Buying Influence: How China Manipulates Facebook and Twitter (nytimes.com) 57
The New York Times: Flood global social media with fake accounts used to advance an authoritarian agenda. Make them look real and grow their numbers of followers. Seek out online critics of the state -- and find out who they are and where they live. China's government has unleashed a global online campaign to burnish its image and undercut accusations of human rights abuses. Much of the effort takes place in the shadows, behind the guise of bot networks that generate automatic posts and hard-to-trace online personas. Now, a new set of documents reviewed by The New York Times reveals in stark detail how Chinese officials tap private businesses to generate content on demand, draw followers, track critics and provide other services for information campaigns. That operation increasingly plays out on international platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which the Chinese government blocks at home. The documents, which were part of a request for bids from contractors, offer a rare glimpse into how China's vast bureaucracy works to spread propaganda and to sculpt opinion on global social media. They were taken offline after The Times contacted the Chinese government about them.
On May 21, a branch of the Shanghai police posted a notice online seeking bids from private contractors for what is known among Chinese officialdom as public opinion management. Officials have relied on tech contractors to help them keep up with domestic social media and actively shape public opinion via censorship and the dissemination of fake posts at home. Only recently have officials and the opinion management industry turned their attention beyond China. The Shanghai police are looking to create hundreds of fake accounts on Twitter, Facebook and other major social media platforms. The police department emphasizes that the task is time sensitive, suggesting that it wants to be ready to unleash the accounts quickly to steer discussion. Bot-like networks of accounts such as those that the Shanghai police want to buy have driven an online surge in pro-China traffic over the past two years. Sometimes the social media posts from those networks bolster official government accounts with likes or reposts. Other times they attack social media users who are critical of government policies.
On May 21, a branch of the Shanghai police posted a notice online seeking bids from private contractors for what is known among Chinese officialdom as public opinion management. Officials have relied on tech contractors to help them keep up with domestic social media and actively shape public opinion via censorship and the dissemination of fake posts at home. Only recently have officials and the opinion management industry turned their attention beyond China. The Shanghai police are looking to create hundreds of fake accounts on Twitter, Facebook and other major social media platforms. The police department emphasizes that the task is time sensitive, suggesting that it wants to be ready to unleash the accounts quickly to steer discussion. Bot-like networks of accounts such as those that the Shanghai police want to buy have driven an online surge in pro-China traffic over the past two years. Sometimes the social media posts from those networks bolster official government accounts with likes or reposts. Other times they attack social media users who are critical of government policies.
its easy (Score:2)
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Protect me from speech! (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much what Democrats in Congress are telling the same Facebook and Twitter [washingtonpost.com].
And not just over the Washington Maidan either... From the horse's mouth [senate.gov]:
Anybody wants to tell us again, how Social Media companies are private and thus not bound by the 1st Amendment?..
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....and one of the slashdot voices of the CCP outs itself.
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Counterpoint: no it fucking isn't, moron.
Re: Protect me from speech! (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, cite the relevant statute... Thank you!
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Hate speech is a criminal offence.
Perhaps in parts of the world where it is spelled "offence", that may be true. But here in the land of the First Amendment and the home of Brave Combo, hate speech most certainly is NOT a criminal offense and I thank the Founding Fathers for that.
Why would I be glad for that? Because I agree with hate speech? Because I wish to use it myself? No. Those people are barbarians and their existence is a blot on civilized society. But - and here's the thing - freedom of speech is meaningless if it only protects go
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Re:its easy (Score:5, Interesting)
For now, but that's changing. There's a lot happening in China economically and politically, very little of it good for foreign businesses; even if they're willing to bend the knee that's not going to be enough.
The party has always played a long game while foreign businesses have gone for the quick buck, but we're moving into a new phase of the game with Xi is moving to sideline party factions aligned with business. They're doing this just as a massive real estate bubble is about to pop. Xi is taking actions to rein in the companies involved that would have made sense years ago, but at present will create a liquidity crisis that will burst the bubble, wiping out a huge fraction of Chinese private savings and financially undermining local governments that have funded themselves using real estate transactions.
It's hard to say, but Xi may be calculating that a financial catastrophe might put a final stake through the heart of the business-oriented Shanghai faction [wikipedia.org], solidifying his control over the party and thus the nation. Or he may genuinely want to return China to something closer to the Mao era.
Either way it's a dangerous mess, and anyone with any sense would be backing out of it rather than trying to get in deeper.
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The party has always played a long game [...] Or [Xi] may genuinely want to return China to something closer to the Mao era.
Well that's the thing. The party was playing the long game when the party served the party. Now it's all about Xi as a dictator, and he's trying to consolidate power within his own lifetime.
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Xi is a paranoid control freak without enough control, just look at the complete mess the building industry and energy sector make. The construction industry have been throwing up super-bad quality towns of buildings that are decaying soon the moment they are built. The energy industry builds new coal power stations in direct contradiction to China's policies. China is a mess, they chose growth at any cost and of course that didn't go well, it is low quality growth that'll take decades to fix if ever what w
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There's multiple ways to read this situation, but none of them are *good*. Whether Xi doesn't see where this is heading, or whether this is leading where Xi wants to go hardly matter, but I think it's a little bit of each.
Women's Tennis Association (Score:3)
Has more balls than the NBA. [washingtonpost.com]
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Human rights abuses in China? (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean like the Chinese military running people over with tanks at Tiananmen Square in 1989 [theguardian.com]?
Or do you mean like the mass rapes of Uighur women [bbc.com] by the Chinese military?
Or did you mean a litany of human rights abuses [bbc.com], political and religious persecution, and of course suppression of dissent.
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Typical war mongering gossip! [ozy.com]
The crimes of your neighbour are not excuses for your own crimes.
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+5 mod up
BS (Score:2)
All I'm seeing is Kpop and NFL during the weekends. And I don't even care for any of those.
The CCP is a cancer on the world's ass. (Score:2)
It's to late for radiation treatment.
It's time to cut it out.
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I seriously think it's time to consider getting together and putting China and Russia behind some kind of digital iron curtain.
so ... (Score:4, Insightful)
... china knows about "community management". don't tell.
twitter and facebook are teeming with propaganda, hasbara and fake news from all over the world anyways. it was just matter of time that china started playing the same game. smart as they are, however, they won't let anyone else do the same on billibilli.
Re:Such primitive tactics (Score:5, Insightful)
At least in the US we're allowed to publicly call our leaders liars to their face and freely discuss it.. What would happen to a Chinese person who dared criticize Xi in public?
Re: Such primitive tactics (Score:1)
The US is far from perfect; it's another thing entirely to draw moral equivalence.
The US hasn't for a century or more done the things that are done in China daily in 2021.
(Unsurprisingly, your villains are all Republicans, meaning you're just another tiresome political hack.)
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Last time I checked, the president was outed as a liar pretty much daily from 2016 to 2020.
And GW Bush has been called a liar pretty much every time his name has come up since the Iraq War.
What liars, pray tell, are being protected then? Notice anything ...consistent about this narrative?
China is just like the USA (Score:3)
In the USA, you can run around Washington saying "Biden is an idiot" and nothing bad will happen to you.
In China you can run around Beijing saying "Biden is an idiot" and nothing bad will happen to you.
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In the US they do the opposite. Instead of preventing people criticising the leaders, they get people to hate their enemies. The propaganda is all about how bad rival countries are, and how you should ignore any abuses the US is guilty of because what about them?
It's not just the US that does it, but the US is probably one of the most successful.
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Gee, I wonder what my account is worth?
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Three fiddy.
Re: Slashdot is no longer reliable? (Score:2)
Re: Slashdot is no longer reliable? (Score:3)
A sleeper account... on slash dot... you people are going full conspiracy theories... and all China needed was a botnet on Facebook... wow Western democracies sure are a fickle thing
Re: Slashdot is no longer reliable? (Score:2)
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I don't think that even the Chinese bother to manipulate Slashdot. Bunch of old techies with rusted on opinions.
Re: Slashdot is no longer reliable? (Score:2)
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Lots of people do want a full war with China... they basically understand fuck all about the geopolitical climate or just how fucking nasty that would be for literally everyone. This is why Taiwan is so fucked... they are just a pawn in this fucked up game. The US wants to posture to act big and tough while knowing the chip manufacturing of Taiwan is absolutely vital to have access to. China wants to stop being treated like it can be bullied and thus postures about China being inseparable parts of China's t
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Found another sleeper account... /s
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I would've consider myself a leftist and I too support China for the US propaganda reasons you mention.
However, we should be clear the political identities of left vs right do not apply well in China. Just as an education in "eastern philosphy" outlines well the ruse of saying "western" vs "eastern" thought. Approaches in India are radically different from China, and all the nations influences by Americanization even more different. Likewise even in China, the philosophy can be radically different be it Chi
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rsilvergun is a legit account all of the typos accounts aren't theirs and are the equivalent of malware typo domains run by wumaos trying to undermine them because they posted anti-CCP things.
The CCP has organ harvesting death camps. The CCP is vehemently anti-LGBTQ+ and currently going after "sissy" boys. The CCP actively works to subvert the western democracy you likely live in. I lean pretty far left and the CCP is the greatest threat on the world stage in general and to the US in particular.
Check out
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That's the way this site has been for a long time, it's not a problem, and just ignore the assholes; present company included. ;-)
ahem (Score:2)
CCP: we make the world great again ! (Score:1)
Let's not forget the NYT history of getting it rig (Score:2)
Esay solution: Expose or label suspect posts (Score:2)
So they are imitating Western imperialism? (Score:1, Troll)
You know nazis like Peter Thiel, Koch brothers, Trump, Ron Paul, George Bush etc. flooding media with pro imperialist programming? Their minions like Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg flooding social media with millions of boths pushing far right-wing fascist, capitalist, imperialist brainwashing disinformation on the peoples of the world? Just like them? They learnt from the best!