[duguxu]

Just some personal observations, maybe relevant to recent misinformation topics, or maybe not.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. are all blocked in mainland China. Many people, especially those young and well-educated, use VPN to access them, have an account and follow world news and foreign celebrities sometimes.

There are popular and feature-rich counterparts in mainland, and most people prefer to have their daily sharing and discussion (including domestic politics) there instead of on social media based in US. Therefore most of the time, their accounts on Facebook or Twitter are mainly for reading rather than sharing and posting.

However, they might comment (register a new account if needed) on topics conveying a message related to China they strongly disagree (you could argue they are brainwashed), in a short period and coordinated way (they read repost from the same domestic website), through a few common IP addresses (the same VPN), with bad-written English (seldom practice writing before). But they are not bots and it's inappropriate to label these as the typical state-run misinformation campaign.

If you speak Chinese, you could find many discussions where ordinary people complain their accounts get blocked because of pro-China comments. e.g. https://weibo.com/1401527553/I32ryx2cu

Of course, these observations aren't necessarily contradictory with recent reports blaming China propaganda. I just want to show how some false positivity could happen, since there's some difference of the behaviour of China's users. Maybe a better algorithm is needed to distinguish them from government-backed activities.

[LorenPechtel]

Another factor here--China pushes a lot of propaganda domestically. Some of these tweets might be mindless repetition of the propaganda.

On the other hand, how many of those "ordinary people" are really part of the operation and simply complaining to create doubt?

[vkou]

Some? Given how much blatant propaganda I see in my Facebook feed, from very clearly real people, who very clearly believe the garbage they spew, I would say that the correct answer is most.

There's no shortage of people who will happily repeat the most inane, counterfactual political rhetoric. Don't assume they are paid shills, bots, or foreign spies.

[jacquesm]

'Useful idiots'.

[dmurray]

> Another factor here--China pushes a lot of propaganda domestically. Some of these tweets might be mindless repetition of the propaganda.

Sure, but some version of this goes for every country on every form of social media, with a little freedom over the "some" and the "might".

[duguxu]

I couldn't give concrete evidence to support nor oppose your arguments since I'm not a sociologist by any means. For any reasoning I could think up, or just observation I have to say, you might always find much more "another factors". How I wish you could speak a little Chinese so that you can investigate each pro-China account with social engineering and provide more proof on your conjecture.

However, I would like to translate a comment from that Weibo link (feel free to call it propaganda):

多个英文媒体对这次封号问题的报道反映出了西方社会及媒体对中国近几年来民意变化状态不了解的事实，也反映出了他们对中国民间广泛接受反分裂和支持政府价值观这一现象的不理解。依据他们的理论，共产主义国家的平民必然是反共的，当事实与他们深信不疑的理论相左时，他们选择发明事实来修正理论。

The coverage of this blocking issue by several English-language media reflects the fact that Western society and the media do not understand China's public opinion changes in recent years, and it also reflects their failure to understand the widespread acceptance of anti-secession and support for government values. According to their theory, the civilians in the communist countries must be anti-communist. When the facts are contrary to their belief in the theory, they choose to invent the facts to correct the theory.

And another comment:

we know them well, they know nothing about us.

But all in all, I can't make 100% sure they are not bots/brainwashed/part of the operation/mindless repetition... Any help to know the truth better instead of just speculations would be appreciated.

[paggle]

Well it’s quite in fashion these days to call any person you disagree with a “bot.” Even though my Twitter account is very old I’ve been accused of being a “Russian bot” nearly every time I post something that diverges from the political “Standard Model.” I suppose it’s easier to manage life if you think that everyone real agrees with you and everyone who disagrees with you is a Perl script running in Vladivostok.

[cr0sh]

It might actually be a derisive term, like calling someone an NPC for similar reason; ie - a way of dehumanizing the other.

On the other hand, I know of one "user" on The Hill, that is a known Russian troll farm of some sort (not necessarily based in Russia entirely); I've caught it talking with itself in Russian, I've also seen it posting - simultaneously - both liberal and conservative talking points in different threads at the same moment in time. Tone, spelling, and grammar are also different - especially at different times of the day. It also goes offline every now and again. Others on the forums over there have noticed that same thing.

I've carried on multiple "conversation" threads with it, and it can be both intriguing, knowledgable, and ignorant depending on when you "catch" it (ie - whomever is typing on the other end).

I've made multiple attempts to figure it out - talking with it, at it, etc - and it has never disclaimed that it is a collective or not based in Russia. I am not sure what or who it is - some suspect some arm of the IRA, but it could be anything.

I don't call it a bot, because there are real humans behind it. I am not actually sure they are all Russian, because it's english is quite good at times, though I have seen hints of both British and American spellings, idioms, knowledge, etc. I suspect it's some kind of global operation, probably with paid actors of some sort.

I've only rarely have seen anything online in such forums or elsewhere that looks and acts like an actual "bot".

[koonsolo]

About the "brainwashing", how do most Chinese people look at their government? What about the people of the autonomous regions?

From what I know about the soviet satellite states, most people hated the soviets, but none would be stupid enough to say it in public. I wonder how much is the same in China.

[echevil]

Not the same at all. Most Chinese immigrated outside China in the past two decades or so have pro-China opinions and are becoming more pro-China as they live abroad. Younger generations born after 90s living in China also have more pro-China viewpoints. You'd still hear them critisize the government a lot but what they care about is dramatically different from people in western world. In issues like Hong Kong, it's quite rare to see any mainland Chinese supporting rioters in HK, no matter where they live.

[koonsolo]

Thanks for your reply, but I have a followup question.

> In issues like Hong Kong, it's quite rare to see any mainland Chinese supporting rioters in HK, no matter where they live.

It's clear that Taiwan supports the HK protesters, so I'm wondering what the other regions are really thinking, like Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, etc. Not what they are publicly saying, but what they are thinking privately. To be clear, I have no idea, that's why I'm asking.

[duguxu]

In the comments of the link in my original posts, besides condemning western hypocrisy, there are also a lot of people criticizing the firewall and information control. People express different opinions. I think it's hard to describe how they look in a few words.

[Retric]

It’s a biased sample, but most Chinese people I have had such conversations with deeply fear and hate their government. However, there is some really weird cultural interactions from a western perspective.

What’s generally overlooked is how much stability is lost in such a repressive environment. Being the 1,000th person to riot is dangerous, being the 100 millionth is not. So, things can rapidly switch from everything seeming to be ok to total chaos almost overnight.

[perlwle]

I know that the propaganda department requires it's employees to register accounts on Chinese social apps and actively ask them to post messages to flood the different opinions on hot issues.

It's not news to Chinese as we call them 5毛 (50 cents)