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I hope for the sake of person being interrogated that it is fake but this could be a tactic for intimidating other protestors who are not firmly committed and h

I hope for the sake of person being interrogated that it is fake but this could be a tactic for intimidating other protestors who are not firmly committed and have other responsibilities in life to worry about.

heavyset_go 7y ago
This video goes into reasons why videos like this exist and are in ample supply: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8PgCUap1Vg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8PgCUap1Vg Public displays of criminals, trials and punishments are not uncommon in China, and serve as a "legal education" for the public.
- dessant 7y ago
  Watching as your comment gets downvoted, I think HN has an issue of brigading, and there is mostly nothing users can do to prevent it. Stories get flagged, comments are downvoted to bury them, flamewars are provoked to push down actionable information, and those behind these activities will ultimately win, unless we spend our afternoons documenting every instance of it and reporting it to moderators, which obviously won't happen. Only HN has the power to proactively discover accounts which show inauthentic behavior that consistently leans towards depressing the propagation of news about the erosion of human rights and the prevalence of corporate surveillance. This place is an important ideological battleground, because many developers who build and maintain surveillance systems are reading HN.
  - dang 7y ago
    We've been through this a gazillion times and the upshot is that the site guidelines ask you not to post insinuations of brigading, astroturfing, foreign spying, and all the rest of it, unless you have some evidence for saying so—in which case you should email hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Someone posting internet comments that you strongly disagree with is not evidence of any of that; it's evidence merely that people have opposing views on divisive topics—a phenomenon that hardly requires explanation. I've spent years investigating this stuff on HN and can tell you that the overwhelming finding—and I do mean overwhelming—is that nearly all comments like what you posted here are purely imaginary. This is simply how the mind reacts to offensive things on the internet: we assume that people couldn't possibly be posting such obviously wrong and awful stuff in good faith, so we make up a sinister story to explain it. These sinister stories actually do far more damage to the site than the things they're claiming. The underlying reality is that the community is simply much more divided and diverse than most readers assume it is. Posting poisonous stories makes it more so. That's why I post about this so often; it's probably the single most destructive internet trope that we see here. Is it possible that far more successful manipulation is going on than any of our investigations have ever uncovered? Sure it is. But if you go down that road, you have to relinquish any need for evidence of any kind, which puts you in the wilderness of mirrors. That can't be right. So the principle we apply is that there needs to be some relevant evidence of some kind, any kind, before making these sorts of accusations—and that already rules out over 99% of these claims. Plenty more explanation here for those who want it and have the patience: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... By the way: you broke another site guideline also, the one that asks you not to go on about downvoting because it never does any good and makes boring reading. There's a third reason too: it usually ends up completely inaccurate, as it did in this case, because the GP comment has now been heavily upvoted. Meanwhile the complaint sticks around, adding off-topic and false information to the thread.
- JeanMarcS 7y ago
  Well, in western world, you’ve got CSI and all cop’s show that sell you the same. « Bad guys always caught, police can know whatever you’ve done » I’ve always (and that’s not ranting. I really have) wondered if it was on purpose.
  - krapp 7y ago
    >I’ve always (and that’s not ranting. I really have) wondered if it was on purpose. Of course it's on purpose. No one would watch a police procedural drama where the police always lost, were inept, or only won their cases due to corruption or malfeasance, or where the criminals were never caught and cases never resolved. Showing the heroes defeating the villains isn't propaganda, it's just good storytelling.
    - spiralganglion 7y ago
      What about The Wire? I think there's room for more nuanced portrayals, it just needs to be created by people who respect their audience.
    - JeanMarcS 7y ago
      The Shield, Dexter... But I’d agree they are not procedural shows. And TBH, on my point of view, manichean stories are not that good storytelling. On the contrary (but there’s room for everyone taste)
  - heavyset_go 7y ago
    I'm not sure what western TV dramas have to do with the Chinese government putting people in tiger chairs and forcing confessions out of them over posts on the internet. Fictional TV shows are hardly comparable to video in the OP.

heavyset_go 7y ago

This video goes into reasons why videos like this exist and are in ample supply: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8PgCUap1Vg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8PgCUap1Vg Public displays of criminals, trials and punishments are not uncommon in China, and serve as a "legal education" for the public.

dessant 7y ago
Watching as your comment gets downvoted, I think HN has an issue of brigading, and there is mostly nothing users can do to prevent it. Stories get flagged, comments are downvoted to bury them, flamewars are provoked to push down actionable information, and those behind these activities will ultimately win, unless we spend our afternoons documenting every instance of it and reporting it to moderators, which obviously won't happen. Only HN has the power to proactively discover accounts which show inauthentic behavior that consistently leans towards depressing the propagation of news about the erosion of human rights and the prevalence of corporate surveillance. This place is an important ideological battleground, because many developers who build and maintain surveillance systems are reading HN.
- dang 7y ago
  We've been through this a gazillion times and the upshot is that the site guidelines ask you not to post insinuations of brigading, astroturfing, foreign spying, and all the rest of it, unless you have some evidence for saying so—in which case you should email hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Someone posting internet comments that you strongly disagree with is not evidence of any of that; it's evidence merely that people have opposing views on divisive topics—a phenomenon that hardly requires explanation. I've spent years investigating this stuff on HN and can tell you that the overwhelming finding—and I do mean overwhelming—is that nearly all comments like what you posted here are purely imaginary. This is simply how the mind reacts to offensive things on the internet: we assume that people couldn't possibly be posting such obviously wrong and awful stuff in good faith, so we make up a sinister story to explain it. These sinister stories actually do far more damage to the site than the things they're claiming. The underlying reality is that the community is simply much more divided and diverse than most readers assume it is. Posting poisonous stories makes it more so. That's why I post about this so often; it's probably the single most destructive internet trope that we see here. Is it possible that far more successful manipulation is going on than any of our investigations have ever uncovered? Sure it is. But if you go down that road, you have to relinquish any need for evidence of any kind, which puts you in the wilderness of mirrors. That can't be right. So the principle we apply is that there needs to be some relevant evidence of some kind, any kind, before making these sorts of accusations—and that already rules out over 99% of these claims. Plenty more explanation here for those who want it and have the patience: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... By the way: you broke another site guideline also, the one that asks you not to go on about downvoting because it never does any good and makes boring reading. There's a third reason too: it usually ends up completely inaccurate, as it did in this case, because the GP comment has now been heavily upvoted. Meanwhile the complaint sticks around, adding off-topic and false information to the thread.
JeanMarcS 7y ago
Well, in western world, you’ve got CSI and all cop’s show that sell you the same. « Bad guys always caught, police can know whatever you’ve done » I’ve always (and that’s not ranting. I really have) wondered if it was on purpose.
- krapp 7y ago
  >I’ve always (and that’s not ranting. I really have) wondered if it was on purpose. Of course it's on purpose. No one would watch a police procedural drama where the police always lost, were inept, or only won their cases due to corruption or malfeasance, or where the criminals were never caught and cases never resolved. Showing the heroes defeating the villains isn't propaganda, it's just good storytelling.
  - spiralganglion 7y ago
    What about The Wire? I think there's room for more nuanced portrayals, it just needs to be created by people who respect their audience.
  - JeanMarcS 7y ago
    The Shield, Dexter... But I’d agree they are not procedural shows. And TBH, on my point of view, manichean stories are not that good storytelling. On the contrary (but there’s room for everyone taste)
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  I'm not sure what western TV dramas have to do with the Chinese government putting people in tiger chairs and forcing confessions out of them over posts on the internet. Fictional TV shows are hardly comparable to video in the OP.