11 ms·

Hacked emails reveal China’s Internet propaganda machine

138 points by vincvinc 12y ago

Someone1234 12y ago
It will be interesting to learn to what extent the USG does this. Certainly not at this scale or we would have already heard about it, but there have definitely been leaked US Army Intelligence reports which suggest it does go on to some degree. I will say a far more common thing from the USG is seeing people edit Wikipedia pages, however those attempts are almost laughably unsophisticated (often being trivially traceable to the offices of the people they're editing). I strongly suspect a certain controversial country in the middle east does it, as every time they come up in any discussion you get inundated with pro' people who have little posting history (or none) and who come across very unnaturally pro (like talking heads). I won't name the country since the same thing might happen here. PS - I'm neither pro nor anti this middle eastern country, I've just noticed very unusual posting patterns when they're discussed. Particularly during large scale controversies (which seem to occur about once a year).
- Brushfire 12y ago
  I'd be pretty surprised if the US employed people to do anything like this on domestic US sites at any scale. What would they post? Wouldn't a smart individual from a US site have detected this and shared, or a whistleblower have disclosed it? That said, I'd be pretty unsurprised if we employed people to do it on specific, foreign sites in places like Iran, China, Syria, Lybia, etc. Monitoring + Posting + Commenting. That would be smart and part of normal intel gathering. More interesting than the human commentary, however, would be bots running analysis on posts and comments, and then upvoting, downvoting, or spamming in the comments (with intent to ruin experience) based on content and sentiment -- allowing programatic and rule-driven propaganda effects.
  - ianlevesque 12y ago
    The US does openly employ people to do this. One article about it: http://www.wired.com/2012/07/counterterrorism-trolls/all/ http://www.wired.com/2012/07/counterterrorism-trolls/all/
    - conistonwater 12y ago
      From your link: > Within the State Department, a Silicon Valley veteran has quietly launched an improbable new initiative to annoy, frustrate and humiliate denizens of online extremist forums. Not exactly the comment section of BBC, is it?
      - lhc- 12y ago
        Depends on your definition of Extremists. Within the State Dept., I'd imagine there are plenty who think that anyone who supports Snowden is an extremist.
        heroh 12y ago
        if you use Linux, TOR, Tails or any real encryption you're already deemed an extremist by NSA. http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extremist-forum-and-its-readers-get-flagged-extra-surveillance http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extrem...
  - Terr_ 12y ago
    > Wouldn't a smart individual from a US site have detected this and shared, or a whistleblower have disclosed it? Eventually, but eventually can be a long time. Didn't Project Mockingbird fly (hah) under the radar for 14 years?
  - fiblye 12y ago
    >I'd be pretty surprised if the US employed people to do anything like this on domestic US sites at any scale. What would they post? Call me a conspiracy nut, but now that social media is how most young people get their news, I wouldn't be surprised if the US gov paid people to post and promote bullshit fluff to keep people distracted from major events in the world. When those major stories do make it to the masses, there are people to comment about how it's a "non-issue" and "we need to focus on more important things" or that the US is doing what's necessary to protect its interests and the world's. Just a couple examples: All throughout the build up to the Manning trial, I distinctly remember most commenters on tech news sites supporting Manning. Upon conviction, I checked the comments on Ars Technica and the comments were overwhelmingly along the lines of "Let this be a sign to all future traitors.", "Lock HIM up and throw away the key!!" There was a comment about how suspicious the shift was, and the next three pages of comments were along the lines of, "How do we know YOU aren't working for someone?", "We never supported TRAITORS like YOU.", etc. It was bizarre. The overwhelming coverage of The Interview days after the CIA torture report came out. People were outraged, but then every corner of the internet was plastered with patriotism and how we need to release some awful comedy to stick it to some dirt poor totalitarian state. Now people have forgotten about that movie, as well as the CIA's issues. I also recall a huge amount of support for an invasion and increased funding of rebels in Syria back when the US government claimed Assad was using chemical weapons against his people. What shocked me was that the people most calling for war was liberal/feminist discussion circles. That all seems to be forgotten now that a group of rebels called ISIS is our enemy of the week.
    - pyre 12y ago
      > dirt poor totalitarian state North Korea isn't dirt poor. All the wealth is concentrated at the top, and in the military-spending though.
      - mikeyouse 12y ago
        North Korea -- Population 25 Million -- is estimated to have a GDP of $40B. Wyoming -- Population 550,000 -- is estimated to have a GDP of $40B. North Korea is extremely poor by any reasonable definition. The presence of a wealthy elite doesn't change their abysmal GDP per capita or poverty rates.
  - holri 12y ago
    there was a (German) talk at 31C3 about a proof of concept such a propaganda bot: http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6184_-_de_-_saal_g_-_201412271715_-_mein_bot_der_kombattant_-_josch_-_arche3000.html#video http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6184_-_de_-_...
  - Someone1234 12y ago
    > What would they post? Anything that swayed public opinion. For one example posting negative things regarding the Edward Snowden controversy. There were people calling him a "traitor" who "got people killed" with zero post history. As I said, the evidence that the USG does this is not strong, although there have been reports that discuss doing it (and methods), and the USG almost certainly do have strong influence over the popular media (e.g. evening news, newspapers, etc) and have since the cold war (when newspapers would have a CIA employee in every newsroom, providing "feedback" on certain stories and some claim pushing US puff pieces).
  - pyre 12y ago
    > a whistleblower have disclosed it Like how the NSA shenanigans got the whistle blown on them before they got very far?
    - Someone1234 12y ago
      Yeah. People love to ignore even recent history. We had evidence that the NSA program was going on since 2003 and in 2005 anyone who was paying attention knew that they had hooks into major telephone hubs and under-sea cables with most of the major carriers (and there were already several whistleblowers). We also knew they were building huge data centres. But many people ignored it because "the US Government would never do such a thing!" It literally took Edward Snowdon to spell it out to these people before they would believe, but if your head wasn't buried in the sand nothing in the Snowden leaks should have been a shock or surprise (except maybe the fiber intercepts between private company's data centres, that wasn't known). I think people will naively pretend that the US Government has no influence over popular media OR social media until it is spelt out to them in plain English from internal memos. However we've already seen enough leaks to know SOMETHING is going on, we just don't know the scale (kind of like the 2003 version of the NSA scandal, we aren't at the 2005 level of knowledge yet).
      - rhino369 12y ago
        We didn't just had evidence. There was a huge political debate about warrent-less wiretapping during the Bush administration. Public debate, laws were passed, the whole 9 yards. In fact the big snowden shocker turned out to be bullshit. The report that the NSA had direct access to facebook and gmail. Turns out that was just a misinterpretation of a powerpoint slide. The only new and important info Snowden leaked was the metadata from phone companies that included everyone.
        throwaway2048 12y ago
        people are still repeating the "its only metadata" line?
        pyre 12y ago
  - analog31 12y ago
    >>> What would they post? In my view, they don't really have to post anything of substance. All they might have to do is degrade the discourse through trolling, to the point where thoughtful views from either "side" are lost in the noise.
    - cryoshon 12y ago
      This is certainly one of their tactics. Here's an okay link describing other tactics: http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/the-25-rules-of-disinformation/ http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/the-25-rules-of-disinf...
  - freshhawk 12y ago
    Would you be surprised really? You immediately came up with an idea to ruin certain conversations using technical know how not available to the general public. Now imagine you work somewhere with the budget and means to actually do it, and you are the type of person who is just as techy and also is fine with your career working with the people who got burned in the Snowden leak. Why wouldn't you actually do it? You probably would: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140714/10462727873/latest-snowden-revelations-suggest-gchq-is-just-like-4chan-trolls-with-more-firepower.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140714/10462727873/lates...
  - jqm 12y ago
    I'd be surprised if they didn't. Look at comments on a site like Washington Post for instance. In addition to pro-government positions, there appears to be a pro Obama bunch that is strident beyond reason. I mean... Obama could eat a baby and they would be there 24-7 arguing that it was the best thing to do.
- user9756 12y ago
  I'm not sure which Muslamic country you're thinking about but Zionists had http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaphone_desktop_tool http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaphone_desktop_tool which I personally think was a very clever and convenient tool to organize ideological driven people (given the time it was introduced 2006) And I recall reading a couple of years ago about a software that enabled a person to control several user accounts on one site or different sites. And I think the US military or some other US agency actively used it.
- pizza 12y ago
  Assange believes that Jared Cohen + Eric Schmidt + State Dept have been involved in extrastatecraft in Arab Spring-type protests, so that they could better "exercise the duty to protect citizens around the world" [0]: Cohen’s directorate appeared to cross over from public relations and “corporate responsibility” work into active corporate intervention in foreign affairs at a level that is normally reserved for states. Jared Cohen could be wryly named Google’s “director of regime change.” According to the emails, he was trying to plant his fingerprints on some of the major historical events in the contemporary Middle East. He could be placed in Egypt during the revolution, meeting with Wael Ghonim, the Google employee whose arrest and imprisonment hours later would make him a PR-friendly symbol of the uprising in the Western press. Meetings had been planned in Palestine and Turkey, both of which—claimed Stratfor emails—were killed by the senior Google leadership as too risky. Only a few months before he met with me, Cohen was planning a trip to the edge of Iran in Azerbaijan to “engage the Iranian communities closer to the border,” as part of Google Ideas’ project on “repressive societies.” In internal emails Stratfor’s vice president for intelligence, Fred Burton (himself a former State Department security official), wrote, Google is getting WH [White House] and State Dept support and air cover. In reality they are doing things the CIA cannot do . . . [Cohen] is going to get himself kidnapped or killed. Might be the best thing to happen to expose Google’s covert role in foaming up-risings, to be blunt. The US Gov’t can then disavow knowledge and Google is left holding the shit-bag. [0] https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/
  - Multiplayer 12y ago
    I know Jared very well and my personal opinion is that this is really off the mark. I think he is keenly interested in how people are communicating in problem areas and particularly in how to combat violent extremism.
    - pizza 12y ago
      Fair enough, I don't mean to pretend that I know anything about him at all. That said, I'm certainly interested in what he and Google et al. are doing in w.rt. statecraft in general.
- cryoshon 12y ago
  Ah yes, the Israeli shills. They're well documented in various NGO and also official formats, and any discussion of Israel on popular message boards is certain to draw their attention and attendant misdirection. You are correct in identifying that the Israeli shill army comes out most frequently during Israeli geopolitical moves, most recently in their invasion and bombing of Gaza. The rabidity of the Israeli shills isn't even the problem-- they're easy to spot, and their attacks on almost anyone discussing the issue are transparently biased. The real problem is that even when Israel is not in wartime, the shills still operate at a reduced level, trying to shape a public discussion milieu that is pro-Israel and refuses to recognize any kind of subtlety. People notice that they get attacked when they criticize Israel online, and eventually they keep quiet.
  - freshhawk 12y ago
    I'm not sure I buy that all of them are easy to spot. If we worked there we would both immediately realize that you'd want a diversity of rabidity. And once it was public you'd want very easily identified shills to make your reasonable shills seem more reasonable and move the Overton window. These are the successors to cold war game theory think tank people after all.
  - tokenadult 12y ago
    People notice that they get attacked when they criticize Israel online, and eventually they keep quiet. I haven't seen examples of this. I post quite critical stories about Israel's policies (some from the press in Israel, others from places around the world) on my Facebook wall, and not even my Facebook friends who occasionally display Israeli flags as Facebook profile photos seem to mind. Here on Hacker News, the one country that people can "attack" almost with impunity is the United States, but of course every United States citizen, including me too, has plenty to criticize the United States about, so all I ask is that criticism be factual and made with some international perspective. I think most Israeli citizens, and for the most part operatives of the Israeli government, have the same approach: criticize what deserves criticism, and give us a chance to discuss the policies of our country openly, but don't ignore the rest of the world in the process.
- nosuchthing 12y ago
  USG bids on Persona Management Software [1] Fake Online Personae for Propaganda [2] DARPA Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) [3] [1] http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/revealed-air-force-ordered-software-to-manage-army-of-fake-virtual-people/ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/revealed-air-force-ordere... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-ope... [3] https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=6ef12558b44258382452fcf02942396a&tab=core&_cview=0 https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=6ef1255...
  - pdkl95 12y ago
    https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula... To add to this, let's not forget GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG). As a member of FVEY, they are part of the "help our allies by spying on each other" game that happens to get around constitutional restrictions. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/14/manipulating-online-polls-ways-british-spies-seek-control-internet/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/14/manipulating-o... JTRIG's toolbox is particularly interesting. While some tools are general-purpose or have plausible uses for traditional spying, quite a few tools are not useful for "finding terrorists" or other nation security purposes. These tools would be useful for spreading propaganda: • “Change outcome of online polls” (UNDERPASS) • “Ability to artificially increase traffic to a website” (GATEWAY) and “ability to inflate page views on websites” (SLIPSTREAM) • “Amplification of a given message, normally video, on popular multimedia websites (Youtube)” (GESTATOR) So yes, manipulation and paid posts are certainly going on. There are also far more technically sophisticated tricks being used as well. Unfortunately, this is something w4e need to keep in mind in most internet discussions - even here on HN. There has certainly been a lot of discussions here and elsewhere that were derailed with wedge-issue distractions.
- xnull1guest 12y ago
  In addition to crackdowns on news media (including surveillance operations against journalistic outfits to dissolve their ability to work with confidential informants [1]) and both persecution and prosecution of journalists (e.g. Ibrahim Jassam [2], Laura Poitras [3], Glenn Greenwald [4], James Risen [5], many others), media partnership with the state (e.g. Ken Dilanian [6], Judith Miller and Michael Gordon [7]), the manipulation of US news media to achieve geopolitical goals (Zarqawi Psyop [8], Fallujah Psyop [9]) [note here that it has been recently anonymously removed from Wikipedia [10] that this happened - see this old version of the article where it was still present! [11]], the use of state pressure to prevent stories from circulating (Risen's NSA story 2004-05 [12]), the nonchalant sale of journalism to hide things as large as genocide by major media outlets (look up the CNN-Bahrain scandal), the pulling of journalists with unfriendly coverage on key international issues (e.g. Ayman Mohyeldin [13]), the use of journalism exclusion zones (foreign and also domestic [14]), death threats by the state against whistle blowers and their families (US held Binney's family hostage [15]; Binney by the way is a cripple), the capability to manipulate online discussions for geopolitical purposes [16], the use of false international cables to manipulate the press (both historical [17] and recent [18]), use of fake journalists during US press releases to direct conversation and ask softball questions ("Jeff Gannon"/Gannongate [19]) [a note here that this scandal has been covered up by a 'controversy over Gannon's sexual preferences' as though that's the scandal - the real issue is that he was a plant - looking to see coverage on Gannon is a good litmus test of journalists and media outlets to see whether they are covering real issues or just gossip] and similarly the blocking of journalists that don't "play ball", the payment for positive media coverage by the government (e.g. Armstrong Williams [20], Gallagher and McManus [21]), WCIA's injection of (hundreds of) unattributed fake news stories into local news channels by the US through the Office of Broadcasting Services [22], presumed ability to impersonate private citizens to influence other Americans [23], fake letters sent to media outlets from the US Army [24] [the article has been removed from the web but I was able to find a cached copy on the Internet Archive probject], invention of hero stories (e.g.fabricated Jessica Lynch fall and rescue story [25]; propagandized story enshrined by Hollywood Director Ridley Scott's 'infotainment' version ironically named "Body of Lies"), that the Smith-Mundt Act anti-propaganda law was eviscerated this year [26] (like many other important legislative changes and additions) with hardly any press coverage, use of coerced testimony to justify policy goals [27] when it is known to have been fabricated [28], that foreign aimed propaganda accidentally makes it in American media [29], and also that this is done on purpose to circumvent anti-propaganda law [30], that the government has a history of manipulating media and through the Cold War had over 800 American news networks and personel [31] (names you may know such as Austin Goodrich [32] and Frank Kearns [33]), that the United States hires [34] contractors [35] and has software [36] to manipulate social media[37] [note here that the last link shows formerly linked references to CENTCOM claims that Facebook and Twitter cannot be targeted are false], that research on vote manipulation have been done on both Google [38] and on Facebook (in the case of Facebook, 61 million American people were experimented on during the 2010 US congressional elections [39), that experiments have been done (successfully) on controlling emotions by manipulating Facebook feeds [40] (on a grant from the State Department), that beyond blocking third parties [41] from the presidential "debates" [42] (which American citizens consider extremely important to their vote) that the rehearsed questions, topics and terms are prenegotiated [43] by the joint Republican and Democrat owned organization [44], that agencies publish documents compelled of them by law at inconvenient times to discourage large press coverage [45], it is also true that the the now president and CEO of the Public Broadcasting Service Patricia Harrison testified before Congress that President Bush considered Office of Broadcasting Services (1/4 billion dollar) state sponsored propaganda powerful strategic tools for swaying public opinion [46]. Bush said "see, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda" some see him as a bumbling, silly fool. I see a (perhaps overly) honest and transparent man. It's probably true that the revisions to the Smith-Mundt Act will not open the flood gates of government sponsored media manipulation. Given that Kenneth Tomlinson [47] (a chairman to the foreign media propaganda arm of the United States) was put in charge of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (NPR and PBS) before handpicking State Department official Patricia Harrison to supersede him, and that Harrison has brought in Cheryl Halpern, Tim Isgitt, Mike Levy, Helen Mobley, and other State Department officials formerly in charge of US overseas propaganda efforts [48], and that Tomlinson left after an internal investigation charged him with Ethics Violations for breaking the anti-propaganda law Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 [49] (but no arrest...) these things are probably nothing to worry about. Propaganda exists in many forms in the United States but it is still held at bay to many degrees (when compared to some other nation states; it is by no means the worst) by the sorts of laws that the Smith-Mundt Act used to be. In my opinion every anti-propaganda law we lose or weaken is a big deal for liberty.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- xtrumanx 12y ago
  In case you're wondering how they accomplished some of that there was a piece of software called Megaphone[0] released during the 2006 Lebanon war that automatically cast votes for users on online polls on the internet concerning their favourite middle eastern country. It even received attention and support from their Foreign Ministry. The developers went on to form a company[1] "to influence ratings on sites which allow users to rate articles or other items" with $2m in funding from Sequoia. Not sure if they still up-and-running. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaphone_desktop_tool http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaphone_desktop_tool [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collactive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collactive
- rasz_pl 12y ago
  US does it Metal Gear Solid 2 style, by manipulating context and censoring information (outright and using chilling effect).
manticore_alpha 12y ago
Gotta admire the level of coordination.
codyb 12y ago
From the article Zhanggong district is Ganzhou’s administrative center and home to about 460,000 people. “There are at least 5,000 districts this size or bigger,” said Qiang Xiao Am I missing something here? Do districts in China overlap? The population in China is currently standing at around 1.357 billion [0] according to World Bank, United States Census Bureau. Quick math puts 5,000 * 460,000 at 2.3 billion. The list of districts in China [1] is quite long. And when sorting for 2010 population there are quite a lot above 500,000 but it certainly can't be 5,000. Must be a misquote. [0] - https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=population%20china https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e... [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_districts_in_China http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_districts_in_China
- efbbbf 12y ago
  It never explicitly states that the "this size or bigger" refers to its population, it could be area.
  - codyb 12y ago
    Good point.
hackuser 12y ago
I wonder how many private (i.e., non-governmental) groups in the U.S. use this practice, either for business purposes (e.g., Yelp and Amazon reviews, Twitter posts and responses, or popular and influential forums (such as HN!)), or political purposes. On one hand, it's the 'Big Lie': People naturally doubt such deception is occurring until they see a smoking gun, and even then many deny it. On the other, it is such an obvious, inexpensive way to drive public opinion, I'd be shocked if it wasn't widely used. Even paying U.S. minimum wage, you probably are paying under 50 cents/post. That's 10,000 comments in your favor for < $5K -- without knowing data on the influence of such things, it seems cost-effective compared to advertising. Imagine a local politician or a super-PAC doing it before an election in just one locality. Also interesting: Many people I know think they can detect astroturfing when they see it. I'm sure that's true sometimes, but the astroturfers have more experience and are more sophisticated in their craft than we are -- they do it all day, every day. They know what makes something look credible, and you can see that discussed in the article. EDIT: I just found this: Grassroots for Hire: Public Affairs Consultants in American Democracy by Edward T. Walker Although 'grassroots' conjures up images of independent citizen organizing, much mass participation today is sponsored by elite consultants working for corporations and powerful interest groups. This book pulls back the curtain to reveal a lucrative industry of consulting firms that incentivize public activism as a marketable service. Edward Walker illustrates how, spurred by the post-sixties advocacy explosion and rising business political engagement, elite consultants have deployed new technologies to commercialize mass participation. Using evidence from interviews, surveys and public records, Grassroots for Hire paints a detailed portrait of these consultants and their clients. Today, Fortune 500 firms hire them to counter-mobilize against regulation, protest or controversy. Ironically, some advocacy groups now outsource organizing to them. Walker also finds that consultants are reshaping both participation and policymaking, but unethical 'astroturf' strategies are often ineffective. This pathbreaking book calls for a rethinking of interactions between corporations, advocacy groups, and elites in politics. http://www.amazon.com/Grassroots-Hire-Consultants-American-Democracy/dp/1107619017 http://www.amazon.com/Grassroots-Hire-Consultants-American-D...
- cryoshon 12y ago
  I will be sure to read the book that you suggested, as this topic is of great interest to me. A few thoughts: 1. Astroturfing has been the norm for a few years now-- probably more years than I suspect, but the biggest difference was pre-2011. 2. Most people don't even have astroturfing on their radar, and if the public ever did get any ideas, you can be sure they would be astroturfed into actually believing that astroturfing is a legitimate marketing technique rather than repugnant lying. 3. Astroturfing varies wildly in quality, and I'm sure that some people could spot the weaker campaigns-- the most recent major campaign that was weak was probably the pro-Russia astroturfing of Reddit during Russia's invasion of Crimea. 4. The quality of astroturf is inversely proportional to the time and thus money it requires to produce. A cheap statement "X is great, support X" blasted into every topic is easy to spot, whereas custom tailored shilling and misdirection is often far more insidious. 5. I'd expect that most governments engage in astroturfing and shilling heavily-- if not on their own population (which is extremely likely) then on other populations. As evidence, consider that Eglin AFB is the "most addicted to reddit" community. I'm not sure what to do about this other than call it out when I see it, which is woefully ineffective.
simonebrunozzi 12y ago
> "Zhanggong district is Ganzhou’s administrative center and home to about 460,000 people. “There are at least 5,000 districts this size or bigger,” said Qiang Xiao, editor of China Digital Times (CDT), a news site affiliated with the University of California Berkeley that first reported on the emails." So, this means that China is home to at least 2.3B people??? The math doesn't add up.
- veb 12y ago
  > It never explicitly states that the "this size or bigger" refers to its population, it could be area
zghst 12y ago
I find it alarming, this thread already mimicking a USSR disinformation campaign. See below "Israeli shills". As usual, the HN crowd (or state propagandists) turn to whataboutism and pointing fingers than discussing the topic on hand. This really isn't the place for any political discussion, it is so biased and factually divergent, half the time the threads here do not even match the articles.
im2w1l 12y ago
It is amusing and fascinating that there is (as of this post) zero discussion of China's internet propaganda machine. >“When transferring the attention of netizens and blurring the public focus, going off the topic is very effective.”

138 points by vincvinc 12y ago

It will be interesting to learn to what extent the USG does this. Certainly not at this scale or we would have already heard about it, but there have definitely been leaked US Army Intelligence reports which suggest it does go on to some degree. I will say a far more common thing from the USG is seeing people edit Wikipedia pages, however those attempts are almost laughably unsophisticated (often being trivially traceable to the offices of the people they're editing). I strongly suspect a certain controversial country in the middle east does it, as every time they come up in any discussion you get inundated with pro' people who have little posting history (or none) and who come across very unnaturally pro (like talking heads). I won't name the country since the same thing might happen here. PS - I'm neither pro nor anti this middle eastern country, I've just noticed very unusual posting patterns when they're discussed. Particularly during large scale controversies (which seem to occur about once a year).

Brushfire 12y ago
I'd be pretty surprised if the US employed people to do anything like this on domestic US sites at any scale. What would they post? Wouldn't a smart individual from a US site have detected this and shared, or a whistleblower have disclosed it? That said, I'd be pretty unsurprised if we employed people to do it on specific, foreign sites in places like Iran, China, Syria, Lybia, etc. Monitoring + Posting + Commenting. That would be smart and part of normal intel gathering. More interesting than the human commentary, however, would be bots running analysis on posts and comments, and then upvoting, downvoting, or spamming in the comments (with intent to ruin experience) based on content and sentiment -- allowing programatic and rule-driven propaganda effects.
- ianlevesque 12y ago
  The US does openly employ people to do this. One article about it: http://www.wired.com/2012/07/counterterrorism-trolls/all/ http://www.wired.com/2012/07/counterterrorism-trolls/all/
  - conistonwater 12y ago
    From your link: > Within the State Department, a Silicon Valley veteran has quietly launched an improbable new initiative to annoy, frustrate and humiliate denizens of online extremist forums. Not exactly the comment section of BBC, is it?
    - lhc- 12y ago
      Depends on your definition of Extremists. Within the State Dept., I'd imagine there are plenty who think that anyone who supports Snowden is an extremist.
      - heroh 12y ago
        if you use Linux, TOR, Tails or any real encryption you're already deemed an extremist by NSA. http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extremist-forum-and-its-readers-get-flagged-extra-surveillance http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extrem...
- Terr_ 12y ago
  > Wouldn't a smart individual from a US site have detected this and shared, or a whistleblower have disclosed it? Eventually, but eventually can be a long time. Didn't Project Mockingbird fly (hah) under the radar for 14 years?
- fiblye 12y ago
  >I'd be pretty surprised if the US employed people to do anything like this on domestic US sites at any scale. What would they post? Call me a conspiracy nut, but now that social media is how most young people get their news, I wouldn't be surprised if the US gov paid people to post and promote bullshit fluff to keep people distracted from major events in the world. When those major stories do make it to the masses, there are people to comment about how it's a "non-issue" and "we need to focus on more important things" or that the US is doing what's necessary to protect its interests and the world's. Just a couple examples: All throughout the build up to the Manning trial, I distinctly remember most commenters on tech news sites supporting Manning. Upon conviction, I checked the comments on Ars Technica and the comments were overwhelmingly along the lines of "Let this be a sign to all future traitors.", "Lock HIM up and throw away the key!!" There was a comment about how suspicious the shift was, and the next three pages of comments were along the lines of, "How do we know YOU aren't working for someone?", "We never supported TRAITORS like YOU.", etc. It was bizarre. The overwhelming coverage of The Interview days after the CIA torture report came out. People were outraged, but then every corner of the internet was plastered with patriotism and how we need to release some awful comedy to stick it to some dirt poor totalitarian state. Now people have forgotten about that movie, as well as the CIA's issues. I also recall a huge amount of support for an invasion and increased funding of rebels in Syria back when the US government claimed Assad was using chemical weapons against his people. What shocked me was that the people most calling for war was liberal/feminist discussion circles. That all seems to be forgotten now that a group of rebels called ISIS is our enemy of the week.
  - pyre 12y ago
    > dirt poor totalitarian state North Korea isn't dirt poor. All the wealth is concentrated at the top, and in the military-spending though.
    - mikeyouse 12y ago
      North Korea -- Population 25 Million -- is estimated to have a GDP of $40B. Wyoming -- Population 550,000 -- is estimated to have a GDP of $40B. North Korea is extremely poor by any reasonable definition. The presence of a wealthy elite doesn't change their abysmal GDP per capita or poverty rates.
- holri 12y ago
  there was a (German) talk at 31C3 about a proof of concept such a propaganda bot: http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6184_-_de_-_saal_g_-_201412271715_-_mein_bot_der_kombattant_-_josch_-_arche3000.html#video http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6184_-_de_-_...
- Someone1234 12y ago
  > What would they post? Anything that swayed public opinion. For one example posting negative things regarding the Edward Snowden controversy. There were people calling him a "traitor" who "got people killed" with zero post history. As I said, the evidence that the USG does this is not strong, although there have been reports that discuss doing it (and methods), and the USG almost certainly do have strong influence over the popular media (e.g. evening news, newspapers, etc) and have since the cold war (when newspapers would have a CIA employee in every newsroom, providing "feedback" on certain stories and some claim pushing US puff pieces).
- pyre 12y ago
  > a whistleblower have disclosed it Like how the NSA shenanigans got the whistle blown on them before they got very far?
  - Someone1234 12y ago
    Yeah. People love to ignore even recent history. We had evidence that the NSA program was going on since 2003 and in 2005 anyone who was paying attention knew that they had hooks into major telephone hubs and under-sea cables with most of the major carriers (and there were already several whistleblowers). We also knew they were building huge data centres. But many people ignored it because "the US Government would never do such a thing!" It literally took Edward Snowdon to spell it out to these people before they would believe, but if your head wasn't buried in the sand nothing in the Snowden leaks should have been a shock or surprise (except maybe the fiber intercepts between private company's data centres, that wasn't known). I think people will naively pretend that the US Government has no influence over popular media OR social media until it is spelt out to them in plain English from internal memos. However we've already seen enough leaks to know SOMETHING is going on, we just don't know the scale (kind of like the 2003 version of the NSA scandal, we aren't at the 2005 level of knowledge yet).
    - rhino369 12y ago
      We didn't just had evidence. There was a huge political debate about warrent-less wiretapping during the Bush administration. Public debate, laws were passed, the whole 9 yards. In fact the big snowden shocker turned out to be bullshit. The report that the NSA had direct access to facebook and gmail. Turns out that was just a misinterpretation of a powerpoint slide. The only new and important info Snowden leaked was the metadata from phone companies that included everyone.
      - throwaway2048 12y ago
        people are still repeating the "its only metadata" line?
      - pyre 12y ago
- analog31 12y ago
  >>> What would they post? In my view, they don't really have to post anything of substance. All they might have to do is degrade the discourse through trolling, to the point where thoughtful views from either "side" are lost in the noise.
  - cryoshon 12y ago
    This is certainly one of their tactics. Here's an okay link describing other tactics: http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/the-25-rules-of-disinformation/ http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/the-25-rules-of-disinf...
- freshhawk 12y ago
  Would you be surprised really? You immediately came up with an idea to ruin certain conversations using technical know how not available to the general public. Now imagine you work somewhere with the budget and means to actually do it, and you are the type of person who is just as techy and also is fine with your career working with the people who got burned in the Snowden leak. Why wouldn't you actually do it? You probably would: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140714/10462727873/latest-snowden-revelations-suggest-gchq-is-just-like-4chan-trolls-with-more-firepower.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140714/10462727873/lates...
- jqm 12y ago
  I'd be surprised if they didn't. Look at comments on a site like Washington Post for instance. In addition to pro-government positions, there appears to be a pro Obama bunch that is strident beyond reason. I mean... Obama could eat a baby and they would be there 24-7 arguing that it was the best thing to do.
user9756 12y ago
I'm not sure which Muslamic country you're thinking about but Zionists had http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaphone_desktop_tool http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaphone_desktop_tool which I personally think was a very clever and convenient tool to organize ideological driven people (given the time it was introduced 2006) And I recall reading a couple of years ago about a software that enabled a person to control several user accounts on one site or different sites. And I think the US military or some other US agency actively used it.
pizza 12y ago
Assange believes that Jared Cohen + Eric Schmidt + State Dept have been involved in extrastatecraft in Arab Spring-type protests, so that they could better "exercise the duty to protect citizens around the world" [0]: Cohen’s directorate appeared to cross over from public relations and “corporate responsibility” work into active corporate intervention in foreign affairs at a level that is normally reserved for states. Jared Cohen could be wryly named Google’s “director of regime change.” According to the emails, he was trying to plant his fingerprints on some of the major historical events in the contemporary Middle East. He could be placed in Egypt during the revolution, meeting with Wael Ghonim, the Google employee whose arrest and imprisonment hours later would make him a PR-friendly symbol of the uprising in the Western press. Meetings had been planned in Palestine and Turkey, both of which—claimed Stratfor emails—were killed by the senior Google leadership as too risky. Only a few months before he met with me, Cohen was planning a trip to the edge of Iran in Azerbaijan to “engage the Iranian communities closer to the border,” as part of Google Ideas’ project on “repressive societies.” In internal emails Stratfor’s vice president for intelligence, Fred Burton (himself a former State Department security official), wrote, Google is getting WH [White House] and State Dept support and air cover. In reality they are doing things the CIA cannot do . . . [Cohen] is going to get himself kidnapped or killed. Might be the best thing to happen to expose Google’s covert role in foaming up-risings, to be blunt. The US Gov’t can then disavow knowledge and Google is left holding the shit-bag. [0] https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/
- Multiplayer 12y ago
  I know Jared very well and my personal opinion is that this is really off the mark. I think he is keenly interested in how people are communicating in problem areas and particularly in how to combat violent extremism.
  - pizza 12y ago
    Fair enough, I don't mean to pretend that I know anything about him at all. That said, I'm certainly interested in what he and Google et al. are doing in w.rt. statecraft in general.
cryoshon 12y ago
Ah yes, the Israeli shills. They're well documented in various NGO and also official formats, and any discussion of Israel on popular message boards is certain to draw their attention and attendant misdirection. You are correct in identifying that the Israeli shill army comes out most frequently during Israeli geopolitical moves, most recently in their invasion and bombing of Gaza. The rabidity of the Israeli shills isn't even the problem-- they're easy to spot, and their attacks on almost anyone discussing the issue are transparently biased. The real problem is that even when Israel is not in wartime, the shills still operate at a reduced level, trying to shape a public discussion milieu that is pro-Israel and refuses to recognize any kind of subtlety. People notice that they get attacked when they criticize Israel online, and eventually they keep quiet.
- freshhawk 12y ago
  I'm not sure I buy that all of them are easy to spot. If we worked there we would both immediately realize that you'd want a diversity of rabidity. And once it was public you'd want very easily identified shills to make your reasonable shills seem more reasonable and move the Overton window. These are the successors to cold war game theory think tank people after all.
- tokenadult 12y ago
  People notice that they get attacked when they criticize Israel online, and eventually they keep quiet. I haven't seen examples of this. I post quite critical stories about Israel's policies (some from the press in Israel, others from places around the world) on my Facebook wall, and not even my Facebook friends who occasionally display Israeli flags as Facebook profile photos seem to mind. Here on Hacker News, the one country that people can "attack" almost with impunity is the United States, but of course every United States citizen, including me too, has plenty to criticize the United States about, so all I ask is that criticism be factual and made with some international perspective. I think most Israeli citizens, and for the most part operatives of the Israeli government, have the same approach: criticize what deserves criticism, and give us a chance to discuss the policies of our country openly, but don't ignore the rest of the world in the process.
nosuchthing 12y ago
USG bids on Persona Management Software [1] Fake Online Personae for Propaganda [2] DARPA Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) [3] [1] http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/revealed-air-force-ordered-software-to-manage-army-of-fake-virtual-people/ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/revealed-air-force-ordere... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-ope... [3] https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=6ef12558b44258382452fcf02942396a&tab=core&_cview=0 https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=6ef1255...
- pdkl95 12y ago
  https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula... To add to this, let's not forget GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG). As a member of FVEY, they are part of the "help our allies by spying on each other" game that happens to get around constitutional restrictions. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/14/manipulating-online-polls-ways-british-spies-seek-control-internet/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/14/manipulating-o... JTRIG's toolbox is particularly interesting. While some tools are general-purpose or have plausible uses for traditional spying, quite a few tools are not useful for "finding terrorists" or other nation security purposes. These tools would be useful for spreading propaganda: • “Change outcome of online polls” (UNDERPASS) • “Ability to artificially increase traffic to a website” (GATEWAY) and “ability to inflate page views on websites” (SLIPSTREAM) • “Amplification of a given message, normally video, on popular multimedia websites (Youtube)” (GESTATOR) So yes, manipulation and paid posts are certainly going on. There are also far more technically sophisticated tricks being used as well. Unfortunately, this is something w4e need to keep in mind in most internet discussions - even here on HN. There has certainly been a lot of discussions here and elsewhere that were derailed with wedge-issue distractions.
xnull1guest 12y ago
In addition to crackdowns on news media (including surveillance operations against journalistic outfits to dissolve their ability to work with confidential informants [1]) and both persecution and prosecution of journalists (e.g. Ibrahim Jassam [2], Laura Poitras [3], Glenn Greenwald [4], James Risen [5], many others), media partnership with the state (e.g. Ken Dilanian [6], Judith Miller and Michael Gordon [7]), the manipulation of US news media to achieve geopolitical goals (Zarqawi Psyop [8], Fallujah Psyop [9]) [note here that it has been recently anonymously removed from Wikipedia [10] that this happened - see this old version of the article where it was still present! [11]], the use of state pressure to prevent stories from circulating (Risen's NSA story 2004-05 [12]), the nonchalant sale of journalism to hide things as large as genocide by major media outlets (look up the CNN-Bahrain scandal), the pulling of journalists with unfriendly coverage on key international issues (e.g. Ayman Mohyeldin [13]), the use of journalism exclusion zones (foreign and also domestic [14]), death threats by the state against whistle blowers and their families (US held Binney's family hostage [15]; Binney by the way is a cripple), the capability to manipulate online discussions for geopolitical purposes [16], the use of false international cables to manipulate the press (both historical [17] and recent [18]), use of fake journalists during US press releases to direct conversation and ask softball questions ("Jeff Gannon"/Gannongate [19]) [a note here that this scandal has been covered up by a 'controversy over Gannon's sexual preferences' as though that's the scandal - the real issue is that he was a plant - looking to see coverage on Gannon is a good litmus test of journalists and media outlets to see whether they are covering real issues or just gossip] and similarly the blocking of journalists that don't "play ball", the payment for positive media coverage by the government (e.g. Armstrong Williams [20], Gallagher and McManus [21]), WCIA's injection of (hundreds of) unattributed fake news stories into local news channels by the US through the Office of Broadcasting Services [22], presumed ability to impersonate private citizens to influence other Americans [23], fake letters sent to media outlets from the US Army [24] [the article has been removed from the web but I was able to find a cached copy on the Internet Archive probject], invention of hero stories (e.g.fabricated Jessica Lynch fall and rescue story [25]; propagandized story enshrined by Hollywood Director Ridley Scott's 'infotainment' version ironically named "Body of Lies"), that the Smith-Mundt Act anti-propaganda law was eviscerated this year [26] (like many other important legislative changes and additions) with hardly any press coverage, use of coerced testimony to justify policy goals [27] when it is known to have been fabricated [28], that foreign aimed propaganda accidentally makes it in American media [29], and also that this is done on purpose to circumvent anti-propaganda law [30], that the government has a history of manipulating media and through the Cold War had over 800 American news networks and personel [31] (names you may know such as Austin Goodrich [32] and Frank Kearns [33]), that the United States hires [34] contractors [35] and has software [36] to manipulate social media[37] [note here that the last link shows formerly linked references to CENTCOM claims that Facebook and Twitter cannot be targeted are false], that research on vote manipulation have been done on both Google [38] and on Facebook (in the case of Facebook, 61 million American people were experimented on during the 2010 US congressional elections [39), that experiments have been done (successfully) on controlling emotions by manipulating Facebook feeds [40] (on a grant from the State Department), that beyond blocking third parties [41] from the presidential "debates" [42] (which American citizens consider extremely important to their vote) that the rehearsed questions, topics and terms are prenegotiated [43] by the joint Republican and Democrat owned organization [44], that agencies publish documents compelled of them by law at inconvenient times to discourage large press coverage [45], it is also true that the the now president and CEO of the Public Broadcasting Service Patricia Harrison testified before Congress that President Bush considered Office of Broadcasting Services (1/4 billion dollar) state sponsored propaganda powerful strategic tools for swaying public opinion [46]. Bush said "see, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda" some see him as a bumbling, silly fool. I see a (perhaps overly) honest and transparent man. It's probably true that the revisions to the Smith-Mundt Act will not open the flood gates of government sponsored media manipulation. Given that Kenneth Tomlinson [47] (a chairman to the foreign media propaganda arm of the United States) was put in charge of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (NPR and PBS) before handpicking State Department official Patricia Harrison to supersede him, and that Harrison has brought in Cheryl Halpern, Tim Isgitt, Mike Levy, Helen Mobley, and other State Department officials formerly in charge of US overseas propaganda efforts [48], and that Tomlinson left after an internal investigation charged him with Ethics Violations for breaking the anti-propaganda law Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 [49] (but no arrest...) these things are probably nothing to worry about. Propaganda exists in many forms in the United States but it is still held at bay to many degrees (when compared to some other nation states; it is by no means the worst) by the sorts of laws that the Smith-Mundt Act used to be. In my opinion every anti-propaganda law we lose or weaken is a big deal for liberty.
deleted 12y ago
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xtrumanx 12y ago
In case you're wondering how they accomplished some of that there was a piece of software called Megaphone[0] released during the 2006 Lebanon war that automatically cast votes for users on online polls on the internet concerning their favourite middle eastern country. It even received attention and support from their Foreign Ministry. The developers went on to form a company[1] "to influence ratings on sites which allow users to rate articles or other items" with $2m in funding from Sequoia. Not sure if they still up-and-running. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaphone_desktop_tool http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaphone_desktop_tool [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collactive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collactive
rasz_pl 12y ago
US does it Metal Gear Solid 2 style, by manipulating context and censoring information (outright and using chilling effect).

manticore_alpha 12y ago

Gotta admire the level of coordination.

codyb 12y ago

From the article Zhanggong district is Ganzhou’s administrative center and home to about 460,000 people. “There are at least 5,000 districts this size or bigger,” said Qiang Xiao Am I missing something here? Do districts in China overlap? The population in China is currently standing at around 1.357 billion [0] according to World Bank, United States Census Bureau. Quick math puts 5,000 * 460,000 at 2.3 billion. The list of districts in China [1] is quite long. And when sorting for 2010 population there are quite a lot above 500,000 but it certainly can't be 5,000. Must be a misquote. [0] - https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=population%20china https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e... [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_districts_in_China http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_districts_in_China

efbbbf 12y ago
It never explicitly states that the "this size or bigger" refers to its population, it could be area.
- codyb 12y ago
  Good point.

hackuser 12y ago

I wonder how many private (i.e., non-governmental) groups in the U.S. use this practice, either for business purposes (e.g., Yelp and Amazon reviews, Twitter posts and responses, or popular and influential forums (such as HN!)), or political purposes. On one hand, it's the 'Big Lie': People naturally doubt such deception is occurring until they see a smoking gun, and even then many deny it. On the other, it is such an obvious, inexpensive way to drive public opinion, I'd be shocked if it wasn't widely used. Even paying U.S. minimum wage, you probably are paying under 50 cents/post. That's 10,000 comments in your favor for < $5K -- without knowing data on the influence of such things, it seems cost-effective compared to advertising. Imagine a local politician or a super-PAC doing it before an election in just one locality. Also interesting: Many people I know think they can detect astroturfing when they see it. I'm sure that's true sometimes, but the astroturfers have more experience and are more sophisticated in their craft than we are -- they do it all day, every day. They know what makes something look credible, and you can see that discussed in the article. EDIT: I just found this: Grassroots for Hire: Public Affairs Consultants in American Democracy by Edward T. Walker Although 'grassroots' conjures up images of independent citizen organizing, much mass participation today is sponsored by elite consultants working for corporations and powerful interest groups. This book pulls back the curtain to reveal a lucrative industry of consulting firms that incentivize public activism as a marketable service. Edward Walker illustrates how, spurred by the post-sixties advocacy explosion and rising business political engagement, elite consultants have deployed new technologies to commercialize mass participation. Using evidence from interviews, surveys and public records, Grassroots for Hire paints a detailed portrait of these consultants and their clients. Today, Fortune 500 firms hire them to counter-mobilize against regulation, protest or controversy. Ironically, some advocacy groups now outsource organizing to them. Walker also finds that consultants are reshaping both participation and policymaking, but unethical 'astroturf' strategies are often ineffective. This pathbreaking book calls for a rethinking of interactions between corporations, advocacy groups, and elites in politics. http://www.amazon.com/Grassroots-Hire-Consultants-American-Democracy/dp/1107619017 http://www.amazon.com/Grassroots-Hire-Consultants-American-D...

cryoshon 12y ago
I will be sure to read the book that you suggested, as this topic is of great interest to me. A few thoughts: 1. Astroturfing has been the norm for a few years now-- probably more years than I suspect, but the biggest difference was pre-2011. 2. Most people don't even have astroturfing on their radar, and if the public ever did get any ideas, you can be sure they would be astroturfed into actually believing that astroturfing is a legitimate marketing technique rather than repugnant lying. 3. Astroturfing varies wildly in quality, and I'm sure that some people could spot the weaker campaigns-- the most recent major campaign that was weak was probably the pro-Russia astroturfing of Reddit during Russia's invasion of Crimea. 4. The quality of astroturf is inversely proportional to the time and thus money it requires to produce. A cheap statement "X is great, support X" blasted into every topic is easy to spot, whereas custom tailored shilling and misdirection is often far more insidious. 5. I'd expect that most governments engage in astroturfing and shilling heavily-- if not on their own population (which is extremely likely) then on other populations. As evidence, consider that Eglin AFB is the "most addicted to reddit" community. I'm not sure what to do about this other than call it out when I see it, which is woefully ineffective.

simonebrunozzi 12y ago

> "Zhanggong district is Ganzhou’s administrative center and home to about 460,000 people. “There are at least 5,000 districts this size or bigger,” said Qiang Xiao, editor of China Digital Times (CDT), a news site affiliated with the University of California Berkeley that first reported on the emails." So, this means that China is home to at least 2.3B people??? The math doesn't add up.

veb 12y ago
> It never explicitly states that the "this size or bigger" refers to its population, it could be area

zghst 12y ago

I find it alarming, this thread already mimicking a USSR disinformation campaign. See below "Israeli shills". As usual, the HN crowd (or state propagandists) turn to whataboutism and pointing fingers than discussing the topic on hand. This really isn't the place for any political discussion, it is so biased and factually divergent, half the time the threads here do not even match the articles.

im2w1l 12y ago

It is amusing and fascinating that there is (as of this post) zero discussion of China's internet propaganda machine. >“When transferring the attention of netizens and blurring the public focus, going off the topic is very effective.”