10 ms·

HongKonger here. I have some friends in China posting similar anti-protest posts on WeChat social media. It's like the news they read has a completely different

HongKonger here. I have some friends in China posting similar anti-protest posts on WeChat social media. It's like the news they read has a completely different story than what it's being told in legitimate new sources. The problem of fake news does become very apparent, and I hope people in China can eventually gain awareness or at least start to question the validity of their news sources.

ggg3 7y ago
same in brazil and crimea and before that arabspring. the obvious fake content on youtube and facebook was reported and removed, but all it did was hide the traces of the content that flooded private whatsapp groups.
rjf72 7y ago
Interesting. Are the images shared from this article suggesting that protesters are destroying property and engaging in other such behavior fake or somehow being taken out of context?
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > Are the images shared from this article suggesting that protesters are destroying property and engaging in other such behavior fake or somehow being taken out of context? Yes. Some protesters destroyed property. But the Hong Kong protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful. Almost shockingly peaceful. Millions of people are mobilizing in cramped quarters. Very few cultures have the restraint to coördinate so massively with barely any mistakes. Contrast this with the counter-protesters, in Hong Kong [1] and overseas [2]. Pro-Xi protesters are violent at about the same frequency as (if not higher than) Hong Kong's protesters. This despite there being far fewer pro-Xi protesters on the ground. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49066982 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49066982 [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/world/australia/hong-kong-china-queensland-protests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/world/australia/hong-kong...
  - spectramax 7y ago
    I was educating myself of Kashmir protestors in Srinagar and found a stark contrast between Kashmiri protestors (with their ISIS banners: https://i.imgur.com/ib8OVE4.png https://i.imgur.com/ib8OVE4.png) and HK protestors who are peaceful, educated in the issue and careful with sparking any kind of violence. It is amazing really and one of the most well organized large scale protests in the modern history of mankind.
- jazzyjackson 7y ago
  Well it is certainly a willful misrepresention of the protest movement as a whole, to share the window smashing and say "radical people of hong kong" "complete violent behavior" - the context is peaceful revolution, the context is riot cops showing up and applying violent repression of crowds. You're asking questions of concern without taking a side by the way, suggesting that maybe the mainlanders are right to see the protesters as violent and deserving of violent repression by a dictatorship. I would urge you to be a little less willing to take the dictator's side on this.
  - rjf72 7y ago
    I try to not take sides, but rather to simply evaluate evidence. As the evidence shifts in one direction or another, so do my views. To see why judging issues by the groups involved instead of evidence, one doesn't need to go back far. The Iraq war ended up costing hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, trillions of dollars, and helped accelerate a rapid destabilization of the entire Mideast setting the stage of the rise of groups such as Islamic State and its ongoing reign of terror. The mainstream media were all, in orchestrated unison, arguing loudly for the war. And the government provided lots of allusions to evidence and appeals to authority, demanding support for it. And this was a conflict with the 'good guys' versus a literal dictator who was undoubtedly a horrible person. Yet the consequences of that war far dwarfed the atrocities of that man. And it was all based on lies. There was no WMD, the secret high level insider source was a taxi driver who had no connection to the government, the 'mobile weapon labs' were helium generating stations for use in conventional artillery, etc. Throughout history it's not infrequent that such things happen. We'd like to imagine that when the 'good guys' win good things happen, but reality is often not so kind. --- Attaching this as an addendum since I've now been throttled for getting downvoted: I am referring to things such as the single word title piece ran by the Washington Post, "Irrefutable." [1] On the same day the New York Times published this [2] piece entitled "Irrefutable and Undeniable". And there were many other such pieces being run as well. It's just a tad tedious to dig up these articles now from 16 years ago. It was bad. Note in these articles the complete and absolute lack of any sort of critique or even consideration of the possibility that evidence might not hold up to scrutiny. Instead the media condemned and proclaimed with absolute certainty. That was not, is not, journalism - it is propaganda. Consequently I find it important to always remain critical of anything that has substantial political undertones. And so I prefer to take information that both sides agree to and judge it for myself while giving the arguments a distant secondary interest. And while it may ultimately leave me drawing the wrong conclusion, I'd rather be able to justify my logic based on evidence I personally felt compelling beyond any doubt, rather than on parroting others' analysis. I don't really understand why more people don't think this way. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/irrefutable/e598b1be-a78a-4a42-8e1a-c336f7a217f4/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i... [2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-and-undeniable.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-and-u...
kevin_b_er 7y ago
When the fake news is generated and controlled by a government entity, I think the better term is "propaganda".
- guerrilla 7y ago
  It seems unreasonable to restrict the term propaganda to government since any organization can produce propaganda, i.e. "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view."
  - brightball 7y ago
    If it's not from the government, we call it marketing. :-)
    - guerrilla 7y ago
      This is incorrect. Marketing is not necessarily used to promote political change. There are plenty of examples of propaganda in for-proft and non-profit (yet non-state) media which is clearly propaganda and not marketing simultaneously.
      - smt88 7y ago
        When Trump sells MAGA hats, it is both marketing and a tool for political change. Musk selling electric cars can also fall under both categories. People with electric cars are more likely to support policies that make it easier to own electric cars and less likely to care about fossil fuels.
      - Jedi72 7y ago
        Best example of Market-ganda ever, marketers protecting their own. 6 names for the same idea - manipulating others for self-gain.
      - chrischen 7y ago
        Tell that to the political facebook ad companies.
Aperocky 7y ago
It's not necessarily fake, just very selective. When all you hear/see are videos of molotov cocktail, beating the reporter up for having a pro-police tshirt, and british/american flag waving (All of which did happen). You'll have a pretty different image of the protestors. I have to say this selection bias exist on the other end as well, perhaps not as blatant as mainland, where the girl gotten her eye shot or the triad beating people wasn't shown at all.
- hker 7y ago
  > I have to say this selection bias exist on the other end as well, perhaps not as blatant as mainland, where the girl gotten her eye shot or the triad beating people wasn't shown at all. There is selection bias on both sides. A small nitpick, the news about the girl gotten her eye shot is not hidden from Chinese news, but was presented as being shot by a slingshot of a marble by the protestors (in Chinese [1], Google translate [2]). According to reporters who were at the scene, the girl was definitely shot by the police, because only the police could fire the bean bag round which was stuck in the goggles of the girl and caused such injuries. Put differently, CCP is spreading fake news via state media instead of hiding it from the public view. Similar story for the triad beating people: it was presented as the triad was trying to protect their homes from the protestors (in Chinese [3], Google translation failed). The news was not hidden from public view. [1]: https://news.163.com/19/0819/17/EMV7LC0V0001899O.html https://news.163.com/19/0819/17/EMV7LC0V0001899O.html [2]: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=https://news.163.com/19/0819/17/EMV7LC0V0001899O.html https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http... [3]: https://news.ifeng.com/c/7odVZYB5BUn https://news.ifeng.com/c/7odVZYB5BUn
NicoJuicy 7y ago
I think those that don't agree, just don't post it. Being scared of the state and their score. Not sure though. But since 996, I think most of them are pretty aware what is happening abroad ( sometimes)
echelon 7y ago
It's been awhile since I've been over there. How easy is it for those in mainland China to get access to banned tv shows and films? I remember lots of DVD content being sold on the street, but I never came across anything that was in direct opposition to the politics of the regime. What if Netflix (or some other production company) produced a compelling show with an incredibly critical narrative about the PRC and its leadership? Would citizens in mainland China be able to access it through roundabout means? Would you be able to sow the seeds of democracy? Would they even be interested? The last time I was on campus in Shanghai and Beijing, half of those I spoke to were critical of the party and did not believe China would catch up to the West. The other half were total ideological zealots and made me know that my government was inferior. Given my vantage point, I believe the citizenry is at a precipice, but there is no inciting moment to tip the scale. Life in China is comfortable for the burgeoning middle class, and nobody would want to rock that boat. In any case, I think an unfettered political drama about the PRC would be fascinating to watch.
- jascii 7y ago
  Its been a while for me too, I lived in Beijing for a little over 3 years and it has been my experience that access to western media was not all that difficult. There was a general consensus among my friends (mostly academics) that this was by design as the state saw a need for at-least some dissenting discussion among an "intellectual upperclass" to prevent stagnation. I find it amusing that the state controlled news media sounded more like an epic drama then anything we in the west would consider "political news".
- my_username_is_ 7y ago
  >What if Netflix (or some other production company) produced a compelling show with an incredibly critical narrative about the PRC and its leadership? In a way, they've already done this. See "Joshua: Teenager versus Superpower". It's a documentary from the precursor to these protests, the Umbrella Revolution of 2014. They definitely don't take a pro-PRC stance on the issue. >Would citizens in mainland China be able to access it through roundabout means? Yes, VPNs are very common (especially among younger and more educated populations) >Would you be able to sow the seeds of democracy? Would they even be interested? This is more complicated. It's important to realize that there's a rational reason that many people have for supporting the CCP. On the whole, their lives have gotten significantly better over the last couple of decades. They're optimistic about the future. Attacks on the Party are attacks on the mechanism that has ushered in economic growth. To this extent, I wouldn't expect democracy to be welcomed by the average person any time soon; it's simply not a national value for them in the way that it is for the United States. (Huge caveat: remember it's a country of over a billion people and making generalizations is necessarily going to gloss over large sub-populations that may have an entirely different world view)
ma2rten 7y ago
I think it's not just about censorship. Many mainland Chinese abroad who have access to unfiltered media still support Beijing. Chinese people generally value stability and harmony over individual rights. So, why would mainland Chinese people support violent protesters who protest for Hong Kong having more individual rights than the mainland does?
throwaway-43958 7y ago
I have a Chinese friend who went to an Ivy League University, married an American, and currently works for a FAANG company and lives in the Bay Area. Yet they publicly support the PRC Government on Facebook and vehemently attack anyone who express support of Hong Kongers. People believe in what they choose to believe.
- poyu 7y ago
  That’s the power of totalitarian!
- diNgUrAndI 7y ago
  > People believe in what they choose to believe. The same thing can be said about what you are believing about Chinese governments. How would you be sure that you are not biased because of all the western media you consumed? Have you been to China and seen what happened there? Your friend may have access to information on both sides and made the judgement. I would think twice before you ignore this.
ospider 7y ago
Native Chinese here. Hacker news have been a great place to learn new things to me for 5 years. But the political views on Hacker news are somewhat naive to me. It seems that the Chinese Government is always evil and wrong, but why haven't the government collapsed after so many years if there were no people supporting them? People in China, at least those millions people who are able to cross the Great Firewall, know that democracy is generally good, but they also know that a strong central government can also be useful for certain circumstances. Most westerners and HongKongers on Hacker news have a very extreme political view, you just believe "democracy is good"(TM), protesting against the evil Chinese government is good. But can you take a closer look at what is really happening in HK and then decide what you believe? BTW, I'm neither pro-protester nor pro-police, I think the protest is a result of economic regression in HK. You could also check my comment and posting history to see that I'm not a 五毛党.
- chrischen 7y ago
  I'm generally anti-Communist party of China, but mostly because I believe their bureaucracy is completely inept. But I have to agree with you, the vast majority of Western-based HN commenters are politically naïve, as if they just stepped out of a high school US government class. The reason is that US education, while it acknowledges the flaws of democracy, also proclaims that it is the only acceptable form of government.
  - LilBytes 7y ago
    I dispute this. Democracy is not advertised as the only acceptable form of Government, but it is the fairest and best model we've got. You're creating a straw-man with this argument.
    - chrischen 7y ago
      Firstly, I'm not arguing anything, so there is no straw man. Obviously it's not the only form of government, but we are told that it's the only one that's acceptable. There's no objective evaluation and consideration of any alternative political systems. You prove my point. The idea that it's the fairest and best is also subjective. A government gets its authority from the people, and if the Chinese grant authority to its leaders, even absolute authority, (and you can grant authority by simply being pacifist), then who's to say the Chinese government is illegitimate? You? To them your opinions are illegitimate. Even our government is not a perfect democracy. We do not direct vote the president (Trump lost the popular election), and we are not equally represented in these elections (through gerrymandering, electoral college, etc). So to claim that a democracy, any democracy, or even our own democracy, is somehow the "fairest and best" is extremely disingenuous. These things are justified as a way to prevent "tyranny by the majority", but really it's just another 3/5ths law (black peoples' votes only counted as 3/5ths of a vote)—a way to prevent the redistribution of power. We don't have a perfect government system, which means it's arguable if we have the best system because that would imply there is no room for improvement. Our education system espouses propoganda that our democratic system is the best in the world, as exemplified by LilByte's statement and views. That being said, in my experience, the Chinese system is much worse, but due to incompetent bureaucracy, rather than a fundamental issue with a 1-party system. I'm sure Europeans think their multi-party system is also the "fairest and best" too, at least compared to America's 2 party system. I don't believe the Chinese have a better system, but it's fundamentally flawed to walk around with the assumption that our democracy is the best way out there. One of the big misconceptions of the Chinese political system is that it's something akin to a dictatorship, but it's not. While it has 1-party, internally there are still votes, discourse, and factions. The main difference is that once a decision is made on something, the factions are not allowed to act in their own interest against the unified goals that were already decided on. In the US system, if, say the President has decided something, the opposing party can work to counter his progress in implementing whatever agenda he has decided on. This makes sense to keep one party in check, because if the President is in a different party, he probably has an agenda to ignore the agenda of the opposing party. Civic engagement is also not forced upon people, especially uneducated or ill-informed people. But this doesn't mean that people cannot participate in government.
mycall 7y ago
Disinformation is very popular right now. It is happening everywhere. Humans have much power with social media, it is getting abused. The good news is that Facebook and Twitter are finding ways to slow it down. Maybe that technology can be imported into WeChat somehow.

ggg3 7y ago

same in brazil and crimea and before that arabspring. the obvious fake content on youtube and facebook was reported and removed, but all it did was hide the traces of the content that flooded private whatsapp groups.

rjf72 7y ago

Interesting. Are the images shared from this article suggesting that protesters are destroying property and engaging in other such behavior fake or somehow being taken out of context?

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> Are the images shared from this article suggesting that protesters are destroying property and engaging in other such behavior fake or somehow being taken out of context? Yes. Some protesters destroyed property. But the Hong Kong protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful. Almost shockingly peaceful. Millions of people are mobilizing in cramped quarters. Very few cultures have the restraint to coördinate so massively with barely any mistakes. Contrast this with the counter-protesters, in Hong Kong [1] and overseas [2]. Pro-Xi protesters are violent at about the same frequency as (if not higher than) Hong Kong's protesters. This despite there being far fewer pro-Xi protesters on the ground. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49066982 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49066982 [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/world/australia/hong-kong-china-queensland-protests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/world/australia/hong-kong...
- spectramax 7y ago
  I was educating myself of Kashmir protestors in Srinagar and found a stark contrast between Kashmiri protestors (with their ISIS banners: https://i.imgur.com/ib8OVE4.png https://i.imgur.com/ib8OVE4.png) and HK protestors who are peaceful, educated in the issue and careful with sparking any kind of violence. It is amazing really and one of the most well organized large scale protests in the modern history of mankind.
jazzyjackson 7y ago
Well it is certainly a willful misrepresention of the protest movement as a whole, to share the window smashing and say "radical people of hong kong" "complete violent behavior" - the context is peaceful revolution, the context is riot cops showing up and applying violent repression of crowds. You're asking questions of concern without taking a side by the way, suggesting that maybe the mainlanders are right to see the protesters as violent and deserving of violent repression by a dictatorship. I would urge you to be a little less willing to take the dictator's side on this.
- rjf72 7y ago
  I try to not take sides, but rather to simply evaluate evidence. As the evidence shifts in one direction or another, so do my views. To see why judging issues by the groups involved instead of evidence, one doesn't need to go back far. The Iraq war ended up costing hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, trillions of dollars, and helped accelerate a rapid destabilization of the entire Mideast setting the stage of the rise of groups such as Islamic State and its ongoing reign of terror. The mainstream media were all, in orchestrated unison, arguing loudly for the war. And the government provided lots of allusions to evidence and appeals to authority, demanding support for it. And this was a conflict with the 'good guys' versus a literal dictator who was undoubtedly a horrible person. Yet the consequences of that war far dwarfed the atrocities of that man. And it was all based on lies. There was no WMD, the secret high level insider source was a taxi driver who had no connection to the government, the 'mobile weapon labs' were helium generating stations for use in conventional artillery, etc. Throughout history it's not infrequent that such things happen. We'd like to imagine that when the 'good guys' win good things happen, but reality is often not so kind. --- Attaching this as an addendum since I've now been throttled for getting downvoted: I am referring to things such as the single word title piece ran by the Washington Post, "Irrefutable." [1] On the same day the New York Times published this [2] piece entitled "Irrefutable and Undeniable". And there were many other such pieces being run as well. It's just a tad tedious to dig up these articles now from 16 years ago. It was bad. Note in these articles the complete and absolute lack of any sort of critique or even consideration of the possibility that evidence might not hold up to scrutiny. Instead the media condemned and proclaimed with absolute certainty. That was not, is not, journalism - it is propaganda. Consequently I find it important to always remain critical of anything that has substantial political undertones. And so I prefer to take information that both sides agree to and judge it for myself while giving the arguments a distant secondary interest. And while it may ultimately leave me drawing the wrong conclusion, I'd rather be able to justify my logic based on evidence I personally felt compelling beyond any doubt, rather than on parroting others' analysis. I don't really understand why more people don't think this way. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/irrefutable/e598b1be-a78a-4a42-8e1a-c336f7a217f4/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i... [2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-and-undeniable.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-and-u...

kevin_b_er 7y ago

When the fake news is generated and controlled by a government entity, I think the better term is "propaganda".

guerrilla 7y ago
It seems unreasonable to restrict the term propaganda to government since any organization can produce propaganda, i.e. "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view."
- brightball 7y ago
  If it's not from the government, we call it marketing. :-)
  - guerrilla 7y ago
    This is incorrect. Marketing is not necessarily used to promote political change. There are plenty of examples of propaganda in for-proft and non-profit (yet non-state) media which is clearly propaganda and not marketing simultaneously.
    - smt88 7y ago
      When Trump sells MAGA hats, it is both marketing and a tool for political change. Musk selling electric cars can also fall under both categories. People with electric cars are more likely to support policies that make it easier to own electric cars and less likely to care about fossil fuels.
    - Jedi72 7y ago
      Best example of Market-ganda ever, marketers protecting their own. 6 names for the same idea - manipulating others for self-gain.
    - chrischen 7y ago
      Tell that to the political facebook ad companies.

Aperocky 7y ago

It's not necessarily fake, just very selective. When all you hear/see are videos of molotov cocktail, beating the reporter up for having a pro-police tshirt, and british/american flag waving (All of which did happen). You'll have a pretty different image of the protestors. I have to say this selection bias exist on the other end as well, perhaps not as blatant as mainland, where the girl gotten her eye shot or the triad beating people wasn't shown at all.

hker 7y ago
> I have to say this selection bias exist on the other end as well, perhaps not as blatant as mainland, where the girl gotten her eye shot or the triad beating people wasn't shown at all. There is selection bias on both sides. A small nitpick, the news about the girl gotten her eye shot is not hidden from Chinese news, but was presented as being shot by a slingshot of a marble by the protestors (in Chinese [1], Google translate [2]). According to reporters who were at the scene, the girl was definitely shot by the police, because only the police could fire the bean bag round which was stuck in the goggles of the girl and caused such injuries. Put differently, CCP is spreading fake news via state media instead of hiding it from the public view. Similar story for the triad beating people: it was presented as the triad was trying to protect their homes from the protestors (in Chinese [3], Google translation failed). The news was not hidden from public view. [1]: https://news.163.com/19/0819/17/EMV7LC0V0001899O.html https://news.163.com/19/0819/17/EMV7LC0V0001899O.html [2]: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=https://news.163.com/19/0819/17/EMV7LC0V0001899O.html https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http... [3]: https://news.ifeng.com/c/7odVZYB5BUn https://news.ifeng.com/c/7odVZYB5BUn

NicoJuicy 7y ago

I think those that don't agree, just don't post it. Being scared of the state and their score. Not sure though. But since 996, I think most of them are pretty aware what is happening abroad ( sometimes)

echelon 7y ago

It's been awhile since I've been over there. How easy is it for those in mainland China to get access to banned tv shows and films? I remember lots of DVD content being sold on the street, but I never came across anything that was in direct opposition to the politics of the regime. What if Netflix (or some other production company) produced a compelling show with an incredibly critical narrative about the PRC and its leadership? Would citizens in mainland China be able to access it through roundabout means? Would you be able to sow the seeds of democracy? Would they even be interested? The last time I was on campus in Shanghai and Beijing, half of those I spoke to were critical of the party and did not believe China would catch up to the West. The other half were total ideological zealots and made me know that my government was inferior. Given my vantage point, I believe the citizenry is at a precipice, but there is no inciting moment to tip the scale. Life in China is comfortable for the burgeoning middle class, and nobody would want to rock that boat. In any case, I think an unfettered political drama about the PRC would be fascinating to watch.

jascii 7y ago
Its been a while for me too, I lived in Beijing for a little over 3 years and it has been my experience that access to western media was not all that difficult. There was a general consensus among my friends (mostly academics) that this was by design as the state saw a need for at-least some dissenting discussion among an "intellectual upperclass" to prevent stagnation. I find it amusing that the state controlled news media sounded more like an epic drama then anything we in the west would consider "political news".
my_username_is_ 7y ago
>What if Netflix (or some other production company) produced a compelling show with an incredibly critical narrative about the PRC and its leadership? In a way, they've already done this. See "Joshua: Teenager versus Superpower". It's a documentary from the precursor to these protests, the Umbrella Revolution of 2014. They definitely don't take a pro-PRC stance on the issue. >Would citizens in mainland China be able to access it through roundabout means? Yes, VPNs are very common (especially among younger and more educated populations) >Would you be able to sow the seeds of democracy? Would they even be interested? This is more complicated. It's important to realize that there's a rational reason that many people have for supporting the CCP. On the whole, their lives have gotten significantly better over the last couple of decades. They're optimistic about the future. Attacks on the Party are attacks on the mechanism that has ushered in economic growth. To this extent, I wouldn't expect democracy to be welcomed by the average person any time soon; it's simply not a national value for them in the way that it is for the United States. (Huge caveat: remember it's a country of over a billion people and making generalizations is necessarily going to gloss over large sub-populations that may have an entirely different world view)

ma2rten 7y ago

I think it's not just about censorship. Many mainland Chinese abroad who have access to unfiltered media still support Beijing. Chinese people generally value stability and harmony over individual rights. So, why would mainland Chinese people support violent protesters who protest for Hong Kong having more individual rights than the mainland does?

throwaway-43958 7y ago

I have a Chinese friend who went to an Ivy League University, married an American, and currently works for a FAANG company and lives in the Bay Area. Yet they publicly support the PRC Government on Facebook and vehemently attack anyone who express support of Hong Kongers. People believe in what they choose to believe.

poyu 7y ago
That’s the power of totalitarian!
diNgUrAndI 7y ago
> People believe in what they choose to believe. The same thing can be said about what you are believing about Chinese governments. How would you be sure that you are not biased because of all the western media you consumed? Have you been to China and seen what happened there? Your friend may have access to information on both sides and made the judgement. I would think twice before you ignore this.

ospider 7y ago

Native Chinese here. Hacker news have been a great place to learn new things to me for 5 years. But the political views on Hacker news are somewhat naive to me. It seems that the Chinese Government is always evil and wrong, but why haven't the government collapsed after so many years if there were no people supporting them? People in China, at least those millions people who are able to cross the Great Firewall, know that democracy is generally good, but they also know that a strong central government can also be useful for certain circumstances. Most westerners and HongKongers on Hacker news have a very extreme political view, you just believe "democracy is good"(TM), protesting against the evil Chinese government is good. But can you take a closer look at what is really happening in HK and then decide what you believe? BTW, I'm neither pro-protester nor pro-police, I think the protest is a result of economic regression in HK. You could also check my comment and posting history to see that I'm not a 五毛党.

chrischen 7y ago
I'm generally anti-Communist party of China, but mostly because I believe their bureaucracy is completely inept. But I have to agree with you, the vast majority of Western-based HN commenters are politically naïve, as if they just stepped out of a high school US government class. The reason is that US education, while it acknowledges the flaws of democracy, also proclaims that it is the only acceptable form of government.
- LilBytes 7y ago
  I dispute this. Democracy is not advertised as the only acceptable form of Government, but it is the fairest and best model we've got. You're creating a straw-man with this argument.
  - chrischen 7y ago
    Firstly, I'm not arguing anything, so there is no straw man. Obviously it's not the only form of government, but we are told that it's the only one that's acceptable. There's no objective evaluation and consideration of any alternative political systems. You prove my point. The idea that it's the fairest and best is also subjective. A government gets its authority from the people, and if the Chinese grant authority to its leaders, even absolute authority, (and you can grant authority by simply being pacifist), then who's to say the Chinese government is illegitimate? You? To them your opinions are illegitimate. Even our government is not a perfect democracy. We do not direct vote the president (Trump lost the popular election), and we are not equally represented in these elections (through gerrymandering, electoral college, etc). So to claim that a democracy, any democracy, or even our own democracy, is somehow the "fairest and best" is extremely disingenuous. These things are justified as a way to prevent "tyranny by the majority", but really it's just another 3/5ths law (black peoples' votes only counted as 3/5ths of a vote)—a way to prevent the redistribution of power. We don't have a perfect government system, which means it's arguable if we have the best system because that would imply there is no room for improvement. Our education system espouses propoganda that our democratic system is the best in the world, as exemplified by LilByte's statement and views. That being said, in my experience, the Chinese system is much worse, but due to incompetent bureaucracy, rather than a fundamental issue with a 1-party system. I'm sure Europeans think their multi-party system is also the "fairest and best" too, at least compared to America's 2 party system. I don't believe the Chinese have a better system, but it's fundamentally flawed to walk around with the assumption that our democracy is the best way out there. One of the big misconceptions of the Chinese political system is that it's something akin to a dictatorship, but it's not. While it has 1-party, internally there are still votes, discourse, and factions. The main difference is that once a decision is made on something, the factions are not allowed to act in their own interest against the unified goals that were already decided on. In the US system, if, say the President has decided something, the opposing party can work to counter his progress in implementing whatever agenda he has decided on. This makes sense to keep one party in check, because if the President is in a different party, he probably has an agenda to ignore the agenda of the opposing party. Civic engagement is also not forced upon people, especially uneducated or ill-informed people. But this doesn't mean that people cannot participate in government.

mycall 7y ago

Disinformation is very popular right now. It is happening everywhere. Humans have much power with social media, it is getting abused. The good news is that Facebook and Twitter are finding ways to slow it down. Maybe that technology can be imported into WeChat somehow.