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Do you guys remember when a Chinese soldier beat up someone who was holding the Koran? Well, except, it didn't happen: https://factcheck.afp.com/no-not-video-c

Do you guys remember when a Chinese soldier beat up someone who was holding the Koran? Well, except, it didn't happen: https://factcheck.afp.com/no-not-video-chinese-soldier-beating-uighur-muslim-having-copy-koran https://factcheck.afp.com/no-not-video-chinese-soldier-beati... Also, when are people going to stop using satellite imaging as a proof of evidence? I mean, let's not forget the whole casus belli for the last Iraq war, where there was clear evidence of WMDs from all those satellite images right? I mean, what's so different from the satellite image there and also a random business park in the UK (besides the labels and tags of course, and I used to be imprisoned in one of those blocks for most of my day that some people would like to call an 'office'): https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6220549,-1.2900712,1099m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6220549,-1.2900712,1099m/dat... There's quite a few good answers here on Quora which I reckon are worth a read about the situation: https://www.quora.com/What-are-Uyghurs-doing-to-fight-back-against-the-mistreatment-they-receive-from-China https://www.quora.com/What-are-Uyghurs-doing-to-fight-back-a...

sol_invictus 6y ago
Your entire comment history is pro-China comments. Are you just sitting by and waiting for a China-related article to pop up all day?
- elmo2you 6y ago
  That could be true. But please, do know that there are many individuals outside the USA, who regularly roll their eyes and feel triggered when yet another article accuses China or Russia of yet another "anything". Don't get me wrong, some of the accusations sure are very valid ones. But the political bias and (more often than not) cultural blindness/hypocrisy is usually rather obvious. At least for many, like me, from outside the USA. Personally, I would say that the most shocking part might be that not more Americans can see that about themselves. I guess that must be the power of systemic propaganda. As long as Americans (or at least many) keep using exceptionalism (of any kind) as some sort of blanked excuse, to justify a heap of nastiness they pull around the globe, one might wonder what right Americans have to point at anyone but themselves. This of course does in no way excuse whatever it is that countries like China and Russia do wrong. But finding any US-based non-political and/or otherwise unbiased assessment of anything happening in China, Russia or any other country that isn't "aligned" with the US, has become close to impossible these days. So, having people push back and posting counter stories might be nothing more than a natural process, by ordinary people who just get irritated by all this. Of course you're free to suspect bias in that, or even a Chinese agent if you'd like. But the real cause for these responses might just be ordinary people who simply get sick of all the biased and politicized "awareness" articles floating around these day .. especially here at HN, which should not be a forum for international politics (outside tech topic) in the first place. Sincerely, the obvious information warfare might be at least equally as bad as the things these kind of articles are supposed to inform us about. That not a larger part of the HN crowd appears to be aware of this aspect, is pretty darn shameful and awkward in its own right.
  - dumb1224 6y ago
    I agree with you and grew very weary of these threads. My love of the forum come first from the tech/randomness of this place. However been living outside of China in Europe for almost a decade and half I feel it is difficult to ignore these matters completely. It is still eye-opening to read the many balanced, logical and articulate users here. So that even the worst threads have some enlightenment in them.
  - sol_invictus 6y ago
    I agree with you to the most part. > which should not be a forum for international politics (outside tech topic) in the first place Which is why I'm highlighting the account for pushing a 100% political agenda.
    - elmo2you 6y ago
      > Which is why I'm highlighting the account for pushing a 100% political agenda. Fair enough, as far as I'm concerned. My main purpose was to (hopefully) give some context and explanation of why some people might write responses like that. I'm not sure though, if the intent of that account is to push a political agenda, rather than just feeling compelled to counter what appears (to this person) to be another political agenda. If you'd read my responses, you will find that many of them are political in nature as well. However, that is not because I like to campaign for politics. Almost always it is because I notice a glaring (implied) political bias in something and feel a strong need to point out what is missing there. Personally, I would rather discus technical aspects. But for many topics, it's usually other people who are far more qualified to do that. So I often stay silent on those. Consequently, it can easily be construed that I have to be some political agent (or worse). But in actuality it's mostly the nature of the content here on HN (and how it changed over time) that has leads to these results. That said, of course that account could have been made for purely political purposes. I really would not know.
  - aww_dang 6y ago
    There's a wide swath of the US that feels the same way in regards to foreign policy. From reading your comment, I'm not sure if that is clear to outsiders? https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/new-poll-shows-public-overwhelmingly-opposed-to-endless-us-military-interventions/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/new-poll-shows-pub... https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/248354/measuring-fault-lines-current-foreign-policy.aspx https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/248354/measu... https://reason.com/2014/04/30/poll-shows-strong-non-interventionist-mo/ https://reason.com/2014/04/30/poll-shows-strong-non-interven...
- borg_ 6y ago
  or, OP simply does not want their true identity to be labeled as "pro-China" and created this specific account given how toxic, biased and hostile HN comment section has become wrt "pro-China" sentiment, by people like yourself. Counter the argument for what it is if you wish but going after OP's account history is not called for.
  - sol_invictus 6y ago
    There is nothing 'toxic' about calling out astroturfing where it is blatant, especially since there is no way to flag individual accounts on this platform.
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      Calling out the very few Chinese people on English platforms defending their country as shills is even more chilling than China calling everybody who mentions things like this spies and dissidents. In the west, it's also racially coded. It's also against a lot of forums' rules, including this one. It's an excuse not to engage on the merits, but to blanket dismiss. > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. You should look through the comments of people who are constantly anti-China with the same vigilance; I'm sure you'll find 100x as many. Also, astroturfing is when corporations create activist organizations, not when somebody has an opinion you don't like, or when somebody believes their own government.
    - borg_ 6y ago
      are you alleging, without evidence?, that OP has been sponsored by state organisations?
    - jialutu 6y ago
      "Waa waa, someone does not ascribe to my beliefs so they must be a paid troll!" Do you need a tissue mate? The reason I don't make many comments is because 1, I am too lazy and 2, HN is pretty toxic in that if you write anything adversarial to HN's party line of anti-corporates, anti-police, anti-China or anti-something else, even when what's written is true, then you get downvoted into oblivion. Also, this is a pretty terrible platform for discussions (tbh, I am not sure if there is one that is good for discussions). No notifications, no auto-refreshes, in all honesty if I really paid attention to the discussions here, I should probably be questioning my life.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  Is that somehow a terrible thing for a patriotic Chinese person who doesn't believe the details of the stories being used to gin up animus against their country? It isn't like you've had to look far for anti-Chinese sentiment coming from the US government since right after WWII.
papaf 6y ago
Its easy to find untrue stories on the internet. Finding such stories disproves nothing. Here is an article with a first hand account [1]. [1] https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-a-million-people-are-jailed-at-china-s-gulags-i-escaped-here-s-what-goes-on-inside-1.7994216 https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-a-milli...
xupybd 6y ago
The Chinese people are great. The country is awesome but the current government is tyrannical. We know that millions died under Mao yet he is still praised. That alone is enough for me to distrust the CCP.
- ArtDev 6y ago
  This sums up my feelings about it as well. I have been to China. I know Tibetans with heartbreaking stories about the direct impacts of government tyranny.
- mikem170 6y ago
  >We know that millions died under Mao yet he is still praised It's my understanding that Mao is held in good regard by his people for the communist revolution, which liberated China from colonial powers, their colonization by the West and the Japanese occupation being a deeply disturbing part of their history. It is also my understanding that Mao is also considered by most to have been misguided, senile, and/or perhaps usurped by others (like the gang of four) for things like the great leap forward and the cultural revolution which happened later. He is not admired for these events.

sol_invictus 6y ago

Your entire comment history is pro-China comments. Are you just sitting by and waiting for a China-related article to pop up all day?

elmo2you 6y ago
That could be true. But please, do know that there are many individuals outside the USA, who regularly roll their eyes and feel triggered when yet another article accuses China or Russia of yet another "anything". Don't get me wrong, some of the accusations sure are very valid ones. But the political bias and (more often than not) cultural blindness/hypocrisy is usually rather obvious. At least for many, like me, from outside the USA. Personally, I would say that the most shocking part might be that not more Americans can see that about themselves. I guess that must be the power of systemic propaganda. As long as Americans (or at least many) keep using exceptionalism (of any kind) as some sort of blanked excuse, to justify a heap of nastiness they pull around the globe, one might wonder what right Americans have to point at anyone but themselves. This of course does in no way excuse whatever it is that countries like China and Russia do wrong. But finding any US-based non-political and/or otherwise unbiased assessment of anything happening in China, Russia or any other country that isn't "aligned" with the US, has become close to impossible these days. So, having people push back and posting counter stories might be nothing more than a natural process, by ordinary people who just get irritated by all this. Of course you're free to suspect bias in that, or even a Chinese agent if you'd like. But the real cause for these responses might just be ordinary people who simply get sick of all the biased and politicized "awareness" articles floating around these day .. especially here at HN, which should not be a forum for international politics (outside tech topic) in the first place. Sincerely, the obvious information warfare might be at least equally as bad as the things these kind of articles are supposed to inform us about. That not a larger part of the HN crowd appears to be aware of this aspect, is pretty darn shameful and awkward in its own right.
- dumb1224 6y ago
  I agree with you and grew very weary of these threads. My love of the forum come first from the tech/randomness of this place. However been living outside of China in Europe for almost a decade and half I feel it is difficult to ignore these matters completely. It is still eye-opening to read the many balanced, logical and articulate users here. So that even the worst threads have some enlightenment in them.
- sol_invictus 6y ago
  I agree with you to the most part. > which should not be a forum for international politics (outside tech topic) in the first place Which is why I'm highlighting the account for pushing a 100% political agenda.
  - elmo2you 6y ago
    > Which is why I'm highlighting the account for pushing a 100% political agenda. Fair enough, as far as I'm concerned. My main purpose was to (hopefully) give some context and explanation of why some people might write responses like that. I'm not sure though, if the intent of that account is to push a political agenda, rather than just feeling compelled to counter what appears (to this person) to be another political agenda. If you'd read my responses, you will find that many of them are political in nature as well. However, that is not because I like to campaign for politics. Almost always it is because I notice a glaring (implied) political bias in something and feel a strong need to point out what is missing there. Personally, I would rather discus technical aspects. But for many topics, it's usually other people who are far more qualified to do that. So I often stay silent on those. Consequently, it can easily be construed that I have to be some political agent (or worse). But in actuality it's mostly the nature of the content here on HN (and how it changed over time) that has leads to these results. That said, of course that account could have been made for purely political purposes. I really would not know.
- aww_dang 6y ago
  There's a wide swath of the US that feels the same way in regards to foreign policy. From reading your comment, I'm not sure if that is clear to outsiders? https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/new-poll-shows-public-overwhelmingly-opposed-to-endless-us-military-interventions/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/new-poll-shows-pub... https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/248354/measuring-fault-lines-current-foreign-policy.aspx https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/248354/measu... https://reason.com/2014/04/30/poll-shows-strong-non-interventionist-mo/ https://reason.com/2014/04/30/poll-shows-strong-non-interven...
borg_ 6y ago
or, OP simply does not want their true identity to be labeled as "pro-China" and created this specific account given how toxic, biased and hostile HN comment section has become wrt "pro-China" sentiment, by people like yourself. Counter the argument for what it is if you wish but going after OP's account history is not called for.
- sol_invictus 6y ago
  There is nothing 'toxic' about calling out astroturfing where it is blatant, especially since there is no way to flag individual accounts on this platform.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    Calling out the very few Chinese people on English platforms defending their country as shills is even more chilling than China calling everybody who mentions things like this spies and dissidents. In the west, it's also racially coded. It's also against a lot of forums' rules, including this one. It's an excuse not to engage on the merits, but to blanket dismiss. > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. You should look through the comments of people who are constantly anti-China with the same vigilance; I'm sure you'll find 100x as many. Also, astroturfing is when corporations create activist organizations, not when somebody has an opinion you don't like, or when somebody believes their own government.
  - borg_ 6y ago
    are you alleging, without evidence?, that OP has been sponsored by state organisations?
  - jialutu 6y ago
    "Waa waa, someone does not ascribe to my beliefs so they must be a paid troll!" Do you need a tissue mate? The reason I don't make many comments is because 1, I am too lazy and 2, HN is pretty toxic in that if you write anything adversarial to HN's party line of anti-corporates, anti-police, anti-China or anti-something else, even when what's written is true, then you get downvoted into oblivion. Also, this is a pretty terrible platform for discussions (tbh, I am not sure if there is one that is good for discussions). No notifications, no auto-refreshes, in all honesty if I really paid attention to the discussions here, I should probably be questioning my life.
pessimizer 6y ago
Is that somehow a terrible thing for a patriotic Chinese person who doesn't believe the details of the stories being used to gin up animus against their country? It isn't like you've had to look far for anti-Chinese sentiment coming from the US government since right after WWII.

papaf 6y ago

Its easy to find untrue stories on the internet. Finding such stories disproves nothing. Here is an article with a first hand account [1]. [1] https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-a-million-people-are-jailed-at-china-s-gulags-i-escaped-here-s-what-goes-on-inside-1.7994216 https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-a-milli...

xupybd 6y ago

The Chinese people are great. The country is awesome but the current government is tyrannical. We know that millions died under Mao yet he is still praised. That alone is enough for me to distrust the CCP.

ArtDev 6y ago
This sums up my feelings about it as well. I have been to China. I know Tibetans with heartbreaking stories about the direct impacts of government tyranny.
mikem170 6y ago
>We know that millions died under Mao yet he is still praised It's my understanding that Mao is held in good regard by his people for the communist revolution, which liberated China from colonial powers, their colonization by the West and the Japanese occupation being a deeply disturbing part of their history. It is also my understanding that Mao is also considered by most to have been misguided, senile, and/or perhaps usurped by others (like the gang of four) for things like the great leap forward and the cultural revolution which happened later. He is not admired for these events.