8 ms·

Chinese propaganda is just so... Tone deaf. Give me a couple million dollars and a couple interns and I'm pretty sure I could do better than any of its existing

Chinese propaganda is just so... Tone deaf. Give me a couple million dollars and a couple interns and I'm pretty sure I could do better than any of its existing organs. This isn't a particularly high bar: you could probably do better just by doing nothing.

notsureaboutpg 5y ago
Indian propaganda is similar (I'm more familiar with it, being Indian). You can see the parallels in how both talk about their hated minorities (Uyghurs and Kashmiris/Muslims) My favorite was a recent Twitter account with a teenage profile picture, she/they pronouns, BLM, proud feminist, and TRUMP2020 all in the bio, and all it did was claim that Uyghurs are really being educated and that the decline in birth rates among Uyghurs by ~50% in one year, according to Chinese gov't statistics is just because they are being liberated, and basically all sorts of other genocide denial.
- _Microft 5y ago
  Do you happen to remember a Twitter handle? I bet one could use a single one of them to discover a whole network of these.
  - notsureaboutpg 5y ago
    I don't, but they're easy to spot because they look really leftist and they often post about the left-wing news of the moment while at the same time downplaying Uighur atrocities. They often mostly retweet and are poor in communication when they comment. Here's one example: https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch (mostly retweets, tweets are usually quote tweets with one word like "Xinjiang?" attached) When this account actually comments, it barely makes sense: https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch/status/1393091998589071360 https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch/status/1393091998589071360 And this strange Palestinian liberation + Uyghur genocide denial is hallmark of China (who has to straddle both positions due to the geopolitics of opposing the US).
- max_hammer 5y ago
  Did you just compared treatment of Uyghurs in China with Kashmiri/Muslims in India ? Last I checked Indian govt is not holding minority in reeducation camps or removing every trace of cultural heritage.
  - heraclius 5y ago
    One can note certain rhetorical similarities without holding that in every aspect China and India are doing the same thing.
    - max_hammer 5y ago
      What is India doing ?
  - notsureaboutpg 5y ago
    As the other commenter noted. I did not actually say the two situations are the same. I said the way both groups were talked about by gov't propaganda Twitter handles are similar. And those are very similar.
briefcomment 5y ago
What do you think are examples of Chinese propaganda? If it was good, I don't think we'd be able to tell.
- scarmig 5y ago
  I agree that good propaganda wouldn't be easily discernable as propaganda. I'm skeptical that the same organizations that run the shitty Twitter fake accounts can simultaneously run actually effective programs. It'd be like Apple simultaneously being Apple and also running a shitty Etsy storefront that sells amateurish coffee cozies.
  - briefcomment 5y ago
    I don't see why we couldn't have both good and bad propaganda. It would be a good way to throw people off, like you in this case. Regardless, there are probably many somewhat independent groups participating, of various ability. I doubt this is being done by just one micromanaged group.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Yoric 5y ago
    I suspect that HN-oriented propaganda will look more like academic publications, VC investors and job offers.
- sodd9 5y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/c/%E5%A4%A7%E6%A0%91%E5%90%9BTreeMan/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/%E5%A4%A7%E6%A0%91%E5%90%9BTreeMan... https://www.youtube.com/c/%E6%BB%87%E8%A5%BF%E5%B0%8F%E5%93%A5dianxixiaoge/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/%E6%BB%87%E8%A5%BF%E5%B0%8F%E5%93%...
- 2020aj 5y ago
  Here's a medium post describing how they've been recruiting Western YouTubers: https://medium.com/swlh/how-china-is-influencing-youtubers-into-posting-state-propaganda-db72acf18dfa https://medium.com/swlh/how-china-is-influencing-youtubers-i...
Mediterraneo10 5y ago
I recall reading some study of employees at the Internet Research Agency (Russia’s most well-known “troll farm”). Some of these employees were Russian liberals and opposed to the regime, but hey, this was a paying job. Since they were not ideologically invested in their work and they knew that their siloviki backers had deep pockets and would keep throwing money at the agency regardless, they didn’t make any effort to sound very subtle or persuasive in their posting at all.
sct202 5y ago
Honestly, they could do so much by letting some of Chinese TikTok out on to the international side. I've seen quite a few reposts on Twitter and Reddit from Douyin that are completely inaccessible directly, and if they were actually trying to get people to like them they have a giant bank of content that they could curate to show whatever they wanted.
- dageshi 5y ago
  I have been quite suspect of some chinese content that turned up on reddit at interestingly specific times... During or around the time of the protests in HK a lot of chinese content started popping up in r/videos and similar in a way that was out of context for the usual content there. Then it disappeared again. I assumed some kind of manipulation was going on.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dalbasal 5y ago
This is similar to the common sentiment people have about advertising: It's so stupid... never works on anyone I know. I don't know why companies waste their money. Meanwhile, advertising is an industry that rivals energy, shipping and such. If that's not markt proof of efficacy, IDK what is. From the advertiser side of the advertiser-consumer relationship, there's no doubt of efficacy. You open an online business. No one shows up. You advertise. People show up. Profitable or not, the causality is plain. Consumers only notice that ads piss them off. Advertisers only notice that ads make consumers do stuff, and both think the other is dumb. Believing that Chinese propaganda is ineffective is naive. It's a carrot and stick system locally. Internationally it's just carrot, but carrot removal is a lot like the stick. When Deng he decided to liberalize the Chinese market, he had some saying about the danger of letting flies in when you open a window for fresh air. Fresh air meant the economics. Flies meant cultural-political influences. Mcdonalds, yes. Youtube, no. Now the tables are turned. US media, entertainment and sports companies want into China for its market size and growth potential. They enter on China's terms, and those terms are always unstated. Increasingly, they relate to stuff entirely outside China. Favoured companies will succeed, misbehavors will not and we will rarely be able to say exactly where "propaganda" is at play.
- scarmig 5y ago
  The structural kind of propaganda is one thing: make sure American cultural products have to respect Chinese sensibilities, and that's huge. I'm speaking strictly of the hamfisted Twitter accounts and silly press releases that are meant for international consumption.
  - dalbasal 5y ago
    I think the most hamfisted ones stand out the most, so we might be underestimating mean quality. Not sure it matters though. Twitter sockpuppeting is a recurring red herring, not just regarding china. For all the attention it receives, it's not a major component of any major effort. FWIW, I don't think anyone's is particularly slick. It's not intended to be. At best, it's about algorithm hacks and generating a veneer of debate. As "sentiment analysis" becomes integrated (intentionally, or accidentally) into recommendation engines and such... these may be more about fooling machines than people. Not saying this is a factor now (or ever, necessarily), just that stuff can look lame but still work. This article seems to be referencing registered lobbyist budgets, which is another relatively minor component. It's also relatively easy to obscure, or act through proxies. In some cases, proxy can be fairly nebulous... relating to what you call structural propaganda. The most visible parts are not necessarily good indicators, is my main point.
colordrops 5y ago
You're only noticing the obvious Chinese propaganda. They've probably got bot networks that are using AI to generate responses that you'd never distinguish as Chinese.
- courtf 5y ago
  Absolutely. And there is still value in propaganda that is recognizable as propaganda. The meta game has as many layers as an onion, and one piece of propaganda can serve multiple purposes. Maybe a particular piece is obvious to spot, but the ultimate goal might not be so obvious. Idiots will fall for anything, but tricking the intelligent isn't as hard as we'd like to think either. Perhaps it is possible to subtlety influence a narrative by representing it poorly in obvious propaganda, sort of like negative space a painting. And the more time people spend trying to unravel the knot of lies and half-truths, the better. The propagandists win when we are arguing about their nonsense rather than seeking truth directly. As soon as you think you can spot the propaganda, they've got you, as they can manipulate the presentation at any time.
  - colordrops 5y ago
    For sure, anything can be propaganda. Wouldn't be surprised if unwitting people are being used by software that corrals and funnels ideas into influencers without their knowledge, and without even full understanding by the people who wrote the software.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ravenstine 5y ago
Maybe it's because people such as ourselves aren't the target of said propaganda. We're a small fraction of the population. Frankly, most people are content consuming drivel of all kinds, and propaganda may actually have an influence over them. If that's the tactic, it's genius. Find the boundary where intellectuals dismiss the propaganda as ineffectual yet it still works on the 80% to some degree.
- FpUser 5y ago
  All you have to do is read user comments on news outlets for example. If those are anywhere close to representing general populace then it is clear that propaganda got to be dumb and something in line of "do not let the facts get in a way of a story".
- atatatat 5y ago
  The future is the target — kids. See: TikTok.
  - capedape 5y ago
    This, and the World’s app appetite in general. I’ve noticed them up their maker game in various ways with other apps like CapCut which makes video editing very easy and is owned by the same company as Tik Tok. People made a big stink about Tik Tok’s privacy, but there are so many apps still in there with sensitive info going through PRC servers. Marginnote is another app that is so good for research on iOS. I was reading a very obscure book with it while also on the Marginnote beta. I quit testing and noticed months later, in promotional material, the book I was reading was displayed as an example in the iOS store. Could have been coincidence, but the odds are quite low. They are gaining in cool tech soft power quickly.
optimalsolver 5y ago
>Chinese propaganda is just so... Tone deaf Ironic, seeing as Chinese is a tonal language.
Impassionata 5y ago
Half of the country thinks the Mueller report exonerated Trump. The body politic has become completely decoupled from reality. If it's that easy for Russians to influence our politics, why wouldn't the Chinese perceive that there is low-hanging fruit in running general disruption?
- thehappypm 5y ago
  And half of the country thinks the Mueller report showed Trump was undeniably guilty. The truth is in between.
  - Impassionata 5y ago
    See here's this guy proving me right. These nitpickers are extremely easy to fool into doing the work of propaganda.
    - d0mine 5y ago
      Have you considered that « Russians did it » is by itself propaganda?
      - Impassionata 5y ago
        This is a stupid trap you're trying. See how they misdirect? I'm not saying d0mine is taking Russian money, I'm saying that the Russian money spent getting hooks into Trump leads inexorably to a bunch of chumps like d0mine trying to murk up the water in a shabby pretense of discourse.
        d0mine 5y ago
        the exact same argument can be applied in reverse (and the reverse is much more likely given relative military budgets of the countries). Listen: If you are a human being: nobody reading it at this point; there is nobody to convince. Just do the math and make your own conclusions.
    - 5y ago
tester756 5y ago
>Chinese propaganda is just so... Tone deaf. So apparently it works? :)
whall6 5y ago
To be fair, $64 million for a government isn’t that much anyways.
jollybean 5y ago
Unfortunately 'we' are not very bright as well, and by 'we' I mean the general public of any nation, including us. We are very susceptible to messaging. Even simple things. Just a basic quasi-factual statement about Taiwan, planted in pop-culture, can influence us. "Taiwan has been part of China for Millennia" that's technically true and helps the populist China case. Just reading that etc. can help move the needle. I'm less concerned about their propaganda as I am their control of apps. Media, historically, much like the financial system and telecoms, public works etc. has had national protections. There's a reason the CBC/BBC exist. I'm very wary of foreign control of media. If you live in a small country, you probably have more sensitivity to it, as Netflix comes to dominate your creative landscape, it's a real issue. TikTok is a much bigger concern than most people realize, although it's not an existential concern yet.
estaseuropano 5y ago
A. You only notice it when it is done badly, not when it works. B. Repetition is everything. How many people watch RT and its wild mix of true stories (copy&pasted) and blatant propaganda and soak it up? Or vaccine conspiracies in mommy Facebook groups? Badly done propaganda repeated 1000x still works.
- d0mine 5y ago
  Could you link to examples of the copy-paste, blatant propaganda?
  - estaseuropano 5y ago
    RT broadcasts plenty of true stories too, mostly from Reuters, AP or simply translations of European papers. The trick is to report wjatever comes up for topics you don't care about and mix in false or misleading narratives on issues where you do, e.g. in relation to Ukraine. Rather than expect me, random stranger, to point out what is or isn't propaganda, see e.g. that the EU has an entire site largely debunking Russian propaganda as Russia uses it so frequently and effectively: https://euvsdisinfo.eu/headlyin-and-deceptive-fiction/ https://euvsdisinfo.eu/headlyin-and-deceptive-fiction/
yongjik 5y ago
It's a classical (and, in this case, fortunate) case of wrong incentive structure. People who direct these propaganda campaigns are not rewarded by polling Americans for their perception of China. Presumably, they are rewarded by their superiors looking at beautifully curated Powerpoint slides. You don't want to be the guy accused of using an expression that can be interpreted as China conceding $(some utterly inconsequential point). Guess how they will behave. * That said, I'm sure some brilliant minds inside CCP already know this and are working on improving their methodology ...
president 5y ago
Chinese propaganda is the reason the US and all other countries adopted the lockdown despite there never being any precedent or literature prior to COV19. Chinese propaganda is also the reason why nobody knows about this. More power to them if the US and other western nations aren't able to deflect it.
dirtyid 5y ago
IMO unreasonable expectation that PRC can out-propagandize US / west in their own territories which is not remotely feasible. This is on top of western MSM / softpower / propaganda apparatus already being much more developed and mutually reinforcing, with an entire ecosystem of NGOs and think tanks to launder opinion and set narrative. It's why PRC netizens and PRC western diaspora (well western diaspora from many global south countries) are frequently awestruck by how "brain washed" westerners can be despite having "free media" - US propaganda power is very sophisticated relative to the crudeness of GFW and PRC censorship. There's also point that PRC's western propaganda has been mostly defensive, trying to explain PRC perspectives - Xi's "tell the China story well" and where most of the FARA spending goes. Whereas Kremlin is fine with going offensive by undermining US polity on domestic fractures because they know you can't counter-program against decades of western narrative that's ongoing. Exception is influencing diaspora populations, in which case both PRC and Russia are fairly successful. But broadly PRC has not heavily invested in attack yet. And ultimately PRC global propaganda is not... terrible considering what survives the filter of western MSM, bad translations, exaggerations, omissions, outright fabrications etc. PRC still has more supporters for XinJiang being counter-terrorism than human rights abuse. Compared to global positions on US/Israel/Palestine. Or how polling still consistently conclude US is still viewed as biggest risk to democracy / stability. It took 10 years of pressure, sanctions and finally a pandemic for most of FVEYs to get on board of Huawei ban. PRC will be wasting time refining defensive messages against the tide of western MSM. Better off going on offensive and weakening US society itself which compromise global alliances. There's zero amount of lobbying / propaganda PRC can do to affect US security planning, but it could absolutely compromise US systematically to undermine US credibility and shift global politics in way that favours PRC.
rednerrus 5y ago
TikTok is definitely affecting American brains. They are the cultural zeitgeist right now.
charwalker 5y ago
Some 80 million Americans voted for and many actually think Trump won in 2020, regardless of evidence. Much of them also think the events of 1/6/21 were fake or a non issue. Think of someone you know of average intelligence then remember that 50% of the nation is under that bar. That's a lot of voters.
SkyMarshal 5y ago
It's at least partly because the CCP allows no competition for or critical response to its propaganda, so it's never forced to get better. Western propaganda by comparison must run the gauntlet of free speech, critical reception, and political adversaries, and as a result has become much more subtle, sophisticated, and effective [1][2]. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent [2]:http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
cyanydeez 5y ago
however republican propaganda is completely irstional

notsureaboutpg 5y ago

Indian propaganda is similar (I'm more familiar with it, being Indian). You can see the parallels in how both talk about their hated minorities (Uyghurs and Kashmiris/Muslims) My favorite was a recent Twitter account with a teenage profile picture, she/they pronouns, BLM, proud feminist, and TRUMP2020 all in the bio, and all it did was claim that Uyghurs are really being educated and that the decline in birth rates among Uyghurs by ~50% in one year, according to Chinese gov't statistics is just because they are being liberated, and basically all sorts of other genocide denial.

_Microft 5y ago
Do you happen to remember a Twitter handle? I bet one could use a single one of them to discover a whole network of these.
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  I don't, but they're easy to spot because they look really leftist and they often post about the left-wing news of the moment while at the same time downplaying Uighur atrocities. They often mostly retweet and are poor in communication when they comment. Here's one example: https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch (mostly retweets, tweets are usually quote tweets with one word like "Xinjiang?" attached) When this account actually comments, it barely makes sense: https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch/status/1393091998589071360 https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch/status/1393091998589071360 And this strange Palestinian liberation + Uyghur genocide denial is hallmark of China (who has to straddle both positions due to the geopolitics of opposing the US).
max_hammer 5y ago
Did you just compared treatment of Uyghurs in China with Kashmiri/Muslims in India ? Last I checked Indian govt is not holding minority in reeducation camps or removing every trace of cultural heritage.
- heraclius 5y ago
  One can note certain rhetorical similarities without holding that in every aspect China and India are doing the same thing.
  - max_hammer 5y ago
    What is India doing ?
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  As the other commenter noted. I did not actually say the two situations are the same. I said the way both groups were talked about by gov't propaganda Twitter handles are similar. And those are very similar.

briefcomment 5y ago

What do you think are examples of Chinese propaganda? If it was good, I don't think we'd be able to tell.

scarmig 5y ago
I agree that good propaganda wouldn't be easily discernable as propaganda. I'm skeptical that the same organizations that run the shitty Twitter fake accounts can simultaneously run actually effective programs. It'd be like Apple simultaneously being Apple and also running a shitty Etsy storefront that sells amateurish coffee cozies.
- briefcomment 5y ago
  I don't see why we couldn't have both good and bad propaganda. It would be a good way to throw people off, like you in this case. Regardless, there are probably many somewhat independent groups participating, of various ability. I doubt this is being done by just one micromanaged group.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Yoric 5y ago
  I suspect that HN-oriented propaganda will look more like academic publications, VC investors and job offers.
sodd9 5y ago
https://www.youtube.com/c/%E5%A4%A7%E6%A0%91%E5%90%9BTreeMan/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/%E5%A4%A7%E6%A0%91%E5%90%9BTreeMan... https://www.youtube.com/c/%E6%BB%87%E8%A5%BF%E5%B0%8F%E5%93%A5dianxixiaoge/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/%E6%BB%87%E8%A5%BF%E5%B0%8F%E5%93%...
2020aj 5y ago
Here's a medium post describing how they've been recruiting Western YouTubers: https://medium.com/swlh/how-china-is-influencing-youtubers-into-posting-state-propaganda-db72acf18dfa https://medium.com/swlh/how-china-is-influencing-youtubers-i...

Mediterraneo10 5y ago

I recall reading some study of employees at the Internet Research Agency (Russia’s most well-known “troll farm”). Some of these employees were Russian liberals and opposed to the regime, but hey, this was a paying job. Since they were not ideologically invested in their work and they knew that their siloviki backers had deep pockets and would keep throwing money at the agency regardless, they didn’t make any effort to sound very subtle or persuasive in their posting at all.

sct202 5y ago

Honestly, they could do so much by letting some of Chinese TikTok out on to the international side. I've seen quite a few reposts on Twitter and Reddit from Douyin that are completely inaccessible directly, and if they were actually trying to get people to like them they have a giant bank of content that they could curate to show whatever they wanted.

dageshi 5y ago
I have been quite suspect of some chinese content that turned up on reddit at interestingly specific times... During or around the time of the protests in HK a lot of chinese content started popping up in r/videos and similar in a way that was out of context for the usual content there. Then it disappeared again. I assumed some kind of manipulation was going on.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dalbasal 5y ago

This is similar to the common sentiment people have about advertising: It's so stupid... never works on anyone I know. I don't know why companies waste their money. Meanwhile, advertising is an industry that rivals energy, shipping and such. If that's not markt proof of efficacy, IDK what is. From the advertiser side of the advertiser-consumer relationship, there's no doubt of efficacy. You open an online business. No one shows up. You advertise. People show up. Profitable or not, the causality is plain. Consumers only notice that ads piss them off. Advertisers only notice that ads make consumers do stuff, and both think the other is dumb. Believing that Chinese propaganda is ineffective is naive. It's a carrot and stick system locally. Internationally it's just carrot, but carrot removal is a lot like the stick. When Deng he decided to liberalize the Chinese market, he had some saying about the danger of letting flies in when you open a window for fresh air. Fresh air meant the economics. Flies meant cultural-political influences. Mcdonalds, yes. Youtube, no. Now the tables are turned. US media, entertainment and sports companies want into China for its market size and growth potential. They enter on China's terms, and those terms are always unstated. Increasingly, they relate to stuff entirely outside China. Favoured companies will succeed, misbehavors will not and we will rarely be able to say exactly where "propaganda" is at play.

scarmig 5y ago
The structural kind of propaganda is one thing: make sure American cultural products have to respect Chinese sensibilities, and that's huge. I'm speaking strictly of the hamfisted Twitter accounts and silly press releases that are meant for international consumption.
- dalbasal 5y ago
  I think the most hamfisted ones stand out the most, so we might be underestimating mean quality. Not sure it matters though. Twitter sockpuppeting is a recurring red herring, not just regarding china. For all the attention it receives, it's not a major component of any major effort. FWIW, I don't think anyone's is particularly slick. It's not intended to be. At best, it's about algorithm hacks and generating a veneer of debate. As "sentiment analysis" becomes integrated (intentionally, or accidentally) into recommendation engines and such... these may be more about fooling machines than people. Not saying this is a factor now (or ever, necessarily), just that stuff can look lame but still work. This article seems to be referencing registered lobbyist budgets, which is another relatively minor component. It's also relatively easy to obscure, or act through proxies. In some cases, proxy can be fairly nebulous... relating to what you call structural propaganda. The most visible parts are not necessarily good indicators, is my main point.

colordrops 5y ago

You're only noticing the obvious Chinese propaganda. They've probably got bot networks that are using AI to generate responses that you'd never distinguish as Chinese.

courtf 5y ago
Absolutely. And there is still value in propaganda that is recognizable as propaganda. The meta game has as many layers as an onion, and one piece of propaganda can serve multiple purposes. Maybe a particular piece is obvious to spot, but the ultimate goal might not be so obvious. Idiots will fall for anything, but tricking the intelligent isn't as hard as we'd like to think either. Perhaps it is possible to subtlety influence a narrative by representing it poorly in obvious propaganda, sort of like negative space a painting. And the more time people spend trying to unravel the knot of lies and half-truths, the better. The propagandists win when we are arguing about their nonsense rather than seeking truth directly. As soon as you think you can spot the propaganda, they've got you, as they can manipulate the presentation at any time.
- colordrops 5y ago
  For sure, anything can be propaganda. Wouldn't be surprised if unwitting people are being used by software that corrals and funnels ideas into influencers without their knowledge, and without even full understanding by the people who wrote the software.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ravenstine 5y ago

Maybe it's because people such as ourselves aren't the target of said propaganda. We're a small fraction of the population. Frankly, most people are content consuming drivel of all kinds, and propaganda may actually have an influence over them. If that's the tactic, it's genius. Find the boundary where intellectuals dismiss the propaganda as ineffectual yet it still works on the 80% to some degree.

FpUser 5y ago
All you have to do is read user comments on news outlets for example. If those are anywhere close to representing general populace then it is clear that propaganda got to be dumb and something in line of "do not let the facts get in a way of a story".
atatatat 5y ago
The future is the target — kids. See: TikTok.
- capedape 5y ago
  This, and the World’s app appetite in general. I’ve noticed them up their maker game in various ways with other apps like CapCut which makes video editing very easy and is owned by the same company as Tik Tok. People made a big stink about Tik Tok’s privacy, but there are so many apps still in there with sensitive info going through PRC servers. Marginnote is another app that is so good for research on iOS. I was reading a very obscure book with it while also on the Marginnote beta. I quit testing and noticed months later, in promotional material, the book I was reading was displayed as an example in the iOS store. Could have been coincidence, but the odds are quite low. They are gaining in cool tech soft power quickly.

optimalsolver 5y ago

>Chinese propaganda is just so... Tone deaf Ironic, seeing as Chinese is a tonal language.

Impassionata 5y ago

Half of the country thinks the Mueller report exonerated Trump. The body politic has become completely decoupled from reality. If it's that easy for Russians to influence our politics, why wouldn't the Chinese perceive that there is low-hanging fruit in running general disruption?

thehappypm 5y ago
And half of the country thinks the Mueller report showed Trump was undeniably guilty. The truth is in between.
- Impassionata 5y ago
  See here's this guy proving me right. These nitpickers are extremely easy to fool into doing the work of propaganda.
  - d0mine 5y ago
    Have you considered that « Russians did it » is by itself propaganda?
    - Impassionata 5y ago
      This is a stupid trap you're trying. See how they misdirect? I'm not saying d0mine is taking Russian money, I'm saying that the Russian money spent getting hooks into Trump leads inexorably to a bunch of chumps like d0mine trying to murk up the water in a shabby pretense of discourse.
      - d0mine 5y ago
        the exact same argument can be applied in reverse (and the reverse is much more likely given relative military budgets of the countries). Listen: If you are a human being: nobody reading it at this point; there is nobody to convince. Just do the math and make your own conclusions.
  - 5y ago

tester756 5y ago

>Chinese propaganda is just so... Tone deaf. So apparently it works? :)

whall6 5y ago

To be fair, $64 million for a government isn’t that much anyways.

jollybean 5y ago

Unfortunately 'we' are not very bright as well, and by 'we' I mean the general public of any nation, including us. We are very susceptible to messaging. Even simple things. Just a basic quasi-factual statement about Taiwan, planted in pop-culture, can influence us. "Taiwan has been part of China for Millennia" that's technically true and helps the populist China case. Just reading that etc. can help move the needle. I'm less concerned about their propaganda as I am their control of apps. Media, historically, much like the financial system and telecoms, public works etc. has had national protections. There's a reason the CBC/BBC exist. I'm very wary of foreign control of media. If you live in a small country, you probably have more sensitivity to it, as Netflix comes to dominate your creative landscape, it's a real issue. TikTok is a much bigger concern than most people realize, although it's not an existential concern yet.

estaseuropano 5y ago

A. You only notice it when it is done badly, not when it works. B. Repetition is everything. How many people watch RT and its wild mix of true stories (copy&pasted) and blatant propaganda and soak it up? Or vaccine conspiracies in mommy Facebook groups? Badly done propaganda repeated 1000x still works.

d0mine 5y ago
Could you link to examples of the copy-paste, blatant propaganda?
- estaseuropano 5y ago
  RT broadcasts plenty of true stories too, mostly from Reuters, AP or simply translations of European papers. The trick is to report wjatever comes up for topics you don't care about and mix in false or misleading narratives on issues where you do, e.g. in relation to Ukraine. Rather than expect me, random stranger, to point out what is or isn't propaganda, see e.g. that the EU has an entire site largely debunking Russian propaganda as Russia uses it so frequently and effectively: https://euvsdisinfo.eu/headlyin-and-deceptive-fiction/ https://euvsdisinfo.eu/headlyin-and-deceptive-fiction/

yongjik 5y ago

It's a classical (and, in this case, fortunate) case of wrong incentive structure. People who direct these propaganda campaigns are not rewarded by polling Americans for their perception of China. Presumably, they are rewarded by their superiors looking at beautifully curated Powerpoint slides. You don't want to be the guy accused of using an expression that can be interpreted as China conceding $(some utterly inconsequential point). Guess how they will behave. * That said, I'm sure some brilliant minds inside CCP already know this and are working on improving their methodology ...

president 5y ago

Chinese propaganda is the reason the US and all other countries adopted the lockdown despite there never being any precedent or literature prior to COV19. Chinese propaganda is also the reason why nobody knows about this. More power to them if the US and other western nations aren't able to deflect it.

dirtyid 5y ago

IMO unreasonable expectation that PRC can out-propagandize US / west in their own territories which is not remotely feasible. This is on top of western MSM / softpower / propaganda apparatus already being much more developed and mutually reinforcing, with an entire ecosystem of NGOs and think tanks to launder opinion and set narrative. It's why PRC netizens and PRC western diaspora (well western diaspora from many global south countries) are frequently awestruck by how "brain washed" westerners can be despite having "free media" - US propaganda power is very sophisticated relative to the crudeness of GFW and PRC censorship. There's also point that PRC's western propaganda has been mostly defensive, trying to explain PRC perspectives - Xi's "tell the China story well" and where most of the FARA spending goes. Whereas Kremlin is fine with going offensive by undermining US polity on domestic fractures because they know you can't counter-program against decades of western narrative that's ongoing. Exception is influencing diaspora populations, in which case both PRC and Russia are fairly successful. But broadly PRC has not heavily invested in attack yet. And ultimately PRC global propaganda is not... terrible considering what survives the filter of western MSM, bad translations, exaggerations, omissions, outright fabrications etc. PRC still has more supporters for XinJiang being counter-terrorism than human rights abuse. Compared to global positions on US/Israel/Palestine. Or how polling still consistently conclude US is still viewed as biggest risk to democracy / stability. It took 10 years of pressure, sanctions and finally a pandemic for most of FVEYs to get on board of Huawei ban. PRC will be wasting time refining defensive messages against the tide of western MSM. Better off going on offensive and weakening US society itself which compromise global alliances. There's zero amount of lobbying / propaganda PRC can do to affect US security planning, but it could absolutely compromise US systematically to undermine US credibility and shift global politics in way that favours PRC.

rednerrus 5y ago

TikTok is definitely affecting American brains. They are the cultural zeitgeist right now.

charwalker 5y ago

Some 80 million Americans voted for and many actually think Trump won in 2020, regardless of evidence. Much of them also think the events of 1/6/21 were fake or a non issue. Think of someone you know of average intelligence then remember that 50% of the nation is under that bar. That's a lot of voters.

SkyMarshal 5y ago

It's at least partly because the CCP allows no competition for or critical response to its propaganda, so it's never forced to get better. Western propaganda by comparison must run the gauntlet of free speech, critical reception, and political adversaries, and as a result has become much more subtle, sophisticated, and effective [1][2]. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent [2]:http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

cyanydeez 5y ago

however republican propaganda is completely irstional