11 ms·

Tinfoil hat: I'm not keeping active track, but I passively perceived a sheer drop in mentions of the fact that Wuhan has China's first "biosafety level 4" labor

Tinfoil hat: I'm not keeping active track, but I passively perceived a sheer drop in mentions of the fact that Wuhan has China's first "biosafety level 4" laboratory, coinciding with an increased lambasting of the US's handling of their infections in the general media ("The Wuhan virus is now the American virus"), along with a streak of random US-critical posts ("What is the worst thing the US government has done?") being massively updated on Reddit (which has a major investment from Tencent.) This is from the country which forces foreign companies to remove flags of countries it likes to bully (Taiwan, Japan) from their products. It's not inconceivable that they are filtering the narrative about themselves in something actually serious, such as this pandemic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology#Concerns_as_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology#Co...

sergiotapia 7y ago
Take a look at reddit to see how legions of paid government actors are actively shaping the discussion on mainstream platforms.
- paulcole 7y ago
  I don’t buy this. Why would governments pay people to shitpost on Reddit when so many of us gladly do it for free?
  - joering2 7y ago
    To get specific narrative via majority posting similar “shit”. Aka propaganda.
  - 2019-nCoV 7y ago
    Many govs use astroturfing, the CCP in particular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
  - abc-xyz 7y ago
    There’s a lot of value in paying/blackmailing the moderators. You can clearly certain subreddits, such as r/worldnews, becoming increasingly pro-China. The mod team played a huge role in this, as they have been perma banning people who post a lot of anti-China comments. I’ve for instance had several accounts banned (one simply for sarcastically saying “Thanks China”) - there were also a thread on r/China where plenty of people mentioned they had been banned for similar reasons. If you follow r/WatchRedditDie then you can see this anti-China censorship on a daily basis.. for instance, this is on the frontpage right now: https://i.imgur.com/RuHpkC5_d.jpg https://i.imgur.com/RuHpkC5_d.jpg
    - chillacy 7y ago
      r/China is very much an echo chamber of its own though. These days the line between criticizing the Chinese government and full blown sinophobia is getting rather thin.
      - redorange11 7y ago
        Nice CCP shill account
      - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        /r/China used to be fairly moderate, well, much more than it is now, but then most of the foreigners that posted from China left (either China, or lost access to reddit, or just lost interest) and now it is just a bunch of CPC hate. The line between criticizing the CPC and full blown sino-phobia isn't thin at all, it has always remained pretty thick. It is the people crossing the line that have changed.
    - dependenttypes 7y ago
      I can't see anything in that image.
      - abc-xyz 7y ago
        I don’t know about you but I find it very concerning that mods of major subreddits like r/worldnews and r/coronavirus are censoring comments like: > “Yeah but you can’t trust any of those numbers coming out of China. It’s gotta be way worse than they’re letting on”
  - sergiotapia 7y ago
    It's real, and they're present - even here I would say.
  - godelski 7y ago
    You only need a small force to build the momentum to get people to shitpost for free. But they do it on every major website. I'm sure the US and other major countries do similar things on VK and Weibo. Only difference is VK and Weibo have more control by the government and our companies believe that they should not be in the business of determining what legally is free speech and what isn't.
- shadowbn123 7y ago
  hey sergiotapioca talk is cheap, be the man you're claiming to be please, go out, mingle, get close to lots of your relatives. and remember, the government are telling you to wash your hands, so don't do that. show them how you're not gonna take any crap from the elites.
  - sergiotapia 7y ago
    Ok Chinese Government Stooge #390-AEJ-039/2
    - dang 7y ago
      Can you please stop breaking the site guidelines? We've asked you many times, and you've been doing it repeatedly again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html You're a good contributor otherwise, so I don't want to ban you, but at some point it becomes unfair to all the other users we've banned for less.
taiwanboy 7y ago
On 1/22, Xi jinping and CCP blocked internal transportation such as railways, subways, ferries, trains and domestic flights in and out of Wuhan. But still let international flights in and out of Wuhan. If the coronavirus wasn’t weaponized with that intent I don’t know what is.
- knzhou 7y ago
  Those international flights were allowed to let countries evacuate their own citizens out. If they were banned, you would be making the exact same complaint but reversed: "China held other countries' citizens hostage in Wuhan." Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
  - taiwanboy 7y ago
    China didn’t let taiwanese citizens leave Wuhan then. What’s the excuse there?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - taiwanboy 7y ago
    Misinformation. There were still Wuhan tourists as late as 1/28 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7937943/amp/Air-passengers-refuse-board-plane-16-tourists-Wuhan.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7937943/amp/Air-pas...
    - knzhou 7y ago
      You're not even getting the direction right now. This article is about Chinese citizens trying to return to China, not leaving it.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- thankswell 7y ago
Medicalidiot 7y ago
I'm annoyed with the connection between SARS-CoV-2 and bioweapon. This is such a garbage bioweapon for two reasons: This doesn't kill military aged men and it cannot be readily shut off. American scientists have nailed down when the cross over event occurred and how it happened. The world's top virologists also have said multiple times that this is not a bioweapon, people who have studied viruses for decades. But people who aren't even in the medical field keep peddling the narrative that this is a bioweapon. Amazing. Here's the list of agents that are better than SARS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioterrorism#Types_of_agents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioterrorism#Types_of_agents Edit: So far I'm dissapointed with the comments to my post. I can't tell if some of these are trolls or not, but generally they don't add much to the discussion. These hypotheticals are specious, sure they sound like lucid idea but with even a slight amount of criticism they'd fall apart. I'm going to posit some ideas here. Why didn't China weaponize H5N1? It has a higher Ro and CFR. It is commonly found throughout Southeast Asia and is what most pandemic experts thought was going to be the next pandemic. How would a virus get through a biosafety level 4 lab? If anyone else here has experience in biosafety labs I'm all ears, but I'd be shocked that a virus would be able to escape from something like that; not that mistakes don't happen but this isn't exactly a durable pathogen. Then we have the issue of every single advanced military in the world wouldn't even touch The Coronavirus family. I'm going to go ahead and assume that the people who are making bioweapons are good at their jobs and can recognize what makes a good bioweapon and what doesn't. Finally, there are just so many better options for bioweapons. The US invests massive amounts in making precision weapons because when you're a military power hitting a precise location is what's key. COVID is like a cluster bomb that has 90% duds. But after all of this, instead of random people on the internet, we have experts who have time and time again said that COVID is not a bioweapon: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts-debunk-fringe-theory-linking-chinas-coronavirus-weapons-research/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts-debu... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9?fbclid=IwAR0cOVC4i9wyLuODURmxAxWWGOUm9RyzHmzTBA98jI_SR-ou8v-8_MLJgP4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9?fbclid=IwA... https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-not-human-made-in-lab.html https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-not-human-made-in-la... https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/coronavirus-cotton-fact-check/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/coronavirus-cott... https://www.ft.com/content/a6392ee6-4ec6-11ea-95a0-43d18ec715f5 https://www.ft.com/content/a6392ee6-4ec6-11ea-95a0-43d18ec71...
adventured 7y ago
> they are filtering the narrative about themselves It's not a tinfoil hat worthy context. We know for a fact that they're doing that. China ordered a book written [1] espousing the glorious success of Xi and the CPC in vanquishing the virus, before the world even knew for certain it was tranmissable person to person and just how dangerous it was. They invented an outlandish narrative about the US military attacking Wuhan with the virus and then freely spread that 5G-is-the-cause level of insanity all over Twitter (with the open blessing of Twitter, by way of their refusal to remove the disinformation campaign). [1] https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202002/26/WS5e56238da31012821727a854.html https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202002/26/WS5e56238da3101282...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
knzhou 7y ago
Wow. It's incredible that it doesn't even take supporting the outgroup to be accused of shilling -- these days even failing to laser focus on condemning the outgroup is enough. Reddit is having a lot more posts about America just because there's a lot going on in the country right now. In late February there were tons of posts about Italy. In early February there were tons of posts about China. The posts about China that got to the top then were all negative, and they're still all negative today, they just make up a smaller fraction because there's more going on elsewhere.
- Causality1 7y ago
  My man this stuff has already been published. It's a deliberate PR campaign. No better or worse than any other country does in similar circumstances. https://i.imgur.com/dwEpRnb.png https://i.imgur.com/dwEpRnb.png
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - knzhou 7y ago
    Care to explain what this screenshot actually means?
- godelski 7y ago
  I'd argue that Reddit has a more US centric voice because... it has a more US centric userbase. [0] I don't think it is because there is more going on in the US but more that people tend to be focused on the things that are closer to them. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/325144/reddit-global-active-user-distribution/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/325144/reddit-global-act...
  - jhanschoo 7y ago
    While it is not mentioned explicitly, the comment you're replying to seems to be talking specifically in regards to coronavirus news.
nikofeyn 7y ago
that's a tinfoil hat indeed. you have no evidence of anything, so you're spreading baseless rumors just like others. i find it unacceptable on a site that supposedly has rules against these things. nothing you've said can be verified or unverified, and your link is to wikipedia, edited by who knows who. take a step back and notice the level of anti-chinese posts and comments on hacker news and wonder if you yourself are being fed propaganda.
dntbnmpls 7y ago
> Tinfoil hat: I'm not keeping active track It's been my experience that everyone who prefaces their comment with statements like this usually are lying. "I'm not X, but ... " > along with a streak of random US-critical posts ("What is the worst thing the US government has done?") being massively updated on Reddit Anyone can go on reddit and see the very opposite. This is what I don't understand about propagandists, why lie about something that can be verifiably proven false? Go on worldnews or any major subreddit, what are the ratio of pro and anti-chinese submissions? What are the ratio of pro and anti-china comments? The exact opposite of what you claim. > This is from the country which forces foreign companies to remove flags of countries it likes to bully (Taiwan, Japan) from their products. You obviously know why they do for taiwan. As for japan, lets see some examples. If "removing" flags is called "bullying", then your definition of "bullying" is rather naive. > It's not inconceivable, and certainly probable, that they are filtering the narrative about themselves in something actually serious, such as this pandemic. No shit. Just like you are filtering a narrative. Just like the US government is filtering a narrative. We are involved in a major trade war. You are doing the exact same thing you claim "china" is doing.
- dependenttypes 7y ago
  > You obviously know why they do for taiwan To bully them?
- Razengan 7y ago
  > As for japan, lets see some examples. https://www.google.com/search?q=Japan+and+Taiwan+flags+removed+from+Top+Gun https://www.google.com/search?q=Japan+and+Taiwan+flags+remov...
chunghua 7y ago
Some links for consideration 1 Difference in Receptor Usage between Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Coronavirus and SARS-Like Coronavirus of Bat Origin http://archive.is/M9IRO http://archive.is/M9IRO 2 Officials punished for SARS virus leakhttps://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/02/content_344755.htm https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/02/content... 3 Chinese researcher escorted from infectious disease lab amid RCMP investigation https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-escorted-from-infectious-disease-lab-amid-rcmp-investigation-1.5211567 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-e... 4 https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-link-to-china-biowarfare-program-possi/ https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-l... 5 https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/threatened-pandemics-and-laboratory-escapes-self-fulfilling-prophecies/ https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/threatened-pandemics-and-lab... 6 https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to-study-world-s-most-dangerous-pathogens-1.21487 https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to...
- throwanem 7y ago
  Posting a tendentiously selected collection of links in the hope of deniably constructing a false chain of inference among your audience still qualifies as deliberately lying by omission. Especially when you do it with a throwaway account obviously constructed for the purpose.
godelski 7y ago
I'm not so sure I buy the Reddit controlled by CCP (or heavily influenced) argument. Simply because in /r/China, /r/ChineseLanguage, and /r/HongKong I see frequent posts that are highly critical of the CCP and China in general. They have many upvotes and it doesn't look like people are being banned or posts are being removed. It is nowhere like /r/Sino. I'm not trying to defend the CCP here, but just trying to say that maybe Reddit isn't a CCP propaganda weapon. I'm sure there's some influence, but I see these arguments go quite far.
- peteretep 7y ago
  Honestly the much simpler explanation is coordinated voting. If the Donald Trump-related sub-Reddit can coordinate their voting sufficiently that Reddit needs to step in to stop it, then I'm sure a country with access to Project Management tools can get large numbers of state employees or patriots to click on voting buttons.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- coupdejarnac 7y ago
  I've seen way more wumao type posts in subs like r/worldnews, where typical readers are much less knowledgeable about China.
- dirtyid 7y ago
  All the anti-China subs has grown multitudes more users than Sino since last year, easily enough to drown out pro-Chinese voices. Statistically, we should see more anti-Chinese bots and manipulation occurring. Also all available research doesn't suggest CPC has foreign manipulation toolset on western social media, except last years twitter "disclosure" about state level manipulation on HK without any explanation and attribution. Turned out to be ~200 twitter accounts, which... ok could be from Chinese state or bored PRC nationalist script kiddies. Also 50c doesn't operate abroad, they don't engage in argumentation, only lazy platitudes about positive Chinese news items - they don't draw attention to negative news. All the shill accusations doesn't account for this fact that 50c glorifies instead of defends China. The latter pattern requires too much effort. Official 50c are mostly state employees trying to meet msg quotas on domestic social media. Also China would not waste English proficiency trolling on reddit, English speakers with proficiency to trick western audiences are making bank working in industry and not the state. Chinese foreign propaganda MO is pouring a few hundred billion buying ad space in foreign news papers. And lately they've been growing twitter and other microblogging platform accounts for their diplomats to troll US. See US bioengineered weapon. E: Just to add the parsimonious explanation about the amount of pro-Chinese perspectives is that the vast amount of Chinese diaspora is engaging online discussions since they are witnessing the effects of western propaganda targetting their country. There is a ridiculous amount of biased reporting out there. Increased sinophobia etc, it's in their interests to clear the air which occasionally leads to doubling down on nationalist rhetoric.
ferest 7y ago
Because academic research can't be rushed. One of the requirements for an advanced degree is publishing papers, and if coronavirus related can easily bring attention and get the paper published, students would try taking the fast track. This is not good for research in general. There was a huge debate back in late Jan. early Feb. on Chinese social network about a paper didn't get peer-reviewed spreading all over places with misinformation. Hence the Fudan University post in Chinese was to tighten the publish review, and nothing about delaying the research. This guardian news only showed the story without context, which is pretty misleading.

sergiotapia 7y ago

Take a look at reddit to see how legions of paid government actors are actively shaping the discussion on mainstream platforms.

paulcole 7y ago
I don’t buy this. Why would governments pay people to shitpost on Reddit when so many of us gladly do it for free?
- joering2 7y ago
  To get specific narrative via majority posting similar “shit”. Aka propaganda.
- 2019-nCoV 7y ago
  Many govs use astroturfing, the CCP in particular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
- abc-xyz 7y ago
  There’s a lot of value in paying/blackmailing the moderators. You can clearly certain subreddits, such as r/worldnews, becoming increasingly pro-China. The mod team played a huge role in this, as they have been perma banning people who post a lot of anti-China comments. I’ve for instance had several accounts banned (one simply for sarcastically saying “Thanks China”) - there were also a thread on r/China where plenty of people mentioned they had been banned for similar reasons. If you follow r/WatchRedditDie then you can see this anti-China censorship on a daily basis.. for instance, this is on the frontpage right now: https://i.imgur.com/RuHpkC5_d.jpg https://i.imgur.com/RuHpkC5_d.jpg
  - chillacy 7y ago
    r/China is very much an echo chamber of its own though. These days the line between criticizing the Chinese government and full blown sinophobia is getting rather thin.
    - redorange11 7y ago
      Nice CCP shill account
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      /r/China used to be fairly moderate, well, much more than it is now, but then most of the foreigners that posted from China left (either China, or lost access to reddit, or just lost interest) and now it is just a bunch of CPC hate. The line between criticizing the CPC and full blown sino-phobia isn't thin at all, it has always remained pretty thick. It is the people crossing the line that have changed.
  - dependenttypes 7y ago
    I can't see anything in that image.
    - abc-xyz 7y ago
      I don’t know about you but I find it very concerning that mods of major subreddits like r/worldnews and r/coronavirus are censoring comments like: > “Yeah but you can’t trust any of those numbers coming out of China. It’s gotta be way worse than they’re letting on”
- sergiotapia 7y ago
  It's real, and they're present - even here I would say.
- godelski 7y ago
  You only need a small force to build the momentum to get people to shitpost for free. But they do it on every major website. I'm sure the US and other major countries do similar things on VK and Weibo. Only difference is VK and Weibo have more control by the government and our companies believe that they should not be in the business of determining what legally is free speech and what isn't.
shadowbn123 7y ago
hey sergiotapioca talk is cheap, be the man you're claiming to be please, go out, mingle, get close to lots of your relatives. and remember, the government are telling you to wash your hands, so don't do that. show them how you're not gonna take any crap from the elites.
- sergiotapia 7y ago
  Ok Chinese Government Stooge #390-AEJ-039/2
  - dang 7y ago
    Can you please stop breaking the site guidelines? We've asked you many times, and you've been doing it repeatedly again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html You're a good contributor otherwise, so I don't want to ban you, but at some point it becomes unfair to all the other users we've banned for less.

taiwanboy 7y ago

On 1/22, Xi jinping and CCP blocked internal transportation such as railways, subways, ferries, trains and domestic flights in and out of Wuhan. But still let international flights in and out of Wuhan. If the coronavirus wasn’t weaponized with that intent I don’t know what is.

knzhou 7y ago
Those international flights were allowed to let countries evacuate their own citizens out. If they were banned, you would be making the exact same complaint but reversed: "China held other countries' citizens hostage in Wuhan." Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
- taiwanboy 7y ago
  China didn’t let taiwanese citizens leave Wuhan then. What’s the excuse there?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- taiwanboy 7y ago
  Misinformation. There were still Wuhan tourists as late as 1/28 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7937943/amp/Air-passengers-refuse-board-plane-16-tourists-Wuhan.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7937943/amp/Air-pas...
  - knzhou 7y ago
    You're not even getting the direction right now. This article is about Chinese citizens trying to return to China, not leaving it.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
thankswell 7y ago

Medicalidiot 7y ago

I'm annoyed with the connection between SARS-CoV-2 and bioweapon. This is such a garbage bioweapon for two reasons: This doesn't kill military aged men and it cannot be readily shut off. American scientists have nailed down when the cross over event occurred and how it happened. The world's top virologists also have said multiple times that this is not a bioweapon, people who have studied viruses for decades. But people who aren't even in the medical field keep peddling the narrative that this is a bioweapon. Amazing. Here's the list of agents that are better than SARS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioterrorism#Types_of_agents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioterrorism#Types_of_agents Edit: So far I'm dissapointed with the comments to my post. I can't tell if some of these are trolls or not, but generally they don't add much to the discussion. These hypotheticals are specious, sure they sound like lucid idea but with even a slight amount of criticism they'd fall apart. I'm going to posit some ideas here. Why didn't China weaponize H5N1? It has a higher Ro and CFR. It is commonly found throughout Southeast Asia and is what most pandemic experts thought was going to be the next pandemic. How would a virus get through a biosafety level 4 lab? If anyone else here has experience in biosafety labs I'm all ears, but I'd be shocked that a virus would be able to escape from something like that; not that mistakes don't happen but this isn't exactly a durable pathogen. Then we have the issue of every single advanced military in the world wouldn't even touch The Coronavirus family. I'm going to go ahead and assume that the people who are making bioweapons are good at their jobs and can recognize what makes a good bioweapon and what doesn't. Finally, there are just so many better options for bioweapons. The US invests massive amounts in making precision weapons because when you're a military power hitting a precise location is what's key. COVID is like a cluster bomb that has 90% duds. But after all of this, instead of random people on the internet, we have experts who have time and time again said that COVID is not a bioweapon: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts-debunk-fringe-theory-linking-chinas-coronavirus-weapons-research/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts-debu... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9?fbclid=IwAR0cOVC4i9wyLuODURmxAxWWGOUm9RyzHmzTBA98jI_SR-ou8v-8_MLJgP4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9?fbclid=IwA... https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-not-human-made-in-lab.html https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-not-human-made-in-la... https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/coronavirus-cotton-fact-check/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/coronavirus-cott... https://www.ft.com/content/a6392ee6-4ec6-11ea-95a0-43d18ec715f5 https://www.ft.com/content/a6392ee6-4ec6-11ea-95a0-43d18ec71...

adventured 7y ago

> they are filtering the narrative about themselves It's not a tinfoil hat worthy context. We know for a fact that they're doing that. China ordered a book written [1] espousing the glorious success of Xi and the CPC in vanquishing the virus, before the world even knew for certain it was tranmissable person to person and just how dangerous it was. They invented an outlandish narrative about the US military attacking Wuhan with the virus and then freely spread that 5G-is-the-cause level of insanity all over Twitter (with the open blessing of Twitter, by way of their refusal to remove the disinformation campaign). [1] https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202002/26/WS5e56238da31012821727a854.html https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202002/26/WS5e56238da3101282...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

knzhou 7y ago

Wow. It's incredible that it doesn't even take supporting the outgroup to be accused of shilling -- these days even failing to laser focus on condemning the outgroup is enough. Reddit is having a lot more posts about America just because there's a lot going on in the country right now. In late February there were tons of posts about Italy. In early February there were tons of posts about China. The posts about China that got to the top then were all negative, and they're still all negative today, they just make up a smaller fraction because there's more going on elsewhere.

Causality1 7y ago
My man this stuff has already been published. It's a deliberate PR campaign. No better or worse than any other country does in similar circumstances. https://i.imgur.com/dwEpRnb.png https://i.imgur.com/dwEpRnb.png
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- knzhou 7y ago
  Care to explain what this screenshot actually means?
godelski 7y ago
I'd argue that Reddit has a more US centric voice because... it has a more US centric userbase. [0] I don't think it is because there is more going on in the US but more that people tend to be focused on the things that are closer to them. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/325144/reddit-global-active-user-distribution/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/325144/reddit-global-act...
- jhanschoo 7y ago
  While it is not mentioned explicitly, the comment you're replying to seems to be talking specifically in regards to coronavirus news.

nikofeyn 7y ago

that's a tinfoil hat indeed. you have no evidence of anything, so you're spreading baseless rumors just like others. i find it unacceptable on a site that supposedly has rules against these things. nothing you've said can be verified or unverified, and your link is to wikipedia, edited by who knows who. take a step back and notice the level of anti-chinese posts and comments on hacker news and wonder if you yourself are being fed propaganda.

dntbnmpls 7y ago

> Tinfoil hat: I'm not keeping active track It's been my experience that everyone who prefaces their comment with statements like this usually are lying. "I'm not X, but ... " > along with a streak of random US-critical posts ("What is the worst thing the US government has done?") being massively updated on Reddit Anyone can go on reddit and see the very opposite. This is what I don't understand about propagandists, why lie about something that can be verifiably proven false? Go on worldnews or any major subreddit, what are the ratio of pro and anti-chinese submissions? What are the ratio of pro and anti-china comments? The exact opposite of what you claim. > This is from the country which forces foreign companies to remove flags of countries it likes to bully (Taiwan, Japan) from their products. You obviously know why they do for taiwan. As for japan, lets see some examples. If "removing" flags is called "bullying", then your definition of "bullying" is rather naive. > It's not inconceivable, and certainly probable, that they are filtering the narrative about themselves in something actually serious, such as this pandemic. No shit. Just like you are filtering a narrative. Just like the US government is filtering a narrative. We are involved in a major trade war. You are doing the exact same thing you claim "china" is doing.

dependenttypes 7y ago
> You obviously know why they do for taiwan To bully them?
Razengan 7y ago
> As for japan, lets see some examples. https://www.google.com/search?q=Japan+and+Taiwan+flags+removed+from+Top+Gun https://www.google.com/search?q=Japan+and+Taiwan+flags+remov...

chunghua 7y ago

Some links for consideration 1 Difference in Receptor Usage between Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Coronavirus and SARS-Like Coronavirus of Bat Origin http://archive.is/M9IRO http://archive.is/M9IRO 2 Officials punished for SARS virus leakhttps://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/02/content_344755.htm https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/02/content... 3 Chinese researcher escorted from infectious disease lab amid RCMP investigation https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-escorted-from-infectious-disease-lab-amid-rcmp-investigation-1.5211567 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-e... 4 https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-link-to-china-biowarfare-program-possi/ https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-l... 5 https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/threatened-pandemics-and-laboratory-escapes-self-fulfilling-prophecies/ https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/threatened-pandemics-and-lab... 6 https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to-study-world-s-most-dangerous-pathogens-1.21487 https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to...

throwanem 7y ago
Posting a tendentiously selected collection of links in the hope of deniably constructing a false chain of inference among your audience still qualifies as deliberately lying by omission. Especially when you do it with a throwaway account obviously constructed for the purpose.

godelski 7y ago

I'm not so sure I buy the Reddit controlled by CCP (or heavily influenced) argument. Simply because in /r/China, /r/ChineseLanguage, and /r/HongKong I see frequent posts that are highly critical of the CCP and China in general. They have many upvotes and it doesn't look like people are being banned or posts are being removed. It is nowhere like /r/Sino. I'm not trying to defend the CCP here, but just trying to say that maybe Reddit isn't a CCP propaganda weapon. I'm sure there's some influence, but I see these arguments go quite far.

peteretep 7y ago
Honestly the much simpler explanation is coordinated voting. If the Donald Trump-related sub-Reddit can coordinate their voting sufficiently that Reddit needs to step in to stop it, then I'm sure a country with access to Project Management tools can get large numbers of state employees or patriots to click on voting buttons.
deleted 7y ago
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coupdejarnac 7y ago
I've seen way more wumao type posts in subs like r/worldnews, where typical readers are much less knowledgeable about China.
dirtyid 7y ago
All the anti-China subs has grown multitudes more users than Sino since last year, easily enough to drown out pro-Chinese voices. Statistically, we should see more anti-Chinese bots and manipulation occurring. Also all available research doesn't suggest CPC has foreign manipulation toolset on western social media, except last years twitter "disclosure" about state level manipulation on HK without any explanation and attribution. Turned out to be ~200 twitter accounts, which... ok could be from Chinese state or bored PRC nationalist script kiddies. Also 50c doesn't operate abroad, they don't engage in argumentation, only lazy platitudes about positive Chinese news items - they don't draw attention to negative news. All the shill accusations doesn't account for this fact that 50c glorifies instead of defends China. The latter pattern requires too much effort. Official 50c are mostly state employees trying to meet msg quotas on domestic social media. Also China would not waste English proficiency trolling on reddit, English speakers with proficiency to trick western audiences are making bank working in industry and not the state. Chinese foreign propaganda MO is pouring a few hundred billion buying ad space in foreign news papers. And lately they've been growing twitter and other microblogging platform accounts for their diplomats to troll US. See US bioengineered weapon. E: Just to add the parsimonious explanation about the amount of pro-Chinese perspectives is that the vast amount of Chinese diaspora is engaging online discussions since they are witnessing the effects of western propaganda targetting their country. There is a ridiculous amount of biased reporting out there. Increased sinophobia etc, it's in their interests to clear the air which occasionally leads to doubling down on nationalist rhetoric.

ferest 7y ago

Because academic research can't be rushed. One of the requirements for an advanced degree is publishing papers, and if coronavirus related can easily bring attention and get the paper published, students would try taking the fast track. This is not good for research in general. There was a huge debate back in late Jan. early Feb. on Chinese social network about a paper didn't get peer-reviewed spreading all over places with misinformation. Hence the Fudan University post in Chinese was to tighten the publish review, and nothing about delaying the research. This guardian news only showed the story without context, which is pretty misleading.