'All the forces' - China's global social media push over Hong Kong protests

[snoop1130]

'All the forces' - China's global social media push over Hong Kong protests

By Brenda Goh

 

FILE PHOTO: The flag of China raised at the founding ceremony of People's Republic of China in 1949 is seen displayed at an exhibition to mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment, at the National Museum of China in Beijing, China August 22, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo

 

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Wang Ying has for the last four years identified herself as a diehard fan of Chinese boy band star Lay Zhang. Recently, the 17-year-old also started describing herself as a patriot who supports China’s stance on Hong Kong.

 

The high school student from Shanghai is among the Chinese citizens who in recent weeks have flocked to Western social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter to criticise demonstrators in the former British colony.

 

She is part of a growing offensive emerging from China in recent days aimed at promoting Beijing’s narrative about what is happening in Hong Kong to an overseas audience. State media outlets, Chinese celebrities and regular internet users have all banded together behind the effort.

 

While little news or video footage of the Hong Kong protests made its way into mainland China in the early weeks, the subject now dominates the news and most-read topic lists on China’s Twitter-like Weibo, with calls for Chinese citizens to take action to “protect Hong Kong”.

 

China’s government-owned media outlets have flooded Internet platforms both inside and outside the country with stories and images portraying the Hong Kong protests as the work of “terrorists” manipulated by Western powers and “radical forces”.

 

They have paid to promote their coverage of Hong Kong on sites including Twitter and Facebook, which are banned on the mainland. The companies said Tuesday that the Chinese government has also mounted a propaganda campaign using fake accounts, thousands of which were taken down in recent days.

 

The efforts have unleashed an unusual dynamic in which mainland citizens who are normally subject to strict controls on their online behaviour have been using virtual private networks to bypass the “Great Firewall” and spread anti-protest messages internationally, as well as on Chinese social media sites.

 

“It’s only really the hypernationalists that are given free rein, their content isn’t censored,” said Fergus Ryan, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) who studies Chinese social media. “They’re allowed to conduct campaigns, they’re able to organise online ... so that happens in China within the Great Firewall, and then we see also it spill out into the wider Internet,” he said.

 

But analysts say it’s unclear who Beijing is targeting with the campaign, or what the impact has been.

 

Lee Foster, an intelligence analyst at U.S. cybersecurity firm FireEye, said the fake account campaigns on Twitter and Facebook were “relatively unsophisticated”. “(It’s) not too dissimilar we’ve seen from Russia about 4-5 years ago in terms of very simplistic personas and the use of identical messaging across accounts,” he said.

 

King-wa Fu, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Centre, said he suspected the impact within Hong Kong was minimal.

 

“The majority of Hong Kong consume local media content,” he said.

 

‘FAN GIRLS’ AND CELEBRITIES The Hong Kong demonstrations began almost three months ago as a protest against a new extradition law and have since snowballed into a broader movement to defend the city-state’s civil liberties in the face of what is perceived to be tightening mainland control.

 

Wang said she and her group of online peers, also known as ‘fan girls’ or ‘fanquan girls’, began to campaign against the protests after her idol Zhang, a member of South Korean boy band Exo, joined other Chinese celebrities last week to say that he backed the Hong Kong police and Beijing’s territorial sovereignty.

 

“Since our big brother loves our country so much, we fans have to support him,” she told Reuters. “So I went on Instagram to post messages such as ‘Hong Kong is part of China,’ ‘Reject violence,’ and ‘Hong Kong police are the best!’”

 

They were joined by other internet denizens such as those on ‘Di Bar,’ a discussion forum that is part of search engine giant Baidu’s platform, where calls went out to the group’s 31.3 million members asking them to flood overseas social media platforms with similar slogans and posts. The internet movements were endorsed by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Sunday on its nightly news programme, one of China’s most-watched shows.

 

“These days, from fanquan girls to Di Bar, netizens to overseas students, all the forces which love Hong Kong and Chinahave united to support and safeguard the city,’ said newscaster Gang Qiang. State television’s English-language channel CGTN, the official Xinhua news agency and the Communist Party’s People’s Daily have all taken to Twitter and Facebook with gusto, denouncing the protesters and putting out Beijing’s voice. “What must be hidden and has to flee is not good, but evil,” CGTN said in a tweet on Wednesday that was accompanied by a video of masked protesters with captions saying they wanted to hide their identities to avoid retribution. Xinhua and CGTN paid to promote their Hong Kong coverage, according to Twitter’s Ads Transparency Center. Neither outlet responded to requests for comment. Twitter told Reuters on Monday it would no longer accept advertising from state-controlled news media. China denounced the moves by Twitter and Facebook on Tuesday, saying it had a right to put out its own views. China’s foreign ministry on Tuesday also sent a letter accompanied by a 42-page document to foreign media outlets including Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal outlining Beijing’s stance on the events in Hong Kong. The documents included a timeline of how the protests began, saying that Hong Kong’s opposition and some “radical forces” had used the pretext of peaceful demonstration to engage in violent protests, as well as articles which it said pointed to links between “foreign forces” and protesters.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-08-22

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[trainman34014]

A 17 year old Girl who has probably lived in the Chinese system all her life knows diddly <deleted> about the Free World; perfect fodder for the hard line Chinese Nationalists !

[tonbridgebrit]

12 hours ago, trainman34014 said:

A 17 year old Girl who has probably lived in the Chinese system all her life knows diddly <deleted> about the Free World; perfect fodder for the hard line Chinese Nationalists !

So, youngsters in China know nothing about the Free World ?

I think that we should accept that people all over the world know almost nothing about the world outside of their own country. Lots of people in Britain are stunned when they realise the lack of knowledge most Americans have of the world outside of the USA.

Expats living in Thailand also feel that most Thais know little of the world outside of Thailand.

As for Britain, most of the newspapers are actually supporting Brexit, that's probably the main reason as to why lots of people are backing Brexit. Fodder for the guys who are the power behind Brexit ?


And using the term "Chinese Nationalists" ?  ????
A word that will cause confusion. The Chinese Nationalists were a bunch of Chinese led by Chiang Kai-Shek, they fought against Mao Zedong and the Communists. They lost the civil war in mainland China and fled to the island of Taiwan. Maybe it's better to use the label "Chinese Communists" instead of "Nationalists" when describing mainland China.   ????

[nobodysfriend]

If China seriously tries to influence the international opinion of it's actions by using social media platforms to promote their politics , it will face some heavy criticism and might turn out different than they think ... a shot in their own foot .

[tonbridgebrit]

15 minutes ago, nobodysfriend said:

If China seriously tries to influence the international opinion of it's actions by using social media platforms to promote their politics , it will face some heavy criticism and might turn out different than they think ... a shot in their own foot .

It's not actually the Beijing government that is using social media to promote it's politics. It's individual Chinese people in China who are expressing their opinions on social media. Are they shooting themselves in the foot ?

What about Americans who express their support for Donald Trump, on social media ? Are they an embarrassment ? Do they harm America's image outside of America ? Do they cause people across planet earth to shake their heads in frustration ? Is America shooting itself in the foot when these people open their mouths ?

What about Britain ? When British people show their anti-Muslim and pro-Brexit views on social media, are they harming Britain's image ? Blasting the EU on social media, when Britain needs a Brexit deal, how on earth does that look ?

I think we should accept, that when people say what they want to say, there's always going to be others who get annoyed.

[Boon Mee]

The ChiComs have jumped the shark with their heavy-handedness re HK and will pay a price. 

[Salerno]

There's at least couple on here.

[Dellboy218]

2 hours ago, tonbridgebrit said:

As for Britain, most of the newspapers are actually supporting Brexit, that's probably the main reason as to why lots of people are backing Brexit. Fodder for the guys who are the power behind Brexit ?

Utter Rubbish

[zydeco]

2 hours ago, tonbridgebrit said:

So, youngsters in China know nothing about the Free World ?

I think that we should accept that people all over the world know almost nothing about the world outside of their own country. Lots of people in Britain are stunned when they realise the lack of knowledge most Americans have of the world outside of the USA.

Expats living in Thailand also feel that most Thais know little of the world outside of Thailand.

As for Britain, most of the newspapers are actually supporting Brexit, that's probably the main reason as to why lots of people are backing Brexit. Fodder for the guys who are the power behind Brexit ?


And using the term "Chinese Nationalists" ?  ????
A word that will cause confusion. The Chinese Nationalists were a bunch of Chinese led by Chiang Kai-Shek, they fought against Mao Zedong and the Communists. They lost the civil war in mainland China and fled to the island of Taiwan. Maybe it's better to use the label "Chinese Communists" instead of "Nationalists" when describing mainland China.   ????

Exhibit A.

[zydeco]

31 minutes ago, Salerno said:

There's at least couple on here.

One of them has already checked in. I suspect Mr. T will be along shortly.

[rabas]

1 hour ago, Salerno said:

There's at least couple on here.

 

 

don't let them know it's  obvious, just like Chinese citizens know what the government is up do.

 

[jany123]

4 hours ago, tonbridgebrit said:

I think that we should accept that people all over the world know almost nothing about the world outside of their own country. Lots of people in Britain are stunned when they realise the lack of knowledge most Americans have of the world outside of the USA.

I believe your right. We are the product of what we’re told, which is a reason why repeating a lie often enough, turns it into an accepted fact, as is being tried by the twit twit twittering of the trump

 

The first time I travelled around the US, I was amazed at the lack of knowledge displayed by Americans.... “Austria, where’s that? It’s a part of New Zealand, isn’t it”

 

anyway... after ten years away from Australia, I was back there last year.... and found myself to be absolutely amazed by the lack of knowledge displayed by Australians, to world affairs. (And a lack of give-a-damn)

[car720]

20 minutes ago, jany123 said:

I believe your right. We are the product of what we’re told, which is a reason why repeating a lie often enough, turns it into an accepted fact, as is being tried by the twit twit twittering of the trump

 

The first time I travelled around the US, I was amazed at the lack of knowledge displayed by Americans.... “Austria, where’s that? It’s a part of New Zealand, isn’t it”

 

anyway... after ten years away from Australia, I was back there last year.... and found myself to be absolutely amazed by the lack of knowledge displayed by Australians, to world affairs. (And a lack of give-a-damn)

She'll be right mate.  

[wwest5829]

17 hours ago, trainman34014 said:

A 17 year old Girl who has probably lived in the Chinese system all her life knows diddly <deleted> about the Free World; perfect fodder for the hard line Chinese Nationalists !

True enough but I also reflect on a typical 17 year old here in Thailand, in the U.S., Australia, if not traveled in Europe. There world is very limited. The PRC set the conflict up by trying to increase control, thinking a slow turning of the screws would bring Hong Kong “in line” closer to the Party control. Oops ... not ready. What is the purported Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times”? Hong Kong, Taiwan big issue as long as those who have experienced any semblance of participatory democracy are living.

[Roadman]

What she said she posted on Instagram being Hong Kong is part of China is correct. The comment of Hong Kong police are great one could debate but given the morons rioting I would accept that the police were very restrained so I will give her that one. The other I totally agree with her being reject violence. And that is where the Hong Kong rioting morons got it wrong. There is a huge difference between protesting which last weekend a couple of millions did peacefully and being worthy of world support and what was going on prior to that with the morons in the airport, throwing petrol bombs, dishing out violence etc, and to which clowns on message boards were in support of. So I agree with her on that too. So her Chinese support seems to be warranted when thugs and idiots are loose on the streets of Hong Kong. 

[candide]

5 hours ago, tonbridgebrit said:

It's not actually the Beijing government that is using social media to promote it's politics. It's individual Chinese people in China who are expressing their opinions on social media. Are they shooting themselves in the foot ?

What about Americans who express their support for Donald Trump, on social media ? Are they an embarrassment ? Do they harm America's image outside of America ? Do they cause people across planet earth to shake their heads in frustration ? Is America shooting itself in the foot when these people open their mouths ?

What about Britain ? When British people show their anti-Muslim and pro-Brexit views on social media, are they harming Britain's image ? Blasting the EU on social media, when Britain needs a Brexit deal, how on earth does that look ?

I think we should accept, that when people say what they want to say, there's always going to be others who get annoyed.

Obviously, you have no idea of how it is in China. The older generations knew they could not trust the party. The new generations did not experiencethe hardships caused by the old communist regimes. 

They are brainwashed from the start and are enrolled in youth organisations from elementary school. In every school or university there is a CP organisation in charge of all non teaching activities such as sports, leisure, culture, art, etc... All information from traditional or social media is censored. 

[zydeco]

Chinese threatening Cathay Pacific employees and their children.

 

Quote

What has scared employees most is a Telegram channel with almost 13,000 members that claims it is collecting information on protesters to pass along to China’s Ministry of State Security, according to the group’s description. Set up in July, the group has since changed its focus from protesters in general to specifically tracking airline and aviation staff, posting photos of them in their uniforms alongside social media posts in which they express support for the movement. One post reads, “Stupid flight attendant of Cathay,” followed by her full name, which The Post has withheld for her privacy, and pictures of her with her young child. “She has even sent her little kid to the protest!” Staff members are “very, very panicked because of this” Telegram channel, said one Cathay ground worker. “I’m 42 years old and I’m just panicked like a teenager.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/paranoia-and-panic-at-cathay-pacific-chinas-threats-loom-over-one-of-asias-leading-airlines/2019/08/21/fba1d324-c3f2-11e9-8bf7-cde2d9e09055_story.html

[Morch]

10 hours ago, tonbridgebrit said:

So, youngsters in China know nothing about the Free World ?

I think that we should accept that people all over the world know almost nothing about the world outside of their own country. Lots of people in Britain are stunned when they realise the lack of knowledge most Americans have of the world outside of the USA.

Expats living in Thailand also feel that most Thais know little of the world outside of Thailand.

As for Britain, most of the newspapers are actually supporting Brexit, that's probably the main reason as to why lots of people are backing Brexit. Fodder for the guys who are the power behind Brexit ?


And using the term "Chinese Nationalists" ?  ????
A word that will cause confusion. The Chinese Nationalists were a bunch of Chinese led by Chiang Kai-Shek, they fought against Mao Zedong and the Communists. They lost the civil war in mainland China and fled to the island of Taiwan. Maybe it's better to use the label "Chinese Communists" instead of "Nationalists" when describing mainland China.   ????

 

9 hours ago, tonbridgebrit said:

It's not actually the Beijing government that is using social media to promote it's politics. It's individual Chinese people in China who are expressing their opinions on social media. Are they shooting themselves in the foot ?

What about Americans who express their support for Donald Trump, on social media ? Are they an embarrassment ? Do they harm America's image outside of America ? Do they cause people across planet earth to shake their heads in frustration ? Is America shooting itself in the foot when these people open their mouths ?

What about Britain ? When British people show their anti-Muslim and pro-Brexit views on social media, are they harming Britain's image ? Blasting the EU on social media, when Britain needs a Brexit deal, how on earth does that look ?

I think we should accept, that when people say what they want to say, there's always going to be others who get annoyed.

 

The irony of you posting on this topic....

 

People living in them other countries you mentioned aren't subject to media access issues. Same goes for restrictions on expressing their views or communicating freely with foreigners. That you try to paint things as same-same is obviously misleading. And, of course, the topic isn't even about other countries - that's just a standard issue whataboutist deflection.

 

The Brexit comment is rubbish. Plain and simple.

 

If you want to deny the existence of Chinese nationalism (as in mainland China) you either go ahead and edit a post on a parallel topic in which you air views amounting to Chinese nationalistic sentiment being strong, or put yourself in one of them groups of know-nothing foreigners you attempted to described earlier. The Taiwan deflection is pathetic.

  

Not actually the "Beijing government", says pro-Chinese poster. Guess you managed to skip this part of the OP:

 

"They have paid to promote their coverage of Hong Kong on sites including Twitter and Facebook, which are banned on the mainland. The companies said Tuesday that the Chinese government has also mounted a propaganda campaign using fake accounts, thousands of which were taken down in recent days."

 

Tweeter's original message and related data on said accounts appears on another recent related topic.

 

While it's cute that you try to paint this as some democratic thing - China's authorities limit expression of views, and access to international social media venues. Not aware that the Chinese government is a big fan of letting people saying what they want to say - if it doesn't fit certain narratives.