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> I have the feeling you're asking something more specific... > Do you have anything specific in mind about something that you expect the Chinese government to

by yumraj 3y ago

> I have the feeling you're asking something more specific... > Do you have anything specific in mind about something that you expect the Chinese government to feed as propaganda that is not already widely being sculpted into the chinese text corpora available on the internet? I don't have anything specific, and it doesn't have to be different from "chinese text corpora available on the internet", it's just that these models can become yet another channel of distribution for the "chinese text corpora available on the internet" especially if they are unknowingly/naively picked up and used as the foundation by others to build their offerings.

maxglute 3y ago
PRC will definitely weaponize this for mass foreign propaganda, which up until now PRC has been thoroughly deficient in, despite all the reees of 50cents on western net. The reality pre-LLM is PRC propaganda on western social media platforms has been very limited in scale for the simple reason that they are not wasting valuable English fluency to shit post on western platforms enmass. Low 100s-1000s of accounts, most of which target diasphora in spambot efforts, frequently in Chinese. Now that LLM has made it cheap to spam passable English/foreign languages, I'd expect increased volumes of PRC propaganda on western social media where anonymous posting is asymmetrically easier. But then again, they don't need a PRC LLM for that, plenthy of US bad posting on western platforms from international audiences and US herself.
- ithkuil 3y ago
  > they are not wasting valuable English fluency to shit post on western platforms enmass How's the economy of that different for the Russian campaigns? Do they have a larger pool of English fluency to draw from or is the urgency of the operation higher in their case?
  - maxglute 3y ago
    A PRC person with English fluency good enough to blend in with native English on western platform has much better job opporunities. Even in PRC, 50c posts are largely civil servants told to write a few perfunctory platitutdes on domestic platforms. The MO is to overwhelm with spam not engage where effort:return is low. Like even Ministry of Foreign Affairs and most of thinktanks that also publish in English can rarely find people to write "casual" English. You'd have to write 1000s of "50c" comments for 1 hour of English tutoring gig. The economics of it doesn't make sense pre LLM.
    - ithkuil 3y ago
      Does it mean that in Russia of 10 years ago a person with the same english language skills would not be able to find a better job or does it mean that the troll farms pay more? Or is it just patriotism? (I genuinely would like to learn more about this topic)
      - maxglute 3y ago
        I don't know much about RU. I don't know about RU specifically, cusory search suggest RU has 7/144 (5%) english speakers, prc has 10/1400 (0.07%), so thats the supply demand happening behind the scenes. It's why there was so many expats with no mandarin skills randomly making living teaching English in PRC. If PRC citizen has fluent English skills and also speak mandarin, you can charge stupid amounts for private tutoring or work in private sector. I would say most of pro PRC content are either tankies or Chinese diasphora abroad, including non Chinese citizens who don't agree with MSM narrative. There's about 10M in Anglo/FVEY countries, that's large enough base to have people who are organically pro PRC, or rather not anti PRC. In terms of state directed actions, RU/USSR has longer history/experience with foreign subversive influenc operations. They're not taking out full page ads to post editorials on western news paper like PRC, which is just clunky. Bulk of PRC work is focused on now largely defunct United Front presence in west, or on PRC social media platforms in Chinese to target diasphora in Chinese etc. It's running joke in PRC that PRC foreign propaganda department is staffed by incompetent old guards who can't even out influence anti PRC EpocheTimes.

by yumraj 3y ago

maxglute 3y ago

PRC will definitely weaponize this for mass foreign propaganda, which up until now PRC has been thoroughly deficient in, despite all the reees of 50cents on western net. The reality pre-LLM is PRC propaganda on western social media platforms has been very limited in scale for the simple reason that they are not wasting valuable English fluency to shit post on western platforms enmass. Low 100s-1000s of accounts, most of which target diasphora in spambot efforts, frequently in Chinese. Now that LLM has made it cheap to spam passable English/foreign languages, I'd expect increased volumes of PRC propaganda on western social media where anonymous posting is asymmetrically easier. But then again, they don't need a PRC LLM for that, plenthy of US bad posting on western platforms from international audiences and US herself.

ithkuil 3y ago
> they are not wasting valuable English fluency to shit post on western platforms enmass How's the economy of that different for the Russian campaigns? Do they have a larger pool of English fluency to draw from or is the urgency of the operation higher in their case?
- maxglute 3y ago
  A PRC person with English fluency good enough to blend in with native English on western platform has much better job opporunities. Even in PRC, 50c posts are largely civil servants told to write a few perfunctory platitutdes on domestic platforms. The MO is to overwhelm with spam not engage where effort:return is low. Like even Ministry of Foreign Affairs and most of thinktanks that also publish in English can rarely find people to write "casual" English. You'd have to write 1000s of "50c" comments for 1 hour of English tutoring gig. The economics of it doesn't make sense pre LLM.
  - ithkuil 3y ago
    Does it mean that in Russia of 10 years ago a person with the same english language skills would not be able to find a better job or does it mean that the troll farms pay more? Or is it just patriotism? (I genuinely would like to learn more about this topic)
    - maxglute 3y ago
      I don't know much about RU. I don't know about RU specifically, cusory search suggest RU has 7/144 (5%) english speakers, prc has 10/1400 (0.07%), so thats the supply demand happening behind the scenes. It's why there was so many expats with no mandarin skills randomly making living teaching English in PRC. If PRC citizen has fluent English skills and also speak mandarin, you can charge stupid amounts for private tutoring or work in private sector. I would say most of pro PRC content are either tankies or Chinese diasphora abroad, including non Chinese citizens who don't agree with MSM narrative. There's about 10M in Anglo/FVEY countries, that's large enough base to have people who are organically pro PRC, or rather not anti PRC. In terms of state directed actions, RU/USSR has longer history/experience with foreign subversive influenc operations. They're not taking out full page ads to post editorials on western news paper like PRC, which is just clunky. Bulk of PRC work is focused on now largely defunct United Front presence in west, or on PRC social media platforms in Chinese to target diasphora in Chinese etc. It's running joke in PRC that PRC foreign propaganda department is staffed by incompetent old guards who can't even out influence anti PRC EpocheTimes.