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The propaganda is also very strong on Chinese social media (especially Wechat). I leave in France and I know a few Chinese person that keep telling me that this

• throwaway4good 5y ago
  Outside the west, there is a massive world that just sees things differently. Here the US is not a force for good but a warmongering empire. Think of it what you will but it would be wrong to discard it as mere propaganda. These are deeply held beliefs.
  • fvv 5y ago
    Belief From a country or countries where people are not free to inform themselves or to speech openly about opinions , that's where propaganda have are easily spread..
    • actuator 5y ago
      Well, to be fair if you remove restrictions then it is the Western version of events that will rules as they have the established platforms and money to spread info. To see their power look at the French poll of who won them the World War. It became 20% in the recent decades from 57% for Russia https://www.france24.com/en/20190601-who-won-wwii-russias-role-gets-short-shrift-france https://www.france24.com/en/20190601-who-won-wwii-russias-ro...
      • LaMarseillaise 5y ago
        The idea that the Soviet Union won WWII is itself propaganda and ignores the contributions of many, many nations, not to mention the entire Pacific war. Also, the liberation of France was exclusively the western allies.
        • lenkite 5y ago
          I suggest asking some professional historians this question and you will be surprised at the answer. Only Americans believe that the the USA was the primary nation responsible for victory in WW2.
        • metalliqaz 5y ago
          For the most part I agree but the Soviets were integral. Without the Eastern front taking up so much of the enemy resources, the Western front would have been very different.
          • car_analogy 5y ago
            After they were forced to switch sides. Before, they did their own share of conquest and genocide in eastern Europe [1,2,..], and the Allies generously let them keep those countries after the war. But all is forgiven and forgotten if one ends up on the Right Side of History. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
            • drekk 5y ago
              This really egregiously rewrites the history in which the nascent USSR was rebuked by every single European nation it tried to enter into a defense treaty with against Germany. I'm not going to spoon-feed, but here's a source from mainstream Western media: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/3223834/Stalin-planned-to-send-a-million-troops-to-stop-Hitler-if-Britain-and-France-agreed-pact.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/322... If you want to categorize what the USSR did in that period as conquest and genocide would you say the same about the US annexing Hawai'i? I don't know where you're getting "forgiven and forgotten" from given that you can't talk about the USSR without someone bringing up historical events they don't understand. The Holodomor, Katyn massacre, Molotov-Ribbentrop pact are all common offenders here. And it was the collapse of the USSR + subsequent privatization of state enterprises at bargain bin prices that created the oligarchs that today are Putin's power base. The US & UK also intervened to put Putin into power in 1999, continuing a long-standing tradition of destabilizing regions and not really caring until the consequences spill over into a country like Ukraine that "looks like us" and live in "a civilized country with McDonalds"
    • dirtyid 5y ago
      And belief that access to information freely somehow makes one better informed is how propaganda is most _potently_ spread. At least people who grow up in repressive medium regimes know they're fed propaganda. There are comparable amount of low-info useful idiots everywhere, but very few countries are so unfree that access to global opinions isn't a VPN away. Though the ignorant from "free" societies are most insistent they're free from indoctorination, for merely having access to perspectives that they don't actually read nor have capability to interpret i.e. the amount of diaspora in western countries and western NGOs abroad means flow of propaganda is strong unidirectional while west is largely dismissive of what everyone else thinks.
    • sivakon 5y ago
      US banned Russian media for not spreading US narrative. Are you going to lecture the world about freeze peach?
      • stjohnswarts 5y ago
        No they didn't. I can still read sputnik and rt.com just fine if I want to. Why are you not telling the truth?
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • rad_gruchalski 5y ago
        US did not ban RT. Independent companies chose to drop it, EU chose to ban it, but one can still access that cesspool of their website. But US did not ban anything.
    • bigcat123 5y ago
    • aiProgMach 5y ago
      Dismissing different opinions about politics based on random claims about "freedom" (this word is the trademark of western propaganda) is one of the strongest forms of propaganda. By the way, other people opinions on US actions in their countries is more relevant than US citisen opinion on the same matter, becaue guess what? That US citisen is only hearing the US Gov pov and "facts".
  • dorgo 5y ago
    Isn't propaganda the perfect tool to create deeply held beliefs? I would even go as far as to say that propaganda is the only way to have deeply held beliefs. But maybe my definition of propaganda is too broad.
    • throwaway4good 5y ago
      No. It comes from history and lived experience. I have met countless Serbs who lived in the west for decades, all being deeply bitter and cynical about the breakup of Yugoslavia and the role the US played in it.
    • dekhn 5y ago
      A subtle form of propaganda which is consistent with the truth is how you win hearts and minds of generations.
• jlduan 5y ago
  It is overly simplification. I think the sentiment in China is really not about supporting Russia; it is about anti-US. Because quite a lot of people in China think US is organizing an Eastern NATO, to "destabilize" the whole region. For example, the nuclear-powered marine deal with Australia, etc. Biden’s first year was much harsher on China than Russia. In 1999, NATO bombed the Chinese embassy, killing 3, that certainly did not help.
  • thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > Because quite a lot of people in China think US is organizing an Eastern NATO, to "destabilize" the whole region. It probably doesn't help that this was a stated goal of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
    • dragonwriter 5y ago
      > It probably doesn't help that this was a stated goal of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. No it wasn't, and TPP had no security provisions at all.
      • stjohnswarts 5y ago
        Yeah it's really just a giant trade agreement. The US was an idiot for backing out.
        • meowfly 5y ago
          There were a lot of good reasons to be against the TPP; particularly in regards to IP. The EFF who has been a consistent and well guided voice on this issue was firmly against it[1]. https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp
  • Gravityloss 5y ago
    Eastern NATO? Sounds like something many smaller countries in the region would love to join, to secure each other against a large expansionistic neighboring country.
• livinglist 5y ago
  I’m ashamed of my country and people… only if they were well informed and had unlimited access to internet would they start realizing they have been brainwashed by their own goevernment….
  • Day1 5y ago
    • livinglist 5y ago
      No I cannot. Only China and Russia ban websites that have voices against their government.
    • stefan_ 5y ago
    • MathYouF 5y ago
      • estaseuropano 5y ago
        While the poster you are responding to seems to be a mythical creature, this is very strange gatekeeping. Hacker news has never been a purely technical forum, given the business, marketing etc side of startup culture. This intermixes with legislation, geopolitics and many other topics. All these have a legitimate place here. To dismiss views of people with no strong tech background as not able to "filter their thoughts" or that they come here to "talk to smarter people" is rather ridiculous. You will find lawyers, linguists, public servants, medical professionals, tax advisors, HR people, ... here. Why would their analysis be less valid than yours just because you happen to have a CS or engineering degree? Who is the most rational and "smart" for you? Applied mathematics? Logicians? Philosophers specialized in philosophy of science? Assuming other people are less smart than oneself and that one's own expertise implies superior knowledge/analysis in unrelated fields is by the way a key sign of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
• msravi 5y ago
  Oh, the irony! As an Indian, reading nytimes and bbc articles about India was a real eye opener on how much propaganda is passed off as 'opinion' and 'news' in the western press. I mean, the confidence and elan with which a narrative is pushed by blatantly hiding contrarian views and even facts is fascinating to observe, especially when you're on the ground looking at stuff firsthand. You really need to experience it to believe it.
  • tacitusarc 5y ago
    I’m really interested in an example of these discrepancies, since as a westerner I’m exposed mostly to that narrative.
  • cameronh90 5y ago
    You always need to take anything in 'opinion', 'editorial' or 'analysis' sections with a grain of salt. That being said, bias does not automatically imply propaganda. Naturally someone raised in the UK/US is going to have a Western interpretation of actions and bias, but in most cases these are beliefs genuinely held. I'm sure as a British person I could find many areas where I disagree with you, and our particular views are coloured by cultural biases - but that does not make them propaganda IMO. Tech articles often contain ridiculous statements around encryption and the dark web, but it's most likely lack of understanding than propaganda. I would say propaganda requires intent - usually to achieve a political aim at the behest of the government. Genuine propaganda is hard to conclusively find within the BBC - though I personally suspect some of the covid reporting contained a type of voluntary propaganda.
    • msravi 5y ago
      > I would say propaganda requires intent - usually to achieve a political aim at the behest of the government. This is most certainly present, and is glaringly obvious when you're seeing events unfold firsthand and look at the reportage in western media very deliberately leave out happenings that don't tie in with the narrative being peddled. It definitely isn't just bias. It's wilful propaganda, with malicious intent.
• ilyich 5y ago
  >that the Ukraine president is a dictator and so on... A year ago Zelensky closed all opposition TV channels on the pretext they were pro-Russian. [0] Not one or two. All of them. Since then there is no opposition TV in Ukraine. An extremely democratic move, isn't it? [0] https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-zelenskiy-bans-three-opposition-tv-stations/a-56438505 https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-zelenskiy-bans-three-oppositio...
  • Bajeezus 5y ago
    Three is not all.
    • ilyich 5y ago
      In Ukraine the three was all. Since a year ago zero is all. And there was not even a court decision. He just unplugged them overnight without notice. How democratic.
  • planck01 5y ago
    Russia was waging a proxy war in the east, and used these channels as an propaganda weapon. So it's not so strange as you try to make it seem. It's not the same as forbidding certain words and jailing journalists for 15 years for not agreeing with the state.