[yorwba]

> if you ask the people who write these posts if they are doing propaganda, there's a good chance that their initial genuine response will be to say no.

Actually, they'll probably say yes. Most Chinese do not think of propaganda as something negative. Every student club at my university has an unironically named "propaganda department" that manages their social media. "Propaganda" just never underwent the value shift that happened in other countries, so although there's a translation of "PR" almost nobody uses the word.