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.

There are two site guidelines that apply to this. First, it's not ok to use HN primarily for political, ideological, or national battle. If a commenter is posting as you describe, we ask them to stop. Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20727426.

But by no means does it follow that a commenter behaving that way must be a sockpuppet, astroturfer, shill, spy, foreign agent, etc. That's where the second guideline comes in: the one that asks users not to insinuate these things in HN threads, but rather to email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can look for actual evidence. Accusing others without evidence is a serious breach of the rules, and a personal attack. When people do that, we ask them to stop as well. Example, from the same thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20727420.

Does that mean that abuse doesn't exist, or that we don't take it seriously? No—it does and we do. But the way we take it seriously is by looking for evidence. So far, such evidence as we've found on HN nearly always indicates that the commenter is legit—they just hold a view that some other commenters find so wrong that they can't believe it's sincere. (Corporate astroturfing is a different can of worms, btw, and I'm not talking about that here.)

Here's the most remarkable case we've seen of a mass influx of new accounts angrily defending "pro-China" views: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20236444. Most users who are inclined to perceive astroturfing would have declared this an obvious case of manipulation. The only reason we didn't get an inundation of such accusations is that the wave of new accounts only showed up a day or two later, after most readers had stopped looking at the thread. But even this case, when we followed up on the evidence, turned out to be something quite different. I emailed every one of those commenters who had left an email address in their profile, and many responded. It turned out that the study under discussion had gone viral in China, someone had posted a link to the HN thread to the Chinese Quora-equivalent, and the new accounts were people who had found their way to HN from there and created accounts to speak their minds. I also posted in the thread asking the new accounts to explain how they'd come to HN, and several replied with the same story. Does that prove they weren't communist agents? No, nothing would prove that. But the null hypothesis—that people hold their views sincerely—was amply supported by the evidence. This was an extreme case, but over and over, the story we see is like that. Ornate machinations add zero explanatory power, but invoking them poisons the community; therefore we ask users not to invoke them.

Most people hold the views that they do because of their background. HN is a large, international community, orders of magnitude larger than your or my circle of acquaintances. What are the odds that in a group this large, quite a few people will have different backgrounds than you or I, and thus hold different views? The odds are basically 1. That means you're going to hear some "pro-China" views here, because there are users whose background connects them to China—by birthplace, family, education, work history, you name it—in ways that HN's Western audience mostly doesn't share.

Because this is happening, we have to decide what kind of community HN should be. Should we ban accounts, or allow them to be persecuted, for "pro-X" views where X is outside, say, a standard deviation of what most people here take for granted? Or do we want to be a pluralistic community that is strong enough to hold space for such views, and such people, even when most of us disagree? It's unclear which way HN is going to go about this—sctb and I can't control HN, only try to persuade—but I know that I'm only interested in participating in the latter. The other way leads to a community in which it's ok to smear others (such as a nation or ethnicity) and have mob attacks on innocent individuals: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19403358 for one example that turned out ok; unfortunately there have been others which didn't, and users have been run out of town. I don't believe anyone here wants those things, but the tragedy of the commons will take us there if we don't all consciously resist it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Your principles seem to be summed up as: so long as someone is speaking their opinion respectfully and in good faith, it matters not what that opinion is; and that the defense of this necessitates a generous presumption of good faith.

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.

"In the case of Hong Kong, the ideals at risk here are the right to self-governance."

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.

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? 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?

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.

There is a lot of virtue-signaling going on here, but understanding the state of today's USA education systems, I'll try to parse it.

> 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.