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142 points mzs | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.211s | source
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JohnJamesRambo ◴[] No.19401632[source]
I’m not so sure Hacker News is free of the same group. Post an article critical of China sometime and watch the comments. People genuinely posting opposing viewpoints is fine and normal but there is something very uncanny valley about most of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

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vkou ◴[] No.19401994[source]
I find that when an article about China is posted on HN, for the problematic posts, there's about an 90/10 split between two groups of trolls:

1. People who disregard everything about TFA, to remind everyone for the five hundredth time about <some unrelated crime by CPC>, and <why are we still trading with them>, and <can't we just build a wall around it>, and <the Chinese come here to steal all our things>. These posts, depending on how inflammatory they are, or what side of the bed HN woke up on, tend to hover slightly positive.

2. Green-named accounts speaking in... Non-perfect English, praising some aspect of China. These usually get downvoted to oblivion.

There's also a lot number of posts that express more-reasoned/more-on-topic pro/anti-China viewpoints. I don't consider them to be trolling, and I don't really care what colors the names of the people posting them are.

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1. CoolGuySteve ◴[] No.19402358[source]
Regarding your first point, we see the same sort posts anytime there's an article about C/C++ or a vulnerability that states something about how unmanaged languages should be condemned. It's not restricted to just political topics.

And while they may have a point, they're often off-topic whataboutism. I believe it's a natural outcome of gamifying discussions with imaginary internet point rewards. The first and most eloquent post that's congruent with the hivemind "wins". It's just human nature.