kim Jong Il. The first time you see something like this attack, you call it out. By the time you see it 200 times from 20 different people, you'll be indifferent. I should write a better 50c algorithm that spews Peng is a stupid bimbo until everyone on the internet accepts it. Note. I don't think she is a bimbo, but the point stands none the less
- dang 8y ago
  It doesn't "stand", because you're not welcome to haul that kind of trash into Hacker News just because people sling it elsewhere.
dang 8y ago
Your attack against Xi Jinping's wife is shameful and obviously a bannable offense. It's shameful most of all to whatever point of view or country you're representing. Who would want to be associated with something like that? If you want to continue participating on HN, please don't ever do anything like this again. The rest of your comment is also the kind of nationalistic ranting that isn't allowed on HN. People on both sides of every strongly-felt line perceive their opponents as trolls. If you have evidence of abuse, please email us so we can take a look; we ban accounts that do that, regardless of which nations or opinions are at issue. But please don't post insinuations without basis. By 'basis' I mean specific links or data. Simply having an opposing view is not enough; it's too subject to how one feels. The site guidelines mention this, so it would be a good idea to (re-)read them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Is there a pattern of downvotes whenver there isa negative story about China There isn't such a pattern than I'm aware of. What you're probably seeing is users flagging stories that they feel are off-topic for HN, presumably because they lead to nationalistic flamewars.

ericjang 8y ago

I think the last remark about Xi Jinping's wife was uncalled for (I'm Taiwanese American).

foodislove 8y ago
Yet it is a fact. Not only do trolls seek to degrade and destroy freedom and democracy, they defend a bunch of corrupt morons who's only real ability is to either steal or exploit their own people.
- Lionsion 8y ago
  It might be a fact (I don't know), but certainly it detracts from your point. I think you should edit out the stuff about her.
- che_shirecat 8y ago
  >his stupid uneducated bimbo of a wife that is most definitely not a fact, it is an opinion, namely your opinion. It's also a pointless and needlessly inflammatory insult that engenders no productive discussion. Would you say the same about the first lady of the US?
- alexandercrohde 8y ago
  It is the exact type of ad-hominem, inflammatory, and irrelevant distraction that this article is pointing out.

vthallam 8y ago

I agree with a sibling comment, you put together a good observation about how the posts get down voted and eventually getting out of the first page every time, but I think you should edit the last comment about his Xi Jinping's Wife.

Lionsion 8y ago
I agree as well. Maybe she's uneducated and unintelligent, I don't know anything about her, but there are more polite ways of saying that and it distracts from the overall point.

Lionsion 8y ago

> Whenver there is any negative story about china, the downvotes happen immediately and "defends of the honor of china" pop up magically throwing dirt everywhere. Maybe a little, but the main thing I see in stories like that is dozens of comments that that derail the comments into a "the US is just as bad!" flame-war, and kill discussion of the negative story. It's really effective, because Western users are often ignorant of China and/or indifferent to it, but will happily jump into a flame-war about Western countries when presented with the bait.

rdlecler1 8y ago
Or it’s a false flag operation: create flame wars and toxify certain subjects.

nothrabannosir 8y ago

The HN moderating skew on anything regarding China is palpable. Anecdotal, but I’ve witnessed it every single time I participated (both ways). And I systematically see posts buried which otherwise would not have been. It’s becoming a nuisance, which is fine. But I fear what will happen if the trend continues. It may very well end up suffocating thoughtful discussion about China and their policies. Which, ironically, would make it all the more important to have those :) I find myself wondering if it’s astroturfing or blind nationalism. (I agree the comment about his wife is in poor taste, by the way :/ I would support an amendment to your post, but I guess that’s your call.)

alexandercrohde 8y ago
> And I systematically see posts buried which otherwise would not have been. I'm skeptical that mods are deliberating burying such posts. What can happen is 1 - it gets flagged then vouched, but still has a huge karma hit. This happened to all the Damore discussions. 2 - it has a much greater ratio of comments to upvotes. This is taken as a marker of bickering and leads to penalization
- nothrabannosir 8y ago
  I see the confusion, my apologies; I was referring to moderation of comments by users. This is very susceptible to astroturfing and manipulation, as discussed elsewhere in this thread.

reaperducer 8y ago

On HN it's not unique to China. Anything negative about India is downvoted into oblivion. You can almost time it to the rising of the sun in India Standard Time. I'm not saying that it's being orchestrated by the Indian government, but it does happen.

vthallam 8y ago
This is the distraction the linked study was talking about. I'm not sure if it happens about articles related to India, but since we are on the topic about China's article getting down-voted (anecdotally I have seen multiple times), I think we should focus on that atm.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Agreed. Not trying to divert attention from the topic at hand (like the people cited in the Harvard study do).
Theodores 8y ago
How many Indian people live in India and in the global diaspora? How many Chinese people live in China? How many Americans are there? I have not counted them all myself, however this discussion has not talked the numbers and there are a fair few Chinese and Indian people and not so many American people, therefore some presence online is to be expected by people that don't go along with what Washington says. Regarding whether it is bots or not, the guys in the China office where I work sometimes send out company wide emails that do not look like they have been written by humans. Particularly salient are the 'employee of the month' nominations that should be sent to HR and not 'cc all'. These emails definitely look like they could be written by an auto-translating bot. Reflected in these emails are different values and different ways of praising people that cause us in the UK to chuckle a bit.

foodislove 8y ago

This proves the point. I added the "bimbo of a wife" comment as an example. If you look on web forums, there are unmitigated attacks of similar calibre towards Tsai (President of Taiwan) calling her a "old whore", "old maid", "japanese collaborator", and such. The first time you see such nonsense like the "bimbo" reference, you call it out. However, after you see it 50 times, you just ignore it. For you, you ignore it, but since nobody calls it out, it is gradually asserted as fact. This is the same trend online by the organized trolls whereby nobody even bothers to call them out when they pretend Taiwan is part of China; that the South China Sea belongs to China; and that Xi Jinping is the new Kim Jong Il. The first time you see something like this attack, you call it out. By the time you see it 200 times from 20 different people, you'll be indifferent. I should write a better 50c algorithm that spews Peng is a stupid bimbo until everyone on the internet accepts it. Note. I don't think she is a bimbo, but the point stands none the less

dang 8y ago
It doesn't "stand", because you're not welcome to haul that kind of trash into Hacker News just because people sling it elsewhere.

dang 8y ago

Your attack against Xi Jinping's wife is shameful and obviously a bannable offense. It's shameful most of all to whatever point of view or country you're representing. Who would want to be associated with something like that? If you want to continue participating on HN, please don't ever do anything like this again. The rest of your comment is also the kind of nationalistic ranting that isn't allowed on HN. People on both sides of every strongly-felt line perceive their opponents as trolls. If you have evidence of abuse, please email us so we can take a look; we ban accounts that do that, regardless of which nations or opinions are at issue. But please don't post insinuations without basis. By 'basis' I mean specific links or data. Simply having an opposing view is not enough; it's too subject to how one feels. The site guidelines mention this, so it would be a good idea to (re-)read them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Is there a pattern of downvotes whenver there isa negative story about China There isn't such a pattern than I'm aware of. What you're probably seeing is users flagging stories that they feel are off-topic for HN, presumably because they lead to nationalistic flamewars.