Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, not Engaged Argument (cnet.com) 69
Abstract of a study: The Chinese government has long been suspected of hiring as many as 2,000,000 people to surreptitiously insert huge numbers of pseudonymous and other deceptive writings into the stream of real social media posts, as if they were the genuine opinions of ordinary people. Many academics, and most journalists and activists, claim that these so-called "50c party" posts vociferously argue for the government's side in political and policy debates. As we show, this is also true of the vast majority of posts openly accused on social media of being 50c. Yet, almost no systematic empirical evidence exists for this claim, or, more importantly, for the Chinese regime's strategic objective in pursuing this activity. In the first large scale empirical analysis of this operation, we show how to identify the secretive authors of these posts, the posts written by them, and their content. We estimate that the government fabricates and posts about 448 million social media comments a year. In contrast to prior claims, we show that the Chinese regime's strategy is to avoid arguing with skeptics of the party and the government, and to not even discuss controversial issues. From a CNET article, titled, Chinese media told to 'shut down' talk that makes country look bad: Being an internet business in China appears to be getting tougher. Chinese broadcasters, including social media platform Weibo, streamer Acfun and media company Ifeng were told to shut down all audio and visual content that cast the country or its government in bad light, China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television posted on its website on Thursday, saying they violate local regulations. "[The service providers] broadcast large amounts of programmes that don't comply with national rules and propagate negative discussions about public affairs. [The agency] has notified all relevant authorities and ... will take measures to shut down these programmes and rectify the situation," reads the statement.
Social Media Sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
Social Media will be the downfall of most societies I expect.
Whether due to government manipulation, private interest manipulation, or merely coarsening the social discourse, Social Media really hasn't been a net benefit to society at all.
Re: (Score:3)
It's still early days. We've seen only a handful of successful social media platforms. Things change.
Re: Social Media Sucks (Score:4, Interesting)
Great Minds Discuss Ideas; Average Minds Discuss Events; Small Minds Discuss People
15/16 slashdot lead stories right now are about people or companies. That would put /. in the small minds category
Re:Social Media Sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Social Media really hasn't been a net benefit to society at all.
If you're going to make unqualified statements like that, I'm going to need some quantification. I'm open to that possibility, but "Kids these days with their twitter and facebook is no dang good, and the Chinese are brainwashing them!!!" isn't very compelling.
If fake posters encourages skepticism about what you're being told, that could be useful. No news source is without bias, you're crazy if you think the alternative to Chinese posters trying to shape opinion is completely different from everyone watching the nightly news in the US during the cold war or any other war. Actually could be better: you can talk back to propaganda online in a way you can't with the tee vee propaganda.
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Mod up +1 pls.
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'Social Media' is compromised EVERYWHERE (Score:2)
Re:Social Media Sucks (Score:4, Interesting)
Depends on how you define "downfall".
The trick with tyranny, as with so many other things, is to get someone else to do most of the work of maintaining it. The Chinese regime has got this down to a science.
For example if there were a clear and hard limit as to how far you can go with free speech, people would be going right up to that limit and they'd constantly be struggling with people who wander over the line. So in China they keep the exact line vague so most normal people avoid going anywhere near where the line might be drawn.
This particular story shows how distraction is a powerful tool of tyranny. The more people are focused on viral nonsense the less they're focused on things that might challenge the regime.
Posting? (Score:2)
they're not the only ones (Score:5, Insightful)
US spy operation that manipulates social media : Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda [theguardian.com]
The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.
Ignoring the real enemy. (Score:5, Funny)
Nyet. (Score:1)
Comrade , I don't know these Russian Hakars you speak of.
Comrade, remeber that the capitalist pig controlled Western media is blaming those poor innocent Russians. The very honest democracy loving Vladmir Putin would never undermine another government.
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Indeed, they have effectively hacked the minds of Democrat party leadership and driven them effectively insane.
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Fuck of, Trump person.
In a democracy ... (Score:4, Funny)
Look! A Tweet from Kim Kardashian!
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Plus the real pernicious democracy-destroying distractions aren't from the Kardashians, they're from other reality TV stars occasionally residing in the white house. Enabled by a firmly anti-democratic electoral system that was left in place from the founding days.
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Aldous Huxley won.
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Considering the insane number of Trump apologists on Slashdot, I tend to agree with you. The only way so many brainless inbread fucktards can appear to exist is if they are paid to flood social media networks by the King of Disinformation himself.
Either that, or there is no such conspiracy, and there actually ARE that many fucktards in the world. In this case, God have mercy on our souls.
Not Just China (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure this is a fairly widespread phenomenon.
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I'm certain that if they actually hired 2 millions people to do this that it wouldn't be suspected it would be well known... as if 2 million people could keep a secret.
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Who says that 2 million people are needed to do it?
This is not the study you're linking for (Score:5, Informative)
The study linked in the OP has nothing to do with fabricated-media posts; rather, it's about what social-media gets censored by the Chinese government (namely, calls to action and not mere criticism). In fact, the abstract of the linked study is entirely different from what's allegedly quoted in the OP. The linked abstract is actually this:
We offer the first large scale, multiple source analysis of the outcome of what may be the most extensive effort to selectively censor human expression ever implemented. To do this, we have devised a system to locate, download, and analyze the content of millions of social media posts originating from nearly 1,400 different social media services all over China before the Chinese government is able to find, evaluate, and censor (i.e., remove from the Internet) the large subset they deem objectionable. Using modern computer-assisted text analytic methods that we adapt to and validate in the Chinese language, we compare the substantive content of posts censored to those not censored over time in each of 85 topic areas. Contrary to previous understandings, posts with negative, even vitriolic, criticism of the state, its leaders, and its policies are not more likely to be censored. Instead, we show that the censorship program is aimed at curtailing collective action by silencing comments that represent, reinforce, or spur social mobilization, regardless of content. Censorship is oriented toward attempting to forestall collective activities that are occurring now or may occur in the future --- and, as such, seem to clearly expose government intent.
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No kidding: actually the title of this post has zero to do with the study that it links to (which was published in 2013, by the way). The article has nothing to do with fabricating fake social media posts as a distraction: it's entirely about backing out the Chinese government's intentions by looking at what they care about censoring. It concludes that criticism isn't a problem, but rather any posting on events that might spur citizens to take action (even posts that aren't critical of the government).
Math doesn't check out (Score:4, Insightful)
2 million people generating 448 million posts a year? That's about two posts a working day per person. Either they are horribly inefficient, or one of these numbers is wrong. My guess, both are wrong.
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Actually, it makes perfect sense. The objective isn't to "flood" social media with obvious pre-written stuff. The whole point is to produce a lot of reasonable, "everything is okay" posts that seem to basically represent people living their daily lives. Focusing on controversy makes people aware of controversy. Acting "pro-Chinese government" makes you look like a shill. And generating too much content makes you look like astroturf.
If you want to merely make sure there's a constant 10% or 20% of conten
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The whole point is to produce a lot of reasonable, "everything is okay" posts that seem to basically represent people living their daily lives.
But 448M posts/year isn't "a lot", it is a negligible number. China has about 600M internet users, and they use social media a lot more than Americans do. So 448M posts is less than one per person per year. That is practically unnoticable.
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"Comcast is good and their service people smell of fresh spring flowers. Your connection problems were caused by poorly-made foreign microwave ovens. That's why you should buy domestic brands."
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Since they are state employees, figures are probably correct. Outsourcing this activity could work better, of course.
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Starbucks?
Hijack the customer loyalty program. 2 or 3 cups of coffee during a working day - more for us nerds! Pay the bill while scanning your loyalty card or NFC enabled phone. Receive a notification with a link to any one of 500 web sites. Fill in a sock-puppet comment and a notification will be sent back to HQ to erase your bill.
Anyone with a conscience wouldn't sell their soul but for thousands of dollars a year worth of free coffee, plenty would.
Oh shit, I shouldn't give them ideas! :-)
Social media (Score:2)
Baffle them with your bullshit (Score:2)
Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. [businessinsider.com]