[petcat]

> outrage in the news if the Chinese government had been the first to pull this kind of stunt.

I suspect that the Chinese government "pulls this kind of stunt" often but just nobody ever hears about it because their society is not free to complain about such a thing publicly.

[derektank]

You also have government apparatchiks influencing almost every corporate board, not just the state owned enterprises. Every private company that employs at least 3 CCP members is required by law to form a party committee within the company to represent party interests. In smaller companies, they will often simply coordinate with local governments on securing permits, etc, but I’m sure national party leadership communicates directly with the committees at the AI labs.

[alephnerd]

> I’m sure national party leadership communicates directly with the committees at the AI labs

They do now.

Top AI researchers in China are barred from getting an exit visa [0] (the PRC has done this for other employees as well such as Foxconn China employees who were working on shifting Apple supply chains to India [1]), and "AI Safety" from a national security perspective has been codified as party policy now [2].

The leading Chinese AI labs are also shifing away from open-source AI for commercial reasons, as can be seen with the org changes at Alibaba with the axing of the Qwen team [3][4].

That said, these are called out but it's all in Putonghua and no one on HN actively reads or follows what happens within China. I've noticed most HNers now source information from Reddit which has been dealing with DRAGONBRIDGE deluge for a couple years now, and I've noticed similar tactics being applied on HN as well.

In all honesty, I've found HN's noise to signal ratio to have tanked severely since 2022. Silver lining is that less people that matter are using it as much, so the IW impact is limited.

[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-26/china-exp...

[1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-17/china-mov...

[2] - http://theory.people.com.cn/n1/2026/0616/c40531-40741238.htm...

[3] - https://m.guancha.cn/economy/2026_06_12_820253.shtml

[4] - https://www.ft.com/content/b39da303-3188-447b-8b65-3dd8dad8b...

[rnewme]

Any recommendations / alternatives for higher signal to noise ratio?

[alephnerd]

Everything is offline now. Public boards like HN are from a bygone era of the Internet.

[rnewme]

Offline where though?

[alephnerd]

SF, NYC, Austin, Seattle, Boston, DC, Beijing, Bangalore, London, Hyderabad, Tel Aviv, Singapore, and other major tech and finance hubs.

[throawayonthe]

> their society is not free to complain about such a thing publicly

wuh?

[petcat]

wuh? what? The Chinese government tightly controls every aspect of their technology industry and all public discourse around it.

[jchw]

It seems our government still has a lot to learn.

[AlexCoventry]

At this point, it has a lot to re-learn, as the Trump administration has been systematically lobotomizing it for 18 months.

[Henchman21]

Ah so you can see the future of discourse in the US

[signatoremo]

Democracy cannot be taken for granted. There are always tendencies to drift toward authoritarian. China is authoritarian, full stop. They are capitalism, not communism, but authoritarian. Keep that in mind when discussing what come out of China.

[Henchman21]

We actively take it for granted in the US AND we’re actively watching it slip away. No one seems to give a shit.

[cyberax]

There's an alternative viewpoint: democracy is experiencing a revival.

The old "cathedral-style" democracy is dying. People are seeing that the "regular" politicians are just ineffective and kinda boring. The old party-based structures are stifling and prevent changes. People want more direct participation in the governance.

So people are voting for a "new wave" of candidates that promise to work around the old institutions. Right-wingers were the first to harness this, initially with the Tea Party takeover and then Trump came in and crushed the entire Republican Party into his personal fiefdom.

Mamdani is doing the same with the Democratic Party now. After the recent primary victories, he's well-poised to become the left-wing Trump.

If you want historical analogies, the situation is similar to the start of the 20-th century when the wide masses first became politically active. Literacy spread, then radio broadcasts and daily nation-wide newspapers gave people the impression that they're a part of the same entity.

It ended well, with democracy winning over authoritarianism. But the middle part contained a couple of world wars and mass genocides.

[watwut]

Right wingers dont repreaemt democracy. They are openly and actively trying to change it to authoritariam dictatorship.

Mamdani is NOT doing the same nor like Trump. For all the scaremongering, he is pragmatic politic with policies full of compromises.

There ia no symmetry between what those parties do.

[nozzlegear]

A populist wave electing a shitbird in response to a global economic downturn does not mean democracy is being taken for granted or that no one gives a shit. It's only been a year and a half, we haven't even had the chance to rebuke him in the midterms yet.