Information operations directed at Hong Kong

We must acknowledge that HN carries a substantial degree of influence, and consider how to responsibly wield that influence. The readers here are a lucractive demographic - generally we are an educated, wealthy, and politically engaged group. As propaganda becomes more sophisticated, it's likely - if not inevitable - that it will target us. It's the responsibility of the moderators of our online spaces to protect us from propaganda, else Hacker News is used as a weapon, to ill or to good - a possibility that you must be aware of.

Distinguishing between propaganda and genuinely held positions is difficult, and approaches impossible as propaganda technology becomes more sophisticated. For this reason, I think it's reasonable to suggest that certain viewpoints are simply not welcome on Hacker News. There are some easy examples: racist or sexist views being one of them. I presume that someone expressing racist viewpoints, no matter how eloquently stated, is not welcome to do so on Hacker News. Then there are more difficult problems, which stem from a complex web of related judgements. To address these, I suggest reflecting on your own moral principles, and considering what ideals are worth protecting in the face of propaganda. In the case of Hong Kong, the ideals at risk here are the right to self governance. And there's little question that the alternative Hong Kong faces would be tragic - China is demonstrably a country with little freedoms afforded to its people and large-scale human rights violations being carried out all the time. The demonstrators in Hong Kong will not be let off easy for the risks they're taking, should they fail.

In short: like it or not, HN is a tool which will be wielded by oppressors, and will likely be an effective tool at that. Identifying oppressors is difficult but identifying the values of oppressors is easier.

Also worth note: HN is inextricably linked to YC, which has financial investments in China. If you don't want to be views as having a pro-China bias, you need to put in extra work to remove the foot from your mouth.

Based on your examples, what you're really concerned about is morality and rules. What are the moral values of HN, and what rules should be imposed to enforce them? What morals are ok, and what aren't, by which people?

> Identifying oppressors is difficult but identifying the values of oppressors is easier.

Well, let's examine that. On the one hand, you probably disagree with the Chinese Communist Party using this site to try to gain sympathy for its doctrine. On the other hand, you might think it's OK for millennial Americans (who for whatever reason have culturally decided that capitalism sucks, and that some form of ism is the only alternative, if perhaps half-jokingly) to share articles with a similar message. They both may preach communism, or denounce capitalism. Which is OK, and why?

Basically, you want to know where the red line is. And that's the problem with moderation: there is no red line. There's a whole lot of blurred colors. You start with a very sensible, good, popular moral position like "no racism or sexism", and then you end up fighting weird angry splinter groups who have decent arguments about what it means to be racist or sexist; maybe you would be to them, or maybe they are to you, but neither of you believe you yourselves are. (Try to explain to the average nerdy fan of The Big Bang Theory that it's probably the most toxically misogynistic show on television, and you might find a heated argument; but is TBBT banned from HN?)

The only easy solution is to make a site which is literally dedicated to the morality of a single person - an autocracy. The rules are whatever that person says they are. But since some people don't like that idea (!) what you end up with is a benevolent oligarchy. A few people run things and try to be nice to the users, but basically it's those few people whose morals and values become the de facto rules. Those rules are intentionally fluid and based on interpretation and guidelines, to encourage as many users to use the site as possible, yet provide enough of a LART to keep Eternal September at bay.

The end result is that there aren't any definitive morals running the ship, by design. Go look - there is no explicit rule against sexism or racism. That would be too easy to argue. The vagaries of human morality are too loose, so you can't just eliminate what seems simple. You can only plumb the depths, interpret what feels bad, and chip away at it.

No, I think that debating ideologies is fine, and even healthy. I have no love for capitalism and no hatred for communism. But that's not the only thing China represents: communism does not imply the brutality China lays upon its people.

>The only easy solution is to make a site which is literally dedicated to the morality of a single person - an autocracy. The rules are whatever that person says they are. But since some people don't like that idea (!) what you end up with is a benevolent oligarchy. A few people run things and try to be nice to the users, but basically it's those few people whose morals and values become the de facto rules. Those rules are intentionally fluid and based on interpretation and guidelines, to encourage as many users to use the site as possible, yet provide enough of a LART to keep Eternal September at bay.

I'm not opposed to HN taking such an approach (in fact, I reckon I'm in favor of it), but the mods should be bolder in drawing moral lines (blurred though they may be). They already do this regardless - so they should do it with confidence in their own moral compass. And assuming they do so, then we can use their action (or inaction) as a lens to evaluate our moderators with and so decide whether or not we wish to cast our lot with HN.

American here using a VPN from China, not an operative. My view after 10 years in China with businesses in China and Hong Kong, is that it is useful to think about Hong Kong similarly to a USA state. It's a state where the people inside can exit into China at will, while all the other people in all the other states in China must get permission to enter Hong Kong. So, its a state where the people living inside have all the benefits of being Chinese, with few of the downsides. But from a bigger picture, Hong Kong is not anymore entitled to complete self-governance apart from China's oversight than California is entitled to act against the US federal government. Very few Americans would support any US State in the Union to exit the Union. And, Chinese nationals do not support it for their own Country's territories.

About your extra thoughts that China is "is demonstrably a country with little freedoms afforded to its people". Every place has its majority and minority viewpoint, and what you are saying here is at best a fringe minority viewpoint in China. On the whole, the Chinese majority does not welcome your pity in regards to their systems. They are amazed at the shitshow they see about USA violence and political machinations. They see marches on Portland Oregon with Antifa on the left and whoever on the far right and think, China has it good, and in many ways, they are correct.

Violent crime as measured in murders per 100K of population in the USA is a magnitude worse than in China, the murder rate is literally 10x worse in the USA. I've walked down dark streets at night all over working class neighborhoods in Guangdong province and never once felt unsafe. At nighttime, there are huge crowds in public squares, sometimes with hundreds of women dancing coordinated to music, and there is no fear. I've done the same in large cities like Shanghai, going where I please at midnight, with no feeling of danger. That's what they value here and it brings a type of freedom that you can't enjoy in the USA.

Chinese do not share the same values as you, and from my view, that's OK.

Isn't that the point of a discussion forum such as HN?

> I think it's reasonable to suggest that certain viewpoints are simply not welcome on Hacker News

I disagree that contrary viewpoints "no matter how eloquently stated" should be purged. Let them stand or fall on their merits.

I'm not afraid to say exactly what I think when it needs said, and I've said what I truly think here.

Except that California has "act[ed] against the US federal government" for years, regarding marijuana. As have several other states.

I do agree, however, that Hong Kong represents a far stranger situation. From a traditional Chinese perspective, it likely appears that Hong Kong was "corrupted" by years of British governance. And I can appreciate how that shows up as British occupation. Just as it did in India etc.

I don't know how you could think that it's ok to pull a move like that on HN, but it's not ok. Specifically, checking up on and bringing in someone's personal circumstances, which they didn't choose to mention, in order to use them as ammunition an argument is not ok on HN. Please don't do that.

I'm glad that you didn't publish the details, which would have been even worse, but that also means that what you wrote there is just an insinuation.

Don't you think we ought to be vigilant of these biases when discussing the very matter of whether or not these biases are subverting the discussion?

This is not 100% true. Setting aside the fact that not all permanent residents in Hong Kong are Chinese nationals, there have been many cases where people have been denied entry into mainland China. But this is a minor point compared to the next point you make:

> So, its a state where the people living inside have all the benefits of being Chinese, with few of the downsides.

As a native HKer this sounds very weird. I'm not sure how the previous point leads to this.

Anyways, I know this is how it's portrayed in mainland China, but the current movement is not about creating an independent Hong Kong separated from China. Sadly, most mainland Chinese people have already made up their mind and let their patriotism fuel their hatred towards Hong Kong.

Some people make it easier - on many occasions you'll see someone discussing a subject but first disclosing their relationship, such as an ex-Google employee commenting on a Google-critical article. If a Chinese party official came to HN to express their views and disclosed themselves as such, I would welcome them to express their opinion here. What I'm concerned about is commenters with undisclosed affiliations writing manipulative comments which help prop up an oppressive state.

For example, the things being done to Chinese people by the government in places like Xin Jiang right now. You might not personally be seeing it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

I don’t mean to disparage you or the choices that you’ve made as I’m sure there are many complex reasons for why you’ve ended up where you are currently. I would urge you though, to think more deeply and consider your actions with the perspective that as someone with the privilege and ability to be able to freely leave the country and speak out against the government without being silenced/jailed, you are in a unique position to make an impact that a native Chinese citizen might not necessarily have.

Personally, as an American with parents that originally grew up in China, I know that I have a great amount of privilege in being able to freely talk about these issues that many of my international student peers in college are unable to express for fear of the consequences they might incur. That’s why for me, I feel like my privilege comes with a certain amount of responsibility to speak out. Your status as an expat puts you in a similar level/position to be able to provide a voice for those that otherwise might never be able to freely express themselves.

Assuming you believe the State statistics that could be true. However, their is plenty of evidence many official numbers are manipulated and this is likely to be one of them.

Which is the issue, even people living in China really have no idea what the Chinese populous thinks about most things. When people fear to speak the truth, what you hear has little to do with what they think. Private comments are frequently at odds with public statements.

> Is your perspective that as long as you aren’t personally targeted and can make money, it doesn’t really matter what the government does?

[Bob]: No. My perspective is that of a person who spent their first 32-years in America, who one day about a decade ago during the depths of the economic downturn, decided to try to eat the dogfood of living and operating a bootstrapped business in China so that I could better understand it and the world I live in.

> You talk a lot about how nice/safe it is for you personally as you enjoy the benefits of living in China as an expat, but at the same time, you do have to realize that your current situation is one of extraordinary privilege and not necessarily representative of the reality for vast swathes of people in China today right?

[Bob]: I'm not claiming it is particularly safe for me alone. The feeling is one of an environment of general safety. As in, lack of violent crime. A Country where, on innumerable local blocks across its many cities, there are instances of thousands of people in public squares at night, enjoying things like group song and dance. You don't see that everywhere in the USA. I do realize, there may be many non-Han Chinese communities I'm not exposed to where the freedom to express themselves is not so great.

> Your status as an expat puts you in a similar level/position to be able to provide a voice for those that otherwise might never be able to freely express themselves.

[Bob]: No, unfortunately, my status as an expat doesn't give me any particular right to speak for its citizens, nor impune myself in the business of China's governance of its citizens. I'm here as a guest in China. China reminds me of that every year when I go through the month-long process to renew my resident and work permit. Anyway, guests don't go to someone else's house and tell them how to run it. But, I fully support your own free speech rights to say anything you want about China or the governance of its peoples.

That said, there are plenty of things I don't like about being in China. Being here has led me to change my views on many issues, versus my views from a decade ago. Previously, I was far left in viewpoint for the times. Such as, I held the view America should nationalize the banking system. While that still may have been the right call, overall, after a decade of bureaucracy, I'm no fan of big government.

And now, I'm a much more rabid proponent of American's protecting their free speech and privacy, at all costs. Otherwise, it's a slippery slope to end up with what they've got here in China.

I also don't agree with that point but probably for different reasons. Hong Kong was simply straddled with a half oligarchic system nominally democratic but in actuality structurally setup to be unconcerned with the livelihood of the middle class.

While the CCP is at least nominally held to be the steward of the common people's wellbeing, most of the functional constituencies in the legco have no 'fiduciary' responsibility towards the average Hong Kong person. Seats like Insurance and Financial Services aren't even voted on by the insurance or fintech workers but by the corresponding corporate monopolies in the unregulated market. These oligarchs also have no interest in any of Tung Chee-hwa's economic reforms that might have helped Hong Kong's workers bridge though China's declining need for Hong Kong as a trade funnel and the present social stagnation and 20% poverty rate. That's 20 times the poverty rate of mainland China.

How do you propose to do that? Clearly one must look for evidence. When evidence shows such abuse, we ban the account. Far more often, though (and I'm understating things when I put it that way), evidence shows the opposite: the user was expressing their genuinely held beliefs. Should others be allowed to denounce them as astroturfers, shills, or spies, based on nothing but how strongly they disagree? On HN the answer is no. That follows from the values of this site, and we have a rule in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html saying so.

What I wrote was narrowly scoped and is mostly an empirical claim: in the majority of cases when users invoke astroturfing/shillage/spying against others in arguments, there is no evidence to support the accusation and usually evidence to refute it. Because this comes up so frequently, it seems there's some sort of bias (probably a universal one, because I don't think we're wired so differently) that causes users to reach for this mud and throw it at other users, even though they have no basis for it other than that person having an opposing view—which is to say, no basis for it at all.

Since there's usually no evidence and yet these accusations are so common and so damaging, the site guidelines ask users not to post them in the threads. At the same time, real abuses exist, so concerned users are invited to email hn@ycombinator.com with links so we can look for evidence.

That was the gist of my comment. The rest was an attempt to plead for tolerance by offering an explanation of how HN ends up with so many posts that can seem disingenuous: it follows from the size and diversity of the community. Humans are not wired for anything that big, and HN is an intimate-seeming place that doesn't feel as large or diverse as it really is, so when views show up that are more than an arm's length away from what one is comfortable with, it activates the circuitry for perceiving enemies and invaders.

If HN is to thrive in accordance with its value of intellectual curiosity, we all need to work on managing that circuitry in ourselves, and not simply jump to where the limbic system would take us. That's really what the call for evidence is getting at. It requires a person to stop, interrupt the mechanical reaction, invoke the slower and more reflective circuits, and then look more closely at what might really be happening. If we could learn to do that as a community, 99% of the accusations of astroturfing, shilling, and spying against other users would vanish. That would make HN a better place, and would also help clarify which cases really do need investigating and taking care of.

I’m not sure what you mean exactly by virtue signaling here. Can you highlight what parts of my comment you feel like weren’t genuine?

> My perspective is that of a person who spent their first 32-years in America, who one day about a decade ago during the depths of the economic downturn, decided to try to eat the dogfood of living and operating a bootstrapped business in China so that I could better understand it and the world I live in.

From my original comment, I’d like to reiterate that I’m not trying to attack you as an individual or the path you ended up taking to get where you are today. I realize now after more careful consideration and reading your response, your ability to freely speak on certain aspects might be constrained due to existing attachments to your business and marriage in China. You have every right to make sure that those things you currently have are safe and protected, and if that precludes you from being able to fully express yourself I totally understand.

I’m sure you’re doing the best you can right now with what you have to work with, and I’m not trying to saddle you with obligations to try and reform deeply entrenched systems of governance by yourself. Small consistent steps taken over time can lead to a surprising amount of meaningful impact and change though.

> I do realize, there may be many non-Han Chinese communities I'm not exposed to where the freedom to express themselves is not so great.

I appreciate that you can see that your experience might not necessarily be entirely representative of what it’s like to live in China.

> And now, I'm a much more rabid proponent of American's protecting their free speech and privacy, at all costs. Otherwise, it's a slippery slope to end up with what they've got here in China.

I completely agree with you here. Having to constantly be careful of what you say for fear of being silenced or jailed, is a reality for the vast majority of Chinese citizens. My parents directly experienced the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 back when they were going to college. I know better than most, that I enjoy a great deal of privilege in being able to have the freedoms I do today that my parents didn’t necessarily get to have at the same age. That’s personally why I’m such a strong proponent of voting and political participation for myself and my peers. From my perspective, young people in America are becoming far more politically active, and I think you’ll see the effects of it in the upcoming 2020 elections next year.

Which is where the problem is, even from an American living inside China believes HK is talking all the advantages without any downside. And just like you said this is how it is portrayed in China, and how majority thinks like this.

That was the the view [1] as shown in previous HN article.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20537409

I'm not questioning that your comments were not genuine. But, it can be quite off-putting to lead your logic by explaining to someone you don't even know, how privileged they are, making many assumptions about that person and their reality. You used the word "privilege" four times in four sentences. There are other more rational and thought-provoking ways to structure your logic to engage and convince people of your views. Otherwise, you seem like a very thoughtful person, passionate about standing up for those who may not have a strong voice or representation. Those are very commendable attributes and I wish you the best.

While I'm generally an admirer of dang and sctb, a variation of this is my criticism, as well:

They tend to overemphasize "manners", while being blind to anti-social and trollish behaviour.

It's fine to chide me for blowing off steam, I shouldn't do that. But when it is because "the other guy" has behaved and "discussed" very dishonestly, I don't think he should get a pass.

At least the whole sub-thread should be deleted, but usually my (wrong, but still rather slight) reaction (like "I find your way of responding dishonest" – not even "I find you dishonest", mind you) is deleted and the dreck that I was subjected to remains.

Because he did not use the words "asshole" or "dishonest" and rather cleverly expressed the same in a "clean" way.

It just incentivises commenters to get more sneaky, back-handed and dog-whistly. And that is already destroying this community, I feel.

It just incentivises commenters to get more sneaky, back-handed and dog-whistly

I can't express how surprised I am (in a good way) to see this finally addressed and vocalized, because I myself have struggled with a way of putting it to words, and wishing to see others communicating it publicly.

Among women and people of color this site has a VERY unfavorable reputation for how our opinions and thoughts are moderated rather strongly because of the frustration we express with dog-whistle arguments that are delicately delivered with kid gloves, while the harbingers of opinions and principles that dehumanize, otherwise, minimize, de-legitimize and/or otherwise ostracize our lived experiences as women and minorities in tech are left alone and allowed to promulgate throughout the rest of the community unmolested.

Thank you both to the two previous commenters for giving my frustrations with this moderation style a voice.

I've only lived in HK for a short amount of time so this might be unfounded. But I would opine that it's not the people of Hong Kong that have drunk the neoliberal kool-aid but that that's the intent of the colonial political control design.

Like most colonial extraction-based political structures like post-Roldos Ecuador, post-Allende Chile or Colombia today, the oligarchy of local ruling families benefited from the monopolistic political structure, then with their vested interest in the colonial institution and with the elite powers they hold (in monopolies in media and control of functional constituency, for instance), they put the broader public deeper and deeper in the hole while directing the general public discontent towards... less intellectually complex conflicts like mainlanders pissing in the subway.

This is fine while doesn't need to demonstrate economic self-sufficiency when they can simultaneously monopolize China's trade but it would be very self-destructive to think that Hong Kong staying afloat has anything to do with Hong Kong's own industry (at least not since the last wave of Shanghai émigré-bootstrapped textile industries in the 60s) or policies.

The thing is, it's not relevant to the discussion, either yours or anyone elses, because we're discussing issues, not investigating people or putting them on trial.

A point is a point, no matter who made it. It's up to you if you wish of course, to refute it, but by using argumentative devices, evidence, studies, or explaining how you arrived at your point of view only. Not via character assassination.

As an aside, I feel these accusations merely make some people shut up on here. I've actually loved this thread in general mostly because people have come out of the woodwork and explained why they think this or that, and there have been some really inquisitive questions.

And further, frankly:

If you're going to accuse us of something so awful, you should supply links to cases where you think we did this.

No, I don't think I will because believe it or not (which you probably wont, but again: don't much care), you and I have interacted on this very topic before via a different account, you and other individuals have interacted on this topic before. I've watched those interactions happen.

This isn't the first time HN has been called out on this Dan, and it's not the first time you've responded to people levying them, so I'm not entirely convinced you need help finding such examples.

If you want "cases", I'm pretty sure you know the correct hashtag on twitter to go looking for because I and many others catalogue these events quite actively and quite publicly.

But I'm not holding your hand finding them.

Be well.

Edit:

I'd be remiss not mentioning this: Just because I'm calling out the HN moderation tactics does not mean I'm laying down accusations on the HN moderators as individuals or what your individual beliefs on this topic are. I-like the two commenters above me have done-am pointing out what I feel to be a glaring blind spot in the moderation styles as experienced by a member of a specific social group. A group I would also feel remiss not mentioning is not represented in the moderation ranks. Take this however you will, feel about it however you want, consider my peace on the matter spoken.