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1116 points whatok | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.285s | source
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tmux314 ◴[] No.20740864[source]
Good on Twitter and Facebook.

On top of blocking thousands of websites (which includes Facebook, Google, Twitter) China's government employs thousands of government employees just to purge even the most mild criticism of the CCP on Weibo [1]. They also employ tens of thousands to export their propaganda overseas, using sock puppet accounts to push their worldview[2]. And their worldview is fiercely anti-democratic.

The Internet cannot remain free if we allow governments to use their power to control narratives and suppress the truth. US-based Social media companies are not ideal judges, but at least they publish their methodology and allow public criticism of their platforms.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sina_Weibo#Censorship [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

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woah ◴[] No.20741821[source]
Even here on Hacker News, a week or so ago I saw someone being chided for “breaking the HN guidelines” by calling out a sock puppet. When I looked at the comment history of the account doing the chiding, all of its comments were on China related articles, taking a pro-China view.
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1. BubRoss ◴[] No.20742476[source]
I was assured that this never happens on hacker news and that the evidence that I and others pointed out was both poisonous and imagined.

I would actually love to be wrong, but the explanation given was just that it has been looked into, not anything in depth or addressing the patterns being brought up. Similar disinformation and fast bulk downvoting against the general trend happens when talking about reddit's /r/bitcoin and the company Blockstream that runs it.

At least there is a dialog here and everyone generally wants the same thing (actual opinions and explanations from reasonable people with no astroturfing).