3 ms·

As a counterpoint, almost every single news story about China, Taiwan or Hong Kong is flooded by users from r/sino and accounts with suspicious histories all us

As a counterpoint, almost every single news story about China, Taiwan or Hong Kong is flooded by users from r/sino and accounts with suspicious histories all using whataboutisms, ad-hominem attacks or just plain old disinformation to change the narrative into a China friendly one. As others have said, the astroturfing is not even subtle.

dirtyid 6y ago
As a counter-counterpoint, anti-China voices seems to have calmed dramatically right after the US election ended. Suggesting there was much more anti-China astroturfing around election season. Which is expected considering Trump's entire platform was anti-China, and there's much more anti-China shills than pro-China shills. I too have noticed more pro-China voices on worldnews, but I've monitored and tagged via redditprotools and from my observation these pro-China regulars have been participating for a while, they just used to be more drowned out (suppressed by downvotes) by relatively more dominant anti-China voice. For example, the amount of anti-China users who also actively posted in /r/hongkong has dramatically reduced - hundreds of thousands of low effort HK virtue signallers lost interest. The conversation is balanced now or returned to pre HK drama / post tradewar balance, where pro-China views occasionally get positive reception, whereas before they'd be lucky to be downvoted but controversial. There's still handful of anti-China HKers/TWers making substantive posts, but mostly indian nationalists or generic anti-China-lifers shitposting now. Bluntly, most anti-China voices are low-effort, ignorant haters with poor boilerplate China-bad rhetoric. Pro-China voices are typically Chinese national, or diaspora or adjacent, they have actual experience and knowledge on Chinese related issues from Chinese perspective. At the end of the day /r/50k sino users can't out astroturf 500k /r/hongkong, 200k /r/china and comparably numerous india nationalist. But they do have better rhetoric and are more invested in the debate compared to lol chinabad tier commentary turned persecution complexes because their debunked GFW banned words copypasta didn't cost 50c shills social credit points. Being anti-China isn't immunity from being unhinged.
- ourlordcaffeine 6y ago
  >But they do have better rhetoric and are more invested in the debate For anyone unfamiliar with r/sino: They believe the Tienanmen Square massacre was justified They believe the Uighur concentration camps are justified They believe an invasion of Taiwan is righteous, and there is generally a lot of extreme vitriol directed at Taiwan and the Taiwanese They believe in and spread a lot of misinformation concerning the HK protests, and there is generally a lot of vitriol aimed at Hong Kongers You are banned if you question the CCP at all, with a most ridiculous ban message. They are just as bad as r/t_d was. Being anti-ccp is also not being an ignorant hater. Looking at their actions, it is a pretty reasonable stance. Also, should be of note to other HN users, there is a reddit account with the name "dirtyid" which has a pro-CCP bias and a very strong anti HK democracy stance.
  - dirtyid 6y ago
    Well duh, that's me. I'm pro-CCP on policies I agree with and anti-CCP on policies I don't. You know... the kind of nuance reasonable people reserve for their own governments, but can't seem to generalize outside their tribe. Sino's an unfortunate echochamber because 50k pro-China voices can't withstand brigading of vastly numerous anti-China voices. It's understandable to adopt siege mentality, plenty of other places soft/hard ban pro-China opinion. Also you list a bunch of pro China views that are consistent with pro-China interests like... that's a problem? Regardless, I don't care much for Sino, at minimum they do good counter-propaganda work. I'm more partial to china_irl which is gated by Chinese fluency.
    - ourlordcaffeine 6y ago
      You agree with some pretty awful things then. And any reasonable person would have a problem with the things listed.
denimnerd42 6y ago
OP here. Yeah I don’t necessarily think that’s a counter though. Falun Gong propaganda has no place in CCP criticism as they are a cult with incoherent policies. Those who are criticizing the CCP which IMO it rightly deserves should be careful of the reach they have as bundling their sources and arguments is not the right path. They both deserve criticism.

dirtyid 6y ago

As a counter-counterpoint, anti-China voices seems to have calmed dramatically right after the US election ended. Suggesting there was much more anti-China astroturfing around election season. Which is expected considering Trump's entire platform was anti-China, and there's much more anti-China shills than pro-China shills. I too have noticed more pro-China voices on worldnews, but I've monitored and tagged via redditprotools and from my observation these pro-China regulars have been participating for a while, they just used to be more drowned out (suppressed by downvotes) by relatively more dominant anti-China voice. For example, the amount of anti-China users who also actively posted in /r/hongkong has dramatically reduced - hundreds of thousands of low effort HK virtue signallers lost interest. The conversation is balanced now or returned to pre HK drama / post tradewar balance, where pro-China views occasionally get positive reception, whereas before they'd be lucky to be downvoted but controversial. There's still handful of anti-China HKers/TWers making substantive posts, but mostly indian nationalists or generic anti-China-lifers shitposting now. Bluntly, most anti-China voices are low-effort, ignorant haters with poor boilerplate China-bad rhetoric. Pro-China voices are typically Chinese national, or diaspora or adjacent, they have actual experience and knowledge on Chinese related issues from Chinese perspective. At the end of the day /r/50k sino users can't out astroturf 500k /r/hongkong, 200k /r/china and comparably numerous india nationalist. But they do have better rhetoric and are more invested in the debate compared to lol chinabad tier commentary turned persecution complexes because their debunked GFW banned words copypasta didn't cost 50c shills social credit points. Being anti-China isn't immunity from being unhinged.

ourlordcaffeine 6y ago
>But they do have better rhetoric and are more invested in the debate For anyone unfamiliar with r/sino: They believe the Tienanmen Square massacre was justified They believe the Uighur concentration camps are justified They believe an invasion of Taiwan is righteous, and there is generally a lot of extreme vitriol directed at Taiwan and the Taiwanese They believe in and spread a lot of misinformation concerning the HK protests, and there is generally a lot of vitriol aimed at Hong Kongers You are banned if you question the CCP at all, with a most ridiculous ban message. They are just as bad as r/t_d was. Being anti-ccp is also not being an ignorant hater. Looking at their actions, it is a pretty reasonable stance. Also, should be of note to other HN users, there is a reddit account with the name "dirtyid" which has a pro-CCP bias and a very strong anti HK democracy stance.
- dirtyid 6y ago
  Well duh, that's me. I'm pro-CCP on policies I agree with and anti-CCP on policies I don't. You know... the kind of nuance reasonable people reserve for their own governments, but can't seem to generalize outside their tribe. Sino's an unfortunate echochamber because 50k pro-China voices can't withstand brigading of vastly numerous anti-China voices. It's understandable to adopt siege mentality, plenty of other places soft/hard ban pro-China opinion. Also you list a bunch of pro China views that are consistent with pro-China interests like... that's a problem? Regardless, I don't care much for Sino, at minimum they do good counter-propaganda work. I'm more partial to china_irl which is gated by Chinese fluency.
  - ourlordcaffeine 6y ago
    You agree with some pretty awful things then. And any reasonable person would have a problem with the things listed.

denimnerd42 6y ago

OP here. Yeah I don’t necessarily think that’s a counter though. Falun Gong propaganda has no place in CCP criticism as they are a cult with incoherent policies. Those who are criticizing the CCP which IMO it rightly deserves should be careful of the reach they have as bundling their sources and arguments is not the right path. They both deserve criticism.