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by TedDoesntTalk 2168 days ago
> we judge ourselves by our intentions

People also judge others by past behaviors.

Wrong or right, many Americans see China as an enemy. News is filtered through that light. And some news, like convictions about IP theft by Chinese (Xu at IBM, 3 individuals at Sinovel, etc, etc, etc), leave little room for debate. These stories color the ones which may or may not be nefarious like TikTok. Guilt by association.

2 comments

> People also judge others by past behaviors.

But they are very selective in doing that. Even when the same actions are done in the same context they will use different measures for different people based on their sentiment toward them. And that just adds to the bias and fuels the cycle. As explained by this simple but accurate picture [0]. They see China and and their hackers as enemies. Do you think they see the NSA and by extension their own country as an enemy? Discarding (unwittingly) half of the context makes it a lot easier to assume they have the moral high ground.

Propaganda doesn't mean it's a lie, just that you take the same truth and shape it into an opinion for the people, depending on what you want to achieve. And it's a tool used by every superpower.

[0] https://i.redd.it/nn3k727v08g01.jpg

also Huawei's Cisco theft is a well known case. so there is precedence already