Chinese propaganda is rampant on the fediverse. We need to discuss ways to combat this. One group- memes or something is wholly controlled by Chinese state actors. What do you think?
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Treat it like a troll post. Downvote and move on, if the name becomes familiar block them.
This goes for all propaganda not just the stuff you are against.
That assumes you accurately define propaganda. I think we’ve all faced half baked allegations as such, and had people vote with the accuser, you want everyone to be seperated from each other on here because they misunderstood a point, or understood different facts, or because they are a dumbass on a different topic?
Just downvote, and move on, unless the person is stalking you, looking at you hexrat, or whatever fucking mammal.
Irony thy name is Hector.
Speak of the devil. The long palsied arm of [redacted.]
Is the hexbort here in the room with us right now? There’s a fancy saying my people have, if you’re smelling dog shit everywhere you go, look under your own shoe.
At least I don’t use alts to upvote my comments and downvote yours. Like yourself. Sad stuff Hec. Sad stuff.
Great anecdote comrade. We have sayong, if you do not think good, do not think much. Now if you will excuse me trollsky.
This was true until I realized they’re all over. Anything even remotely pertaining to China is flooded with the Chinese state actors reply guys and bots. In effect, using the protocols strength against itself. Is the protocol itself even able to be banned in China? Are they seriously active on here just to push their bullshit China marketing even harder. They’ve gone all out the last five years.
Anything even remotely pertaining to China is flooded with the Chinese state actors reply guys and bots.
What racist, afraid of your own shadow scummy behavior you display.
Even Chinese SA’s have access to VPN’s, proxies, etc. It’s not like they would tie their own hands behind their backs to spread the good word, ya know?
Russia only needed a small number of inroads to influence the 2016 US election, and now? Pff, they hardly need to do anything, we’re completely self-sufficient in propagandizing ourselves. It’s entirely possible China’s already created their own army of Overseas Useful Idiots.
I’m a big fan of using previous baseless conspiracy theories to justify current baseless conspiracy theories.
brain in a box so he doesn’t have to think anymore
I’m assuming that made sense in your head?
When I check facebook, just in passing as I use marketplace occassionally I check the enshitified feed, and there is a lot of chinese propaganda on there, pushing their advancements, science, it’s a concderted effort for sure.
The Chinese are really bad at propaganda though, they never had to try with their own people, so they put that same amount of understanding into it here and it falls flat, at least so far. They are getting better with their fluff pieces, but as far as manipulating us, they suck at it, unlike the Russians, they get us, they know just how stupid we are.
I still don’t understand the point of downvoting here since it doesn’t seem to affect visibility. You’ll have the dumbest take on something sitting there at -36 and I still have to look at it.
Entire subs and communities, and servers are Chinese state actors. I wish we could daylight this bullshit, a single serving page with a method for rankings subs, servers with biases?
Show your evidence
There’a a global positive shift in opinion on China that’s happened over the first year of Trump. The trend was already there in the “Global South” but it’s now happening everywhere. This shift is driven by real economic and geopolitical pressures. E.g. US tariffs and military threats, Chinese investment and cheap EVs, etc. Add to that there are more people on Lemmy from non-NA/EU countries than on US-centric platforms like Reddit and this shift becomes even more apparent here. In Western countries the positive opinion on China is less one of an ally and more of a necessary partner. In Canada, the opposition to trade with China shifted from 80% in 2020 to 32% at the end of 2025.
If you’re primed to not see anything positive about China, then even positive views around partnership could appear as pro-China propaganda. Also people in the Global South are much more aware of US and European atrocities so when you present China’s atrocities as a counter to people’s positive opinions, it looks unserious and hypocritical to them. If you see their hypocrisy callout as a propaganda method and you call it out as such, you lose all good faith credibility with them.
Pics:
PS: Along with this shift, comes the realization among some that a lot of what they thought about China came from corporate US interest via US-owned media that pushes a line useful for that interest. This has happened to me and multiple RL friends and family in Canada. The conversations on the last thanksgiving table have changed a lot since 2024. At present we’re in the necessary partner camp.
I’m no fan of Tankies or the CCP, but I’m really not seeing any more pro-china propaganda than you see elsewhere, mostly excitement as a result of their green tech stuff or HSR (while ignoring why China has a need for HSR)
I am seeing a surprising amount of anti-china paranoia from the UK press right now that frankly seems like it’s engineered by the US given its timing. Like articles about diplomats using burner phones as if that isn’t standard (for all countries).
You have discovered .ml? Yeah the lead devs are tankies lol
So they’re trying to capture mind share of technologists. Nice play, I’m embarrassed.
Register on a different instance and filter everything ml. It’s a life changer with the Fediverse.
Or better yet, to back to Reddit
Best advice here. ML is a goddamn dumpster fire
Lol. This coming from a .worlder
Sinophobia will get you nowhere. Those “Chinese State Actors” on the Fediverse are largely Western crackers who read theory and oppose Imperialism. You shouldn’t bogeyman an entire nation you don’t know anything about, this is xenophobic and also works against the working class.
I tend to agree with sentiment. Its more useful idiots type then cynical profesionals feeling.
On the topic, I’ve been seeing plenty of war-hawk think-tank accounts who only post propaganda, like:
- Scotty@scribe.disroot.org
- Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org
- randomname@scribe.disroot.org
- 0x815@feddit.org (and all their alt-accounts, including 0x815@feddit.de and thelucky8@beehaw.org )
They are clearly not involved in our communities.
Pretty sure these are all the same person. If you ever engage, you can recognize the same asshole attitude. I’ve seen multiple of them up/down vote comments where no one else has. Don’t think they do that anymore cause it’s too obvious.
That would explain a lot and make their constant denials of pushing specific content even funnier
Ironically, the most active user on the current #2 China community, !china@sopuli.xyz, is an absolutely indefatigable anti-Chinese propagandist.
This person, @Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org posts multiple times per day, usually quite sensible and well-sourced articles, but always on the same downer subjects (repression, Uighurs, corruption and so on) and never anything that paints China (let alone its government) in the slightest positive light. Since nobody else in this community can match their posting stamina, the end result is a community that, to newcomers, looks like one rando’s “I hate China” blog. Hardly surprising that it’s not a very successful community.
I’ve asked this user to consider dropping the tempo a bit, and been met with defensiveness. I complained in private to the mod, who is completely AWOL, and they didn’t care. Oh well.
It’s not even 1 account. It’s a collection of sockpuppets. I started noticing them when they started posting in !Canada@lemmy.ca but apparently the streak goes quite further back. The latest ones are Sepia and tardigrade.
I’ve also suggested changing tactic a bit from being a complete bad-faith asshole to good-faith commenters to at least being nice. Nada.
Ultimately the problem is that the mods for the communities they frequently post to have allowed this to go on for years. They have to know by now what’s going on, and by doing nothing they tacitly endorse it.
I don’t mind it too much. If the community itself can deal with ir by voting on the posts, it’s a more democratic solution and it has a built-in consensus. Mods killing it makes life easier but it produces more quesrions among the community abt whether that was the best course of action. Kinda like how some people feel about being censored on .ml, no offence. Isn’t that a dialectical relarionship of sorts, the effects of more vs less moderation?
I guess it depends on the people’s culture. If they come from a lib background, less moderation is more productive. If they’re used to authority taking care of things instead of them having to do the work, then more moderation is better suited or else people would complain mods aren’t doing their job.
And speaking of moderation. OP got banned. 😄
Out of interest, how do you know it’s sockpuppets?
To be honest I’m genuinely a bit interested in who this might be. I’m imagining a disgruntled Hong Kong exile with too much time on their hands. Also seems likely to be Chinese in that they have a top-down concept of information, not seeing that obvious and relentless propaganda will just backfire with a sophisticated and relatively informed audience. Perhaps I’m being slightly optimistic, but I can’t see how they’ve convinced anyone here that “China bad” who didn’t already think that.
What I’ve noticed:
- The posts themselves follow almost identical structure. Large quotes with poster emphasis.
- The posting topics is almost identical.
- The reliability of sources is hit-or-miss on all posts. Some are from legit sources, some are from really questionable ones. The questionable ones are common between accounts.
- The communities where they’re all active are the same. Lately there’s a bit more separation where some accounts frequent some communities more than others. E.g. some time ago we used to get Hotznplotzn, randomname and Scotty in !Canada. Now we mostly get Scotty.
- When you engage in conversation the lang expression, attitude and arguments are identical. This when I really noticed the pattern.
- I’ve had multiple accounts from this set group up/down vote their/mine comments, deep into a discussion that didn’t attract other up/down votes.
- I’ve had a discussion that reached a dead end with one account, only for another to show up and restart it from a different angle attempting to reach a different conclusion. E.g. first discuss an economic side of some China-related issue, reach a dead end, restart with human rights abuses side on the same topic. That’s while having the group up/down voting action going on.
- Two of the accounts were created on the same date, on two different instances, a few minutes away from each other. This was the smoking gun for me that this is the same person.
Some of these aren’t damning on their own, but put altogether make me believe it’s one person. Also they never deny that when pressed. The conversation just stops and they disappear for a day or two until the next post.
a disgruntled Hong Kong exile with too much time on their hands
Quite possibly. I think they may live in Germany or be German because I’ve seen some activity in German. Who knows. I doubt they’re a paid actor because there’s enough money in the official media machine pushing this line so I think you’re right. Someone who really hates China/CCP/CPC, perhaps for a good reason of their own, with a lot of free time. It really sucks because there are really interesting discussions that can be had on any of these topics. There’s another guy around here whose family emigrated from China because they weren’t having a great time with the 1-child policy among other things. He’s in the US and can have rational and interesting discussion about this stuff without bursting in flames.
E: Here’s a recent unhinged discussion with Scotty.
Amusing. And what detective work! Your time is valuable, careful not to waste too much of it.
Personally I’m not especially bothered by sockpuppetry in itself (talking of people wasting their time…). But it’s obviously important to have a plurality of viewpoints. If only they would sockpuppet more creatively!
Yeah, I do spend too much time here but I think it’s important to keep the community active because we haven’t won the anti-corpo social media war yet. So we have to overcontribute in content, funding, etc. From each according to their ability, etc.
never anything that paints China (let alone its government) in the slightest positive light
Feel free to change that. Just use quite sensible and well-sourced articles.
Plenty of Russian propaganda too. Every “conservative” community or server is essentially acting in Putin’s favor.
Don’t forget USAian propaganda. By far the most prevalent under that regime.
leftists* are rampant on the fediverse
🫡 A natural consequence of leftist ideology.
Agreed, I find comrades of all kinds of colours and stripes here.
lemmy.ml is just like that, maybe you want to look for a new home instance.
You should go away and stop wildly fear mongering.
I heard they’ve stopped all fear mongering in China
Lol right? Dude the Chinese bots and reply guys are so obvious.
Poo bear’s gotta up his game on 🐻
Do you have a shred of actual evidence for this? Or is it just the standard lib ad-hom of accusing those who disagree of being evil foreigners?
Your instance is the lead actor on that one
Gonna share any examples? Is the Chinese propaganda in the room with us?
Lol
I’ve been banned from several communities because I addressed the issues with slavery in China in a comment, and because I dared to critize the CCPs antiworker policies (like denying unions that dont align with what the leadership idea of the national interest).
I can get some evidence in some of the time but then ill be sudenly banned.
Which communities are problematic? I’ve not experienced any censoring when I’ve argued with tankies in the past, even got away with using ‘red fascist’. I assume I’ve been blocked by a few folk tho aha…
I cant remeber tbh. They kind of benign places like asklemmy but on the lemmy.ml server
I’m sure plenty others have said so already but you can block the instance if you find its content not to your tastes. It’s the beauty of Lemmy after all.
Tbh, I guess I’m more frustrated with moderation there then content, you know?
I’m sorry to say that lemmy is not popular enough to be on CPC’s radar.
The CPC’s propaganda budget is mostly focused on what Chinese people would read if they get over the great firewall (mainly YouTube and Twitter).
Second to that is the general “feel good” stories, like scenery, food, or panda (recently high-speed trains), aiming at the mainstream Western public. You may see those on lemmy, but it’s very unlikely that the state propagandists are the ones posting them here.
That sounds like something chinese state propagandists would say.
