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Garbage journalism to cite anonymous internet commenters and then also fail to mention that China's Communist Party liberally uses internet shills to manipula
by yasp 8y ago
Garbage journalism to cite anonymous internet commenters and then also fail to mention that China's Communist Party
liberally uses internet shills to manipulate public opinion.
>A 2016 Harvard University paper found that in contrast to common assumptions, Chinese Internet commentators are mostly paid government bureaucrats, responding to government directives in times of crisis, and flood Chinese social media with pro-government comments. They also rarely engage in direct arguments, and around 80% of the analysed posts involve pro-China cheerleading with inspirational slogans, and 13% involve general praise and suggestions on governmental policies. [1]
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tivert 8y agoThey also use social media censorship strategically to accomplish their own aims. I recall a story of some lower government official (something to do with trains, I think) who screwed something up. The higher ups unusually chose not to censor the social media criticism of him, then used the criticism to justify his removal.
- laurent123456 8y agoThat's a tricky situation, because they want to report about some event in China and they logically quote a few comments to give the general mood. But you're saying the whole thing might be fake, so what should media do? Stop reporting about stuff happening in China? Investigate each comment and find out if it's true or fake? (Not going to happen) I think what they're doing is all they can do - report on what's happening, objectively, use sources as reliable as possible, etc. And if it turns out the whole thing was made up for political reasons, expose the lies, which the BBC also do.