[FooBarWidget]

What does rigorous research from renowned institutions such as Harvard have to do with "little pinkies" a.k.a. nationalistic Chinese Internet users? Are you saying that their research methodology does not sufficiently account for bias? If so, can you point out which part of the methodology is flawed and why?

[catlikesshrimp]

First, Harvard is a very renowed institution, as you say. That has to do with the people who goes and has gone there, as it should. There are no absolute guarantees about quality or morality. We asume the quality is good because it often is, but no guarantee. Zuckerberg studied at Harvard, and started Facebook while at it. Draw your own conclusions.

Second, the authors in your Harvard article are * Tinguang Meng * Jennifer Pan * Ping Yang

Jennifer Pan has Chinese backgrouds, as Tinguang and Ping do. I won't say the article is fake, I only hoovered over it, but I will put it in the same shelf where I keep RTNews (russian television) articles.

Edit: When I see a Harvard backed piece, the same as a Lancet piece, I don't give it a free pass. I read it because I know it is influential because of the name. We still have to go indeep, whenever possible.

[FooBarWidget]

But research is still research. It is still backed by data even if the data or methodology may be flawed. Where is your evidence that my claims are not true? As far as I can tell, your statement is complete speculation. Why does that deserve more priority?

You view the paper with suspicion because of Chinese names. Don't people usually tend to say "I support the Chinese people and I'm only against the CCP"? And yet Chinese people who live outside the mainland are suspect by default, without any evidence? Heck, whatever happend to "guilty until innocent"? I find your attitude to be highly problematic.

Furthermore, there is additional research which shows that:

1. The Chinese government doesn't force people to have positive opinions about the Chinese government. "How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression" https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/how-censorship-china-... Pro- and anti-government messages are equally censored, based solely on the criteria of whether messages have collective action potential. Anti-government messages that lack collective action potential are not censored.

2. The Chinese government has no hidden astroturfing agents. "How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, not Engaged Argument" — https://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/50c.pdf They have agents, but these are government employees, and they post messages to distract to a different topic as opposed to defending a position in the same topic.

These two researches' authors only have western names.

The way I see it is that you have a prejudice. You stick to your beliefs even in the absence of evidence.