Information operations directed at Hong Kong

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

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.

I saw the comment you are referring to and it was most likely wrong. The majority of Chinese people are genuinely "pro-China" and there are vastly more regular Chinese people than professional sockpuppets.

That being said, I do agree with keeping politics off HN and wish it was enforced a bit more strictly.

Intentionally or not, I believe not talking about politics is politics, because not talking about something strengthens whatever the status quo - good or bad - at that time is.

I’m not advocating for constant political discussions on hacker news. But to pretend that technology can be separated from politics is to hold a false belief about reality.

Politics is fundamentally about social groups, power, and the ethical beliefs and norms of groups of people.

I believe that cultivating civility, genuine listening, and self-doubt in our hacker news community would ultimately be more constructive than pretending that our action or inaction - especially as technologists in this day and age - has no effect on our fellow human beings.