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Information operations directed at Hong Kong

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1116 points whatok | 1 comments | 19 Aug 19 18:11 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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ryanchankh ◴[19 Aug 19 19:05 UTC] No.20740736[source]▶
HongKonger here. I have some friends in China posting similar anti-protest posts on WeChat social media. It's like the news they read has a completely different story than what it's being told in legitimate new sources. The problem of fake news does become very apparent, and I hope people in China can eventually gain awareness or at least start to question the validity of their news sources.
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ospider ◴[20 Aug 19 00:34 UTC] No.20742925[source]▶
Native Chinese here. Hacker news have been a great place to learn new things to me for 5 years. But the political views on Hacker news are somewhat naive to me. It seems that the Chinese Government is always evil and wrong, but why haven't the government collapsed after so many years if there were no people supporting them?

People in China, at least those millions people who are able to cross the Great Firewall, know that democracy is generally good, but they also know that a strong central government can also be useful for certain circumstances. Most westerners and HongKongers on Hacker news have a very extreme political view, you just believe "democracy is good"(TM), protesting against the evil Chinese government is good. But can you take a closer look at what is really happening in HK and then decide what you believe?

BTW, I'm neither pro-protester nor pro-police, I think the protest is a result of economic regression in HK. You could also check my comment and posting history to see that I'm not a 五毛党.

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adammenges ◴[20 Aug 19 00:47 UTC] No.20742982[source]▶
This doesn’t make sense. The slaving government in ancient Egypt was supported for a long time. Just because a form of government exists doesn’t mean it isn’t abusive to some of it’s people or to other countries.
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Leary ◴[20 Aug 19 01:01 UTC] No.20743030[source]▶
Just because a government is abusive to some of its people doesn't mean it has no value. Just look at the US
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egdod ◴[20 Aug 19 03:00 UTC] No.20743488[source]▶
The US government isn't abusive to its people though.
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girvo ◴[20 Aug 19 03:10 UTC] No.20743533[source]▶
You can make a decent argument that it has been, and definitely is sometimes, for certain definitions of "government" and subsections of people.

Whataboutism is lazy though, and I do find it telling that the go-to argument a lot of pro-China commenters across platforms use is exactly that...

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egdod ◴[20 Aug 19 03:21 UTC] No.20743566{3}[source]▶
When slavery was legal, sure. But in the last, say, 50 years (e.g., since the 64 Civil Rights Act)? I don't see it.

Also, I'm not aware of multiple definitions for the US government.

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mycall ◴[20 Aug 19 04:22 UTC] No.20743814{4}[source]▶
https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/private-government-how-employers-ru...

While private government isn't US government, they are very much interlaced, pair-evolving and authoritarian being governments.

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1. egdod ◴[20 Aug 19 05:56 UTC] No.20744184{5}[source]▶
That’s an interesting theory. But you’re right—it isn’t the US government, so it’s not really germane.