Why so many Chinese students can't understand the Hong Kong protests - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-20/hong-kong-chinese-students-propaganda <comment><USER2> I think a lot of people who were born in the west don't understand that, when you're very poor, economic circumstances matter more than political freedom. After all, having money (or not) affects what you can or cannot do far more than whoever's in charge.

Chinese people today have lived through an economic miracle. If I lived there I doubt I'd criticize their system, especially considering people still can remember worse times. For young Hong Kongers however, they didn't live during British rule. They were born into wealth, and now their own career prospects (like many millenials around the world) aren't great. So they protest.

The unfortunate thing is that they'll fail. The finance industry is already planning to exit HK (too volatile), and China can kill the rest of their economy. Rich HKers will leave. In the end, the protests will only hurt HK.

Occupy Wall Street didn't do anything, successive Ukrainian revolutions never lasted either. Ukraine is often cited: after the Orange Revolution, Yanukovych eventually came back to power. Poroshenko had his time, but lost in the biggest landslide in Ukraine's short history. Now Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe, they're not in the EU, they're not in Nato, they lost Crimea, Donbass is at war, and while Zelensky can't possibly be any worse, there's no clear sign things will get better.

<comment><USER3> _> when you're very poor, economic circumstances matter more than political freedom_

It's more than that.

Back in the 70s, Westerners could very easily make the case that the USSR was corrupt, inefficient, hopelessly backwards and fundamentally organised in the interests of the state rather than the people. The evidence was abundant, even to Soviet citizens; any possible defence of the Soviet system was predicated on blind ideological faith or a tapestry of lies.

Contemporary China is a long way from perfect, but a Chinese citizen could quite legitimately make the case that their system is superior to Western democracy on a pragmatic level. There are _hundreds of millions_ of Chinese people who grew up in squalid shacks with no running water but now have a lifestyle that is recognisably middle class. They're on the tail end of the longest and fastest period of economic growth in human history and they're still growing - we can quibble about the percentages, but their GDP growth figures are still spectacular. While many Westerners are struggling with homelessness due to a chronic shortage of housing, Western newspapers are writing about China facing a crisis due to building _too many homes_.

We're not talking about North Korea, we're talking about a political system that can be legitimately defended. It's not whataboutery for Chinese people to point out the manifold problems facing many Western democracies right now - there are advantages to democracy, there are advantages to Communism with Chinese Characteristics and there's no prima facie case for the superiority of either that relies solely on pragmatism rather than ideology.

If Westerners want to promote democracy in China, their arguments will need to get a whole lot more sophisticated. Why is political and social liberty really so valuable? Why are the rights of the individual more fundamental than the rights of society as a whole? Why should troublemakers be allowed to destabilize society with impunity? Given the current political climate, finding better answers to those questions might also prove rather valuable domestically.

<comment><USER4> > but a Chinese citizen could quite legitimately make the case that their > system is superior to Western democracy on a pragmatic level

It is even easier to look at India, where the putative democracy the country has has not led to any kind of economic miracle for the poor.

<comment><USER5> One success/failure story does not mean much.

There are a lot of studies about how economic prosperity and democracy/liberalism went hand in hand in a lot of countries. And there are outliers, and the studies can be questioned, and so on.

China rented out its workforce and a relatively enlightened but autocratic leadership made sure it works, they make a lot of money, and that they reinvest that.

India never had such a strong leadership. They probably spent a lot of time and energy just doing what other multi-party democracies do, squibble, play the politics game, and so on.

Also, don't forget how India slowly started to get rid of the caste system and other deep rooted inequality problems, similarly grassroots efforts to curb corruption progressed through the various courts and legislatures.

China spent no time with such sentimental stuff.

<comment><USER4> > don't forget how India slowly started to get rid of the caste system and > other deep rooted inequality problems ... China spent no time with such > sentimental stuff.

You might be interested in: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution)

<comment><USER5> I was mainly referencing the decades where the huge economic boom happened, basically/circa 1975-2005.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had a similar experience chatting to my former coworker (who moved recently from China) regarding Taiwan. I said Taiwan is pretty much an independent country given it has it's own currency, military and democratic government. She looked at me like I was telling her the earth was flat. She was smart and good natured, and didn't have any opposing reasons, but she insisted Taiwan was simply another province of China.

Really made an impression on me. I bet most of my beliefs are baloney too, but I have no idea which ones they are.

<comment><USER7> I had a similar experience meeting a friend of a coworker at a social function. Someone brought up the Dalai Lama and Tibet, and she seemed completely unable or unwilling to accept that Tibet had even ever _not_ fully and totally willingly been an administrative division of China, or that China had acted in any way inappropriately.

As far as she was concerned, Tibetans were Chinese, not a distinct group.

It was eye opening.

<comment><USER8> It just says how different views different people can have. I'm pretty sure it was eye opening for her too...

I have been living in the West long enough to not argue those stuffs. The Chinese government has its bad and its good, but so far it's doing OK, and I can't imagine any other government could do better, or even on par.

<comment><USER9> So "better" entirely depends on your values, right?

Ever heard of the phrase "better to die on your feet, than live on your knees?"

Not everyone shares the ethos that a full belly is happiness and goodness. There is more to life than mere material goods. What makes a life worth living even? I guess if you have a job all is good, at least as per your line of argumentation.

<comment><USER10> Not only is there the inherent moral value of freedom, but from a purely material standpoint, if the government has the right to take away your precious job and full belly for any reason, you don't really own it at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Or how many Russians don't understand why Ukraine for example is upset.

Is as if propaganda works. Who would have thought.

Once I was discussing with a Chinese colleague and the Tiananmen subject came up (it was in the news, I didn't bring it up), and he told me that the students were not that innocent either, that they killed 150 soldiers the night before. I asked him, how could some students with rocks kill 150 soldiers with machine guns, but he said it was true. As suspected, I couldn't find any reputable sources for this later when I did extensive googling.

<comment><USER12> As a Chinese American, I've noticed that propaganda is everywhere and we _all_ need to be wary of it.

Tiananmen is often brought up, but did you know that the US experienced a parallel event? I didn't learn about this in US history class, but apparently soldiers fired upon unarmed student protesters in the Kent State shooting: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings)

<comment><USER13> The Kent State shooting is taught in almost all high school history classes. Not sure how you missed it.

It's also a totally different scale - 4 vs. a number in the hundreds to thousands.

We don't even know the numbers for sure because it's been clamped down so massively, vs. Kent State, where we know exactly what happened.

<comment><USER14> Sorry, I forgot that America is the only country in the world where a certain number of people need to die by shooting for people to care, and that number has never been attained...

<comment><USER13> You're putting words in my mouth and totally misrepresenting my point.

I never said we shouldn't care about Kent State, nor have I said that it was unimportant.

What I said is that Tiananmen was several orders of magnitude worse, and while anyone in the US can look up Kent State and other horrible occurrences in their history books, many of them found in schools, or in any other place they'd like, people in China cannot look up the Tiananmen Square massacre.

I am replying to someone claiming that the US has done the same with Kent State as China has done with Tiananmen Square and that the events were equal to begin with. So if you can show me where the US has tried to cover up the fact that Kent State happened at even 1/1000th of the effort that China has gone through to cover up Tiananmen Square, or that the loss of human life between the two is similar, this might be a productive conversation.

In the mean time, you're responding to a point I never made and words I never said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Serious question: I've got a couple of mainland Chinese acquaintances on my social networks, who are real people but also busily spouting Chinese government propaganda.

As the article says, I don't expect them to change their views overnight, but I would like to plant some seeds of doubt. Any suggestions for links to suitable content? (Ideally accessible from behind the GFW, although most can VPN outside it.) For example, the mainland Chinese government has been painting the HK protests as the work of a tiny terrorist minority, so solidly commented footage of 1M+ peaceful protesters should jar their world view a little.

<comment><USER16> Ask them to read many sources. Point out that it costs too much to manipulate many media.

Careful with asking this as you are risking their life and their family/friends: Ask them when they started hearing about the HongKong protests (China initially censored HongKong protests)? Are they aware that HongKong had been seeking democracy and/or independence for a long time even under UK rule? Have they read about Wukan Democracy experiment and Tiananmen Square (Both asked for democracy as a peaceful resolution)? If they do for either, are they aware of the list of demands from protestors (China has been trying to portray the events as destructive people and censor the demands).

All of this is on Wikipedia and many news websites. Which are censored in China for a good reason.

<comment><USER17> > independence for a long time _even_ under UK rule?

From my understanding, most protesters do not seek independence from _China_. Do you have evidence to back your sentence up?

It's a common misunderstanding in mainland and rest of the world outside of Hong Kong to assume that the (majority of) people of Hong Kong wants independence when they are protecting about a very specific extradition bill.

Disclaimer: I'm mainland Chinese.

<comment><USER16> The protestors have defaced CCP liason office with Shina, blame CCP for Carrie Lam being elected, angry about CCP kidnapping book sellers, even the protest against the bill is because it will allow CCP to extradite HongKongers to China, and more.

Unless the government changes in China, China = CCP. If CCP wasn't in power any more, a lot of protestors wouldn't mind HongKong being part of China.

The protestors know if they specifically ask for independence, they will get shot.

<comment><USER8> Some people are actually asking for independence and they were not getting shot.

That said, I guess it's equally difficult for people to imagine that Chinese government has been very, very generous to the Hong Kong people. But that's generally true from a Chinese' pov. Generous to the point that a lot of mainlanders are actively complaining on online forums.

<comment><USER18> > Some people are actually asking for independence and they were not getting > shot.

That is considered a fairly low bar by Western standards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The thing that many people in the West do not realize is that exposure to Western media actually hardens Chinese perceptions. There are many examples of Chinese students who lived many years in China whose perceptions of their homeland is far different than what they see is being portrayed on CNN/Fox, etc. The reason why this occurs is not that CNN/Fox are factually incorrect but that they tend to focus on sensationalist/negative stories about China.

Therefore it is somewhat naive to think that bringing uncensored information to the Chinese will somehow change their mind. Just look at the inability of people to change pro-China posters in this and many such posts on HN, who presumably have access to uncensored information, and who are often suspected of being "shills" or robots that are part of a Chinese disinformation campaign.

<comment><USER20> Most news focuses on sensationalist or negative stories about anywhere. Otherwise why would people watch it? It isn't like 7pm in China when all tv stations are playing news about what uplifting things Xi said today.

PRC Chinese have been conditioned into a certain mindset about news that doesn't exist anywhere else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Disclaimer: I'm mainland Chinese and would like everyone to have universal suffrage.

I've seen repeatedly both from people in mainland and "westerners" to assume the people of Hong Kong want independence from mainland China but this is not true.

The majority of people (protesters) didn't even mention this in their 5 demands[0].

[0]: [https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/07/14/five-demands-must- fulf...](https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/07/14/five-demands-must-fulfilled- thousands-hong-kong-anti-extradition-law-protesters-rally-sha-tin/)

<comment><USER8> I'd really worry for HK if the government agrees to all five points.

<comment><USER21> > They called for a complete withdrawal of the bill, the withdrawal of the > "riot" characterisation of the June 12 protests, the unconditional release > of all arrested protesters, the formation of an independent commission of > inquiry into police behaviour, as well as universal suffrage.

Which of those things would make you worry, and why?

<comment><USER22> #2 withdrawal of "riot" characterization and #3 unconditional release of all arrested protestors, then by implication #4 independent inquiry into police behaviour.

Because if #2 and #3 come to be, then #4 will surely severely censure the police for firing tear gas, bean bag bullets and rubber bullets, which will demoralize the police, greatly damage their ability to maintain law and order and incentivize rioting as the proper form of making demands going forward. Supposedly Hong Kong's laws/ordinances governing the conduct of independent inquiries contain provisions against self-incrimination, which is possibly another means for rioters and their organizers to safeguard themselves against prosecution by presenting at the independent inquiry. I say "supposedly" because while chapter and verse were quoted, I haven't looked them up myself and IANAL anyway.

The "protestors" are demanding non-negotiable acceptance of all 5 demands.

<comment><USER23> If I had to guess, it is not an inquiry into standard riot police procedure.

2 days ago a video surfaced of two hong kong police officers torturing a 62 year old man: [https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/cstj3u/hong...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/cstj3u/hong_kong_police_tortured_a_patient_in_hospital/)

Do you not think it is fair for protesters to want to launch an inquiry into this behavior?

> incentivize rioting as the proper form of making demands going forward

what evidence of rioting is there? afaik these protests have been peaceful.

<comment><USER22> > Do you not think it is fair for protesters to want to launch an inquiry into > this behavior?

For the torture case, it is reported that the policemen involved have been arrested. In my view, the case should be dealt with under existing laws. An independent inquiry should be launched if/when there is systemic police abuse.

> Evidence of rioting

Many videos on Youtube. Here's one on last week's airport assault of two mainland Chinese. The two were trapped and tortured for hours and rioters prevented medical/police personnel from getting to them.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz4-Ld1l7iI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz4-Ld1l7iI)

Another video of the airport riot. According to reports, the policeman who drew his pistol had had his testicles smashed when he was being beaten up and he is now in hospital.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpQpwQijRzg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpQpwQijRzg)

Attacking the Legislature building in July.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO16RnQNZmU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO16RnQNZmU)

Attacking the Legislature, view from outside.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPU86QO8pUw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPU86QO8pUw)

In June.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG23TIb- pUo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG23TIb-pUo)

Randomly attacking a policeman.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuCgEAxwevI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuCgEAxwevI)

Randomly attacking civilian.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15gprNFvBiY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15gprNFvBiY)

It has been like this for weeks.

It's funny (in a sad way) reading in this thread posters confidently labeling others brainwashed when they are the ones being fed a controlled narrative.

<comment><USER23> None of those links provide any context to why they were started.

> Another video of the airport riot. According to reports, the policeman who > drew his pistol had had his testicles smashed when he was being beaten up > and he is now in hospital.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/cputoi/policeman_sta...](https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/cputoi/policeman_starts_beating_protester_other/)

See how it was started by the policeman bodyslamming a innocent girl?

I could also cherry pick a bunch of videos showing chinese violence against protesters.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/clbof6/in_a...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/clbof6/in_a_show_of_peaceful_resistance_a_young_hong/)

[https://amp.news.com.au/national/queensland/hong-kong- protes...](https://amp.news.com.au/national/queensland/hong-kong-protest-at- brisbane-university-turns-violent-when-probeijing-students-attack/news- story/4a25b80027f3eda6ca793dda961fe2f3)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/coy60g/a_young_femal...](https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/coy60g/a_young_female_hong_kong_protester_got_shot/)

<comment><USER22> > no context

You asked for evidence of riots. Are you claiming that these scenes don't constitute rioting?

As for context, some of the links I provided are news reports in Cantonese or Mandarin. I suppose you don't understand what the newscasters or the people in the videos are saying?

> bodyslamming a (sic) innocent girl

And there was a bunch of armed people on standby all ready to retaliate? Yup, not the scene of a riot.

> > [https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/clbof6/in_a...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/clbof6/in_a_show_of_peaceful_resistance_a_young_hong/)

You know that the guy punching is Chinese how?

All of them were speaking Cantonese. I speak Cantonese and I understand what they were saying.

> > [https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/coy60g/a_young_femal...](https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/coy60g/a_young_female_hong_kong_protester_got_shot/)

The woman was shot at a _siege_ of a police station and she was in rioters' typical battle gear. The police have not ruled out that they could have shot her, but they are still investigating. The woman has so far refused to come public. If she was indeed shot by the police, you'd imagine that the protest movement would've called press conferences, published hospital reports and all that. So far, nothing.

> [https://amp.news.com.au/national/queensland/hong-kong- > protes...](https://amp.news.com.au/national/queensland/hong-kong-protest-at- > brisbane-university-turns-violent-when-probeijing-students-attack/)

I condemn all violence. This subthread is on evidence of rioting in Hong Kong. Yes you can cherry pick videos showing violence carried out by Chinese-looking people. And that's what you have done.

Edit: Wording

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A similar article by Vicky Xiuzhong Xu, a journalist in Australia: [https://www.smh.com.au/national/blinkered-chinese- nationalis...](https://www.smh.com.au/national/blinkered-chinese-nationalists- are-trolling-me-but-once-i-was-one-of-them-20190818-p52idd.html)

</comment><comment><USER25> First time I got an accurate map of India was when I stepped out of it. Whole of Kashmir is shown as Indian territory in all books and newspapers, even the area that is under administration of China and Pakistan. It was quite something. Other aspects opened up too, but the map thing was quite outrageous example. With international media availability, graphics have become better now thankfully.

<comment><USER26> Can you explain this a little bit? Isn't there a big issue right now between India and Kasmir? You're saying it's actually under the administration of China?

I'm sorry if this sounds naive - I guess I have no idea what's going on in the world.

<comment><USER15> Start here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_conflict#/media/File:K...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_conflict#/media/File:Kashmir_region_2004.jpg)

Yellow: controlled by India, green: controlled by Pakistan, red: controlled by China.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> In times like this one, I think it is important to revisit the _Allegory of the Cave_ [0][1]. Try to think about the cave as wherever you personally started your own education instead of broadening it to any given country. Once you have an idea of what that is and what that is not, imagine that that entire universe (cave, outside the cave, etc) itself being encompassed within yet another cave and world outside that cave. What if there is yet another cave and another world outside the cave wrapping this second one? And so on.

Update: I guess another thing to think about would be what if someone in at one depth of the cave tried to take someone out from within what seems to them a deeper level of the cave? And the opposite, what if someone from the cave tried to reach out of the cave and bring someone they think is in what appears to be a cave to them to their own cave.

Another update: The last link in the posted article is an interesting read in terms of the actions people take when they start thinking that they were inside a cave [2].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave)

[1] [https://web.stanford.edu/class/ihum40/cave.pdf](https://web.stanford.edu/class/ihum40/cave.pdf)

[2] [https://supchina.com/2019/05/01/truth-hidden-in-the-dark- chi...](https://supchina.com/2019/05/01/truth-hidden-in-the-dark-chinese- international-student-responses-to-xinjiang/)

</comment><comment><USER28> I have lived in the UK for over 20 years since I was 8, and I have to say I don't understand the Hong Kong riots.

For starters, does any of you even know how it all started? The extradition bill? To do what? To extradite a Hong Kong teen that killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan so he can be prosecuted there, at the request of Taiwan! I don't ever see that mentioned anywhere.

Let me say, this video absolutely riled me (even more so than the ones I've seen of the rioters getting violent):

[https://videos-a.jwpsrv.com/content/conversions/KWwwg9Oc/vid...](https://videos-a.jwpsrv.com/content/conversions/KWwwg9Oc/videos/JGCtT6gS-29576809.mp4?hdnts=exp=1566469029~acl=*/JGCtT6gS-29576809.mp4~hmac=365c430c6493822175fc7d570b1f7d4b4b81af913bdd9f9fa836fd768945a8b0)

Sure, these guys are "peaceful" as in they didn't hurt anyone, but watch and observe their actions:

1\. The guys postures are incredibly aggressive for starters, for me, I would not call that peaceful at all.

2\. Once someone took action to stop them, they held their hands up to make it look like they didn't do anything wrong

3\. They have friends specifically to capture the moment when they look like they were provoked

Now taking all of these points into consideration, this is an intentional provocation to have someone take action against them and make themselves look like the good guys. Here is my question to you all, what would you have done in those situations? Forcefully make them stop? Then that makes you the bad guy, and could potentially have you beaten up (let's look at the number of thugs they have behind them). Call the police? Then the police will look like the bad guys, which is probably their intention anyways. So personally, I do not buy the "protests" being peaceful at all, maybe it was at the start, but there are a lot more violence from these "protesters" that are not being reported.

<comment><USER29> > _The extradition bill? To do what? To extradite a Hong Kong teen that killed > his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan so he can be prosecuted there_

You're being disingenuous. The extradition bill is ostensibly about that case but here's the reality: the bill would allow Hongkongers to be extradited to mainland China, where the legal system is a joke.

The prospect of being arrested in HK and shipped to authoritarian China is completely untenable.

Chinese agents have already being kidnapping and 'disappearing' Hong Kong dissidents. This would legalise and streamline the process.

<comment><USER28> Neither I nor any of my family have been tried in China (I am guessing you haven't either), so I cannot comment on the legal system, but in reality, the legal system in the UK is not perfect either. There was a really good book released 2018 about how the legal system is broken here, if you are interested, it's a really good read:

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Barrister-Stories-Law- Broken...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Barrister-Stories-Law- Broken/dp/1509841148/ref=sr_1_1?crid=NZFC7RAAHKV5&keywords=secret+barrister&qid=1566468004&s=gateway&sprefix=secret+ba%2Caps%2C136&sr=8-1)

Onto the topic of the extradition bill though, it specifically excludes extraditing politial dissidents, so it would not streamline the process. What I hear some people say that China will just make some excuses in other areas, which then I don't see the point, since kidnapping and disappearing people would surely be easier right, and since they can already do that, then why would they need the bill? But you know what the bill does allow HK to do, is to extradite a baby murderer to face charges of the crime he commited.

<comment><USER30> what is the relevance of the UK legal system here? The discussion is about China

Secondly, it could easily be argued that a legal extradition route would be a lot easier than secretly kidnapping and disappearing people over the border. Why do you think it would be easier to kidnap?

<comment><USER28> Why is the UK legal system relevant here? Well, it's really not, but I am just comparing it to a legal system that I am familiar with, which is a bit of a joke as well; I am happy to hear how the legal system works where you are from if you are willing to tell. Additionally, the Chinese legal system uses civil law, which is based on the Roman system that is used throughout Europe, I mean if I had a spin of it in the UK, can make it look like a horrible system, even though it works.

As for what's easier, let's look at it this way. For me to kidnap someone, I can just find where they are staying, break into said place and then take them away; if I am super careful, I will do it when there is no one around. For me to create a legal extradition route, then I would need to look into your history, financial dealings etc, find out somewhere that looks dodgy, and try to use that as evidence; sometimes I cannot even use that as evidence given it may not even be committed in China. Remember, Al Capone was sentenced not due to the other crimes he committed (due to lack of evidence) but rather due to his tax evasions, so proving something legally when you haven't done it is very hard. If given that you can just go around "kidnapping and disappearing people" as you have stated, why would you want to bother create the legal route right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think the Chinese have different point of view about the protest. The lack of support is not because of the CCP propaganda. The Mainland Chinese view about Hong Kong in the current protest environment is not any different from what the Mainland Hong Kong for the past few years

The view in The Mainland Chinese is HK ppls are racist and snobbish towards Mainland Chinese . Which is If you spoken to HK peoples. That is not far from reality. Here a couple of links to illustrate [https://www.bbc.com/news/world- asia-china-16828134](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-16828134) [https://qz.com/442887/how-hong-kong-is-different-from- china-...](https://qz.com/442887/how-hong-kong-is-different-from-china-in-a- series-of-offensive-stereotype-based-posters/)

At the same time Mainland Chinese look at hk problems is an economic problem. Due to insecurity of the rising china and inequality created since the British policy.

</comment><comment><USER32> India is heading in the same direction. They just can't fathom why Kashmiris would want independence.

Most Indians never met and probably will never meet any Kashmiri but they think they know what's good for Kashmiris.

</comment><comment><USER33> I think the recurring theme is whether every individual is strong enough to deserve truth and freedom. I'm a West-leaned person so I want to believe yes, but empirically I know this is not the case for many (perhaps myself included!), and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a society which believes otherwise. They might not be a total dictatorship, but people would think some form of oppression is necessary or even preferred. I feel China is certainly one of those countries, but can't really say if most Western countries are polar opposite. It's a perpetual dilemma.

p.s. the country I live (Japan) is rather wishy-washy about this. The law in theory respects individual freedom, but in reality people don't really appreciate the idea that much. And I see a plenty of people who believe that the government will never do anything wrong.

<comment><USER34> I think the key point is that governments are made of fallible people too. If not everyone deserves individual freedom, then certainly not everyone deserves power over others. And autocracies don't provide any facility for ensuring that those in power are in any way deserving.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> [http://archive.is/uRskn](http://archive.is/uRskn)

</comment><comment><USER36> We have the same problem with the extreme left and right in the US although I am more annoyed with the MAGA supporters out there.

<comment><USER37> This is what annoys me most with the political system today. If you are opposed to open borders then the left calls you racist. If you talk about anthropogenic global warming, the right accuses you of spreading fake news.

Everything has become so partisan, nobody wants to cede even a millimeter of ground to the other side, so taking the most extreme position has become the norm in debate. It is strategic, (if you want to prevent government regulation on global warming, spending years debating on whether or not it even exists rather than on what the solutions will be is rather effective), but very disingenuous.

<comment><USER38> Partisanship in this country is a huge problem. It also has been deliberately encouraged by our leaders.

In a number of measures, the effects of partisan bias are much stronger than the effects of racial bias. [0]

[0] [https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/october/dems-gop- polariz...](https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/october/dems-gop- polarized-10-08-14.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Based on my online/offline interaction with many Mainland Chinese in US/EU born in 80s-00s, those who experienced family eco status going downwards(e.g. parents lose job due to radical policy change, or lose money due to financial implode) may possibly choose to embrace more liberal democratic view during western education; those from economically stable middle class families are more likely to support Chinese Govt view, which are understandably majority of oversea Chinese students.

The phenomenon that young HKers, regardless of economic status even young kids of post-97 mainland immigrants, almost unanimously support liberal democratic ideas should probably thanks to pro-democratic narration in their k-12 education.

That's said, I agree with this LA Times piece, narration in education (or call it propaganda or brainwash) really matters. Unless there are properly crafted counter message in western education, majority of oversea Chinese students will continue to live in their WeChat walled garden of post truth[1].

[1] [https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-post- trut...](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-post-truth- publication-where-chinese-students-in-america-get-their-news)

</comment><comment><USER40> It's very hard for people to think different, if you were born in an environment that ever since you were born, the ideas of loving/supporting the party is a must because she saved us, a-single-unified-country is the most important for our success, we were once the most wealthy country but got robbed by the western countries and Japan now it's time to take things back...etc. were instilled to you from kid's songs, cartoons, tv shows, books... basically everything around you.

</comment><comment><USER41> This article is a perfect example of why free speech is important for everyone. There's a lot of talk about censoring people who have the wrong opinions, that communicating an wrong idea is harmful.

Communicating incorrect opinions about China allowed the author's friends to correct him. And now he can share a unique perspective that they cannot because they were never on the wrong side of the issue.

</comment><comment><USER42> Next up: Why northerners don't understand why southerners see the Confederate flag as anything other than a symbol of white supremacy.

</comment><comment><USER43> Premise of the question is completely wrong. It's not a matter of not understanding the protests. It's more that they want the outcome benefits their own "kind". Chinese priorities are in optimizing for family, riches, and career. Anything that gets in the way of that whether it's the environment, human advancement, HK protests will be quashed.

</comment><comment><USER44> China controls ___ALL CHINESES LANGUAGE_ __media excluding The Epoch Times controlled by Falun Gong.

China uses both carrots and sticks to enforce the views of the CCP. The Chinese government will arrest your entire extended family if you undertake "political" actions, that is, try and use the normal Chinese laws to ensure your rights.

</comment><comment><USER45> "For those us who grew up in a system where information control is all- encompassing, processing ideas contrary to what we were taught and believed all our lives is not easy."

Yeah, true. I grew up in the US version of that. It's all different now ... of course.

</comment><comment><USER46> I could understand Hong Kong protesting to stop extradition of Hong Kong residents by Beijing because it could open too many doors. However, the original extradition request was for a murder suspect to be extradited to Taiwan, which I don't see anything wrong it.

Now, they've gotten the extradition rescinded, what else are they protesting for? That's the real question that the protesters are not answering. It's almost as if they're protesting for the sake of it. I think there's foreign influence involved because a pain for China is good for others, like a orange- tanned person I don't have to name.

All-in-all, with the world watching, China won't commit another Tiananmen. What they will do is to squeeze Hong Kong dry of business and money and leave it as just another backwater city.

<comment><USER30> I think you may be slightly misinformed there, the extradition bill has not been fully rescinded, only suspended.

The protests continue with the demands of

1\. Withdraw the bill

2\. Carrie Lam steps down

3\. An independent inquiry into police brutality

4\. Release of protesters arrested

5\. Universal Suffrage

There's plenty of reasons for them to protest without blaming foreign influence

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> They're brainwashed.

Many of these Chinese students think the government filtering the Internet in China is beneficial because it prevents the spread of "harmful information"

</comment><comment><USER48> One of my colleagues was a stanford-undergraduate, harvard-grad-school (at the time biochemistry postdoc) who grew up in china. He was somehow fed information that Muslims don't eat pork because they worship pigs. I tried to correct him but he was insistent that he was correct. An otherwise extremely intelligent human who had no difficulty reconciling conflicting evidence and information (e.g. in science)

<comment> v-yadli Curious: how did you correct him? Also just FYI, the Muslim people live with Han people together in most areas of China (you can just go to about any cities in China and start sampling) and most Han people have learned to respect the Muslim religion, to not even talk about pigs, pork or even spam in front of them. I think the "worshiping pigs" misconception may just come as a result of good will trying to avoid embarrassment and conflicts and not talking about any of that at all, and thus the ignorance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> If the media still kept connecting the group behavior to government propaganda, it's never going to get any closer to the reason behind this. The Chinese students in western world are not just showed up in recent 5-10 years, a logic from "they have different opinions" to "they must be brainwashed by their evil government" is pretty ignorant, or rather naive. I think the right question to ask here is why they were not heard before.

hypothesis 1, they were silenced. Chinese students were in great disadvantage no matter in population or in capital compare with groups holding different ideas. The students from hong kong, taiwan are more exposed to the western world because there were more chance they could get into the social groups financially - think if there are person in your social group paid 10x less than yours, and emotionally - you might have visited there because it's easier to get in and out and enjoy as foreigner. Media tend to report things you might interest with, either it might show up in your day to day life, or those odds could catch your eyes - people pays more attention to stories from those escaped from mid-east than those actually living in mid-east. This factor changed in recent years, because both number and wealth have been increased a lot for Chinese students. hypothesis 2, they silenced themselves. The culture difference, language disadvantage and huge gap on life quality, the 1st generation migrants are tend to stay low profile - the mexico migrants also had that in history. This factor also changed a lot in recent years.

These two factors exist in all minority groups.

Back to this topic itself, Chinese students are heard now(and ironically thanks to their HK peers), and why they hold different opinions?

The Chinese students' background could be vary, but one thing is in common - they were from China, and the CPC ruled China helped their family gained wealth so they could stand in the same street with you. Due to the same reason, they are naturally more vigilant when the medias are reporting news completely fell into one side, and when they are trying to find different view, there is state media - the same thing happens in US, the media are pushing people either towards right or left, especially when the a situation can't be simply marked as "good" or "bad", being labeled negatively make them join the group protecting their identities. Not even mention for this generation, HK has been part of China since they start understanding the world, they would try to look at the similarity between them and hker, meanwhile hker were still showing off their superiority (like girlfriend who keep showing gift from her ex)

Everyone has their rights to express their opinions. But the role media playing that divides us, is more dangerous

</comment><comment><USER50> This actually reminds me of the conversations I had with a Cuban classmate. He explained it as a combination of propaganda and "elders" memory. His grandmother would always tell him about how bad it was before Castro and Communism and the government would be spreading propaganda about how great things were; it's a potent combination.

I expect China is in the same place, things are so much better for the average Chinese citizen and the propaganda machine is running full tilt.

</comment><comment><USER51> Can you imagine a person grow in an environment that all input information is designed to control every single individual's mind, not only what you see and hear, but also how you perceive and think. Simple put: China is the Matrix for real

</comment><comment><USER52> I grew up in a Communist country in Eastern Europe and the article hits the nail; most of the education was single sourced and filtered by the Communist Party, there was never any debate over it, it was an axiom. Then Communism fell and 30 years later the thinking is different, the knowledge is different and healthy discussions are possible, but most people still have strong socialist/communist positions; some were never able to grow above their indoctrination, some were benefiting from that system, but it is very hard to understand people that are 35 - 40 that have a love for Communism, they were too young to be indoctrinated at that time.

</comment><comment><USER53> Chinese students should be allowed to think however they want, but their behavior is unacceptable in a western democracy.

I am not sure that these international Chinese students are good for our universities. I feel like the universities sold out to them because they pay full price tuition.

This is latest example of them not understanding even basic behavior in western country.

<comment><USER54> Wanting _their_ rules to apply in a host country... yeah, that's not a good look.

In contrast, we in the West _never_ expect other countries to do it our way when we visit them... /s

<comment><USER55> Are you arguing that it's fine when Westerners do it, therefore it's fine when the Chinese do it? I'd argue it's not fine when either does it.

<comment><USER54> Oh, no. It's definitely _not_ fine when either does it. And my intent (which appears to not have been expressed well) was primarily to criticize the Chinese for doing it, while also acknowledging the fault of the West in the same behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> The "Post-Truth" Publication Where Chinese Students in America Get Their News

[https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-post- trut...](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-post-truth- publication-where-chinese-students-in-america-get-their-news)

<comment><USER57> A summary of College Daily rebuttal to the piece:

[https://supchina.com/2019/08/21/college-daily-fires-back- at-...](https://supchina.com/2019/08/21/college-daily-fires-back-at-the-new- yorker-accusing-it-of-bias-and-fabrication/)

<comment><USER38> I... don't see the rebuttal. There is no demonstration on inaccuracies in the original reporting, just a bunch of complaining about bias.

<comment><USER57> Biased reporting that selectively misrepresents Chinese perspectives and in this case, deliberate omissions to dismiss the publication as purveyor of fake news is crux to many Chinese complaints against western MSM. See all the Huawei 5G hit pieces from a nominally free 5th estate that somehow manages to replicate the manufactured consent of state propaganda. IMO people who lived under propaganda, especially journalists, editors or other media professionals are also equipped to identify it.

>The editor claimed that during their talks, he explained to Zhang how much effort the publication put into fact-checking and confirming references. But none of these went into the final piece.

> "In the profile, there is no mention of all the insight, knowledge, > experience, and stories that I shared with her about the new-media industry. > Instead, it made up some lies and criticized Chinese publications like ours > for producing fake news.

<comment><USER38> > Biased reporting that selectively misrepresents Chinese perspectives and in > this case, deliberate omissions

Was there bias in the reporting? sure. Is there bias against China in the MSM? sure.

That isn't a rebuttal.

> >The editor claimed that during their talks, he explained to Zhang how much > effort the publication put into fact-checking and confirming references. But > none of these went into the final piece.

This is the same editor who the article quotes as admitting to complete fabricating a story? If there is so much good information about "effort the publication put into fact-checking and confirming references", why did none of those details make it into the rebuttal?

> Instead, it made up some lies

What lies? If there were lies, they should be specifically identified.

<comment><USER57> I was careless to label the response as a rebuttal. The merit and significance of the response for me was the contextualizing of the original New Yorker piece under a pattern of western MSM bias designed designed to undermine and dismiss Chinese perspectives. College Daily is the equivalent of Buzzfeed / Gawker. They don't do good reporting, I'm aware of the controversies surrounding the brand. But to portray it as some primary source of information for Chinese student diaspora while dog whistling the publication as Chinese Breitbart instead of calling it a sensationalist clickbait shitrag where _some_ Chinese kids get their culture war bonerings is disingenuous. The fact that there are many Chinese voices that dissent to the standards of the publication on Chinese social media should indicate that there is understanding of the nature of the publication and the niche that it serves. Titling the article: "The "Post-Truth" Publication Where Chinese Students in America Get Their News" is the kind of headline one would engineer to dismiss Chinese perspectives given the timing of the article to recent Chinese political activations in western societies.

<comment><USER38> I frankly see less wrong with that headline than I see wrong with most headlines today. The term "Post-Truth" as an accurate descriptor of College Daily seems to have come directly from Lin:

> Pressed to articulate the identity of his publication, Lin used the phrase > "post-truth," which he attributed to the New York Times, to express his > belief that the true essence of things is fundamentally unknowable and that > the meaning of the news of the day depends on the spin one chooses to put on > it.

EDIT: The article itself also makes a point of including Chinese with perspectives on College Daily.

<comment><USER57> When pressed, after other employees labeled the publication as "new media" and "news agency". There are several passages that characterize Lin as annoyed, irritated, angry etc with the interview process to the point of claiming "Can't I just tell you that I was being a fucking idiot?". Decontextualizing the nature of the interview and soundbite into a headline is not responsible journalism IMO, especially when it is well understood that a around half of most readers typically only consume headlines. Hence the response article labeling the original piece as a trap.

As for the balancing Chinese perspective, it was one paragraph of people who are disturbed that the publication is "synonymous with government propaganda" and a more detailed examination of one named individual who is apathetic towards the role of journalism to further support the narrative that Chinese students are "melon-eating masses". These accounts hardly encapsulates the amount of distaste among the Chinese diaspora for the publication, who regularly shits on the journal for being a clickfarm the same way many called out Buzzfeed or Gawker in the west, tacitly endorsing the generic Chinese as a monolith trope. There are plenty of Chinese students / general diaspora members who are high-information consumers that have a rational basis to support (and not support) the CPC whose world view is informed by both Chinese and Western sources and experiences. And unsurprisingly there is a conspicuous lack acknowledgement of their existence in western MSM, which is a shame because their perspective is worth understanding.

Anecdotally, there's many highly educated Romanian and Chinese immigrants up in Canada that escaped repressive conditions of the old country. You won't find many Romanian nationalists in the diaspora, and very few who returned. Not so with China. It's worth understanding why and I surmise the answer is more nuanced than these folks are brainwashed.

<comment><USER38> > Decontextualizing the nature of the interview and soundbite into a headline > is not responsible journalism IMO

No, not particularly. However, having read both the contents and the piece the and summary of the "rebuttal", I find the headline sufficiently accurate. If find the headline more accurate that your attempt to characterize it as "the kind of headline one would engineer to dismiss Chinese perspectives"

>as for the balancing Chinese perspective, it was one paragraph of people who are disturbed that the publication is "synonymous with government propaganda" and a more detailed examination of one named individual who is apathetic towards the role of journalism to further support the narrative that Chinese students are "melon-eating masses".

I count 11+ paragraphs that detail the opinions of 3 different Chinese individuals (Xiao, Fang and Huang) and they are not presented as monolithic.

<comment><USER57> Both Fang "a communications professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong" and Xiao who "teaches at the U.C. Berkeley School of Information and runs a bilingual Web site called China Digital Times" (a great resource) are commenting on general issues regarding Chinese journalism / media propaganda apparatus doesn't meaningfully elucidate divergent perspectives of netizens on College Daily. The article doesn't deviate from generic all Chinese media is state controlled narrative which while true omits the fact that Chinese student diaspora doesn't exclusive derive information from Chinese sources or even trust Chinese sources, specifically in reference to College Daily which I've seen even die-hard /r/sino tankies dismiss. Instead condescendingly portraying Chinese media readers as "conditioned" to propaganda, "dissociated from truth", "one of the melon-eating masses", "passive onlooker with neither the means nor the interest to know what's truly going on", deserving of "sympathy" because they're not even deplorable enough like western fringe opinion holders who had the freedom to form their own worldview. A brainwashed monolith.

The headline is accurate in the sense that's it's not factually wrong, but that's the nature of propaganda via omission. Repeat such pattern over many articles and it gives credence to the "rebuttal" that identifies the piece as one of many designed to "orchestrate a defamatory campaign" against China and in particular increasing politically active Chinese students in context of current political climate. I'm going to end my contributions here, but thank you for the discussion.

<comment><USER38> Calling something propaganda by omission is still not a rebuttal, especially when that rebuttal also fails to provide any of the supposedly "omitted" facts.

You can't just ignore things you disagree with because they are biased.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> The irony of Americans thinking it is Chinese who live in a "propaganda matrix"... while reading actual propaganda piece.

Yes. "Jeffrey Epstein" was a suicide. Americans electing Trump because... "Russian collusion". Bombing countries all over the world in the name of peace. "weapons of mass destruction". TSA. Prism. Student debt that can't be discharged.

Thinking that it's only "other evil governments" that use propaganda and deception, and US Gov. and interests groups are some beacon of truth, sincerity and transparency is just sooo naive.

Chinese in American have actual unconstrained access and understanding of both sides, they lived in both places, seen both systems. And you think their opinion is just based on "heavily brainwashing", because it is different than yours?

From me talking with Chinese in America, they are acutely aware of realities of the Chinese political system. But they are also acutely aware of realities of the western one. Much more so than Americans. They are not brainwashed, they are very realistic, pragmatic and smart. They just don't share some core beliefs of the western wold. They don't consider democracy as a good in itself. They consider the good of the community in relation to the good of an individual, relatively more important than westerners. And so on. And even when they do agree with theoretical advantages, they see first hand how little of alleged freedoms and benefits of western system actually materializes in practice.

</comment><comment><USER59> > Why so many Chinese students can't understand the Hong Kong protests

The simplest answer is because they don't bother to.

</comment><comment><USER60> It's amazing how much a government can manipulate and brainwash their own citizens. Even when they're overseas, where they have access to the uncensored internet, they still rely on censored information.

The worst part is Chinese students don't know, refuse to believe, or just don't care that the information they're reading is being censored.

</comment><comment><USER61> > When Chinese students step outside of China to study, they are struggling to > adapt to a new education system, and are frequently confronted — in class, > in daily life, and online — with assumptions that they have been > "brainwashed by the Chinese government." It makes some feel attacked and > reaffirms what they were taught in China: The West is biased and hostile.

Many Chinese people in the West still read the same propaganda, hang out with the Chinese people. It is difficult for them to be un-brainwashed.

<comment><USER62> > It makes some feel attacked and reaffirms what they were taught in China: > The West is biased and hostile.

It's easier when you want to believe something, to believe it. No matter what the source is.

<comment><USER20> This. Much of the media consumed is shaped more by the biases of their viewers, less the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Something needs to be done about the poor assimilation of Chinese students on American campuses. We had a particularly bad incident at Penn State where the Chinese student association held a banquet, and performed a rap saying that "all Americans will soon call China daddy".

[https://supchina.com/2018/04/27/nationalist-chinese-rap- prov...](https://supchina.com/2018/04/27/nationalist-chinese-rap-provokes- penn-state-cssa-response/)

<comment><USER64> Any active assimilation efforts will almost certainly backfire and would be a massive civil rights infringement.

All immigrants, not just Chinese, tend to associate with their own ethnic subgroup in the US and always have. Time is the only real assimilator.

That said, the CCP does and will continue to actively attempt to influence Chinese living in America and the US needs to take a look at that.

<comment><USER63> I think the universities could do more to build friendship and a campus community between the Chinese students and the rest of the university.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> The goal of every fascist regime such as the CCP is to perpetuate itself, and to do that it must indoctrinate the population against their own best interests. It must make them think that the state is the important thing.

In China, Mao starved tens of millions to death because they had the 'wrong' ideas in their heads, and the expedient thing to do was to get rid of them while indoctrinating a new generation.

And lo and behold, those that lived through Mao's predations now see what they believe to be a miracle that things are so much better now, as long as they knuckle under to the CCP.

They could have been better without all of the killing and suppression. Those things were only necessary for the preservation of the CCP.

</comment><comment><USER66> Seems not much people talk about "Establish Independent Comission of Inquiry to investigate Police Misconduct and Brutality", which is one of the 5 demands from the HK protesters. HK Government sends police forces to violently suppress the demonstrations. However, i don't think the Chinese students seen these scenes, cos of blocking from China's firewall/media, nor understanding what are the reasons behind these scenes, again cos of the biased reporting that selectively misrepresents Chinese perspectives.

Ref: [https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/06/29/full-open-letter- hong-...](https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/06/29/full-open-letter-hong-kongs- leader-calling-investigation-police-use-force/)

</comment><comment><USER8> From my PoV, the protesters should target the big families instead of targeting the mainland government/people. I mean why give your support to anyone who blames you, and unjust-fully?

Let alone that many protesters are indeed violent...</comment>


Russian ship loitering near undersea cables - <AUTHOR> http://www.hisutton.com/Yantar.html <comment><USER3> Neal Stephenson wrote a bit about this in Cryptonomicon; laying new undersea cable is both expensive and time consuming, but the cost of cutting existing ones is fairly low. So if any sufficiently-funded individual, corporation, or nation-state wanted to hold a gun to the world's head, cutting undersea data cables wouldn't be a bad way to do it.

The problem is, you can't make that kind of threat in a subtle way, so to consider something like it you would have to be some kind of international pariah with a warmongering streak and a history of 'lying in plain sight' about your own nefarious deeds.

Edit: Okay, we're in better shape today than we were in the '90s and cutting off Cyprus' internet wouldn't cripple the world, but we still don't have THAT many cables running across the Atlantic and Pacific.

<comment><USER4> I'm less concerned about denial of service via cutting cables, and more concerned about the tapping of cables for wholesale data snarfing.

<comment><USER5> Is that a realistic threat model? What does the technology look like to tap into 800Gbit/s of fiber traffic - under water?

<comment><AUTHOR> The USS Jimmy Carter submarine is equiped to do it [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_tapping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_tapping)

The USA were caught tapping cables in the cold war [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells)

Now this doesn't mean that the Russians are right now tapping these cables; they could be simply mapping their precise location etc for later or using them as a training exercise.

The Russians have submarines for this kind of thing, and I bet they're regretting they sent a surface ship. See a list of some of the submarines used for tapping cables at the bottom of the Yandar article.

<comment><USER6> Why regret? The intent is to be noticed.

This is like killing a person with polonium, which is made in just a handful of facilities around the world. Russia wants to cause worry. They want "respect", which mainly means fear.

<comment><USER7> Unlike the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko with polonium-210 (to show agents don't defect and live), unlike military exercises in plain view of your adversary (to show your military prowess), and unlike displaying new shiny hardware at a parade (to make your adversary wonder about their capabilities); covertly tapping (or cutting) cables is done _covertly_ , and as someone else mentioned has been going on by "both sides" for decades. If it was done _overtly_ , the country who was being spied on would be tipped off and stop using that means of communication. I think willvarfar is closer to correct, they are probably mapping and looking for things, for future use, not exploiting things right now. I still think one of the things they're looking for, if they're actually over the cables, are other taps that have been placed by others before, or maybe looking for static ASW equipment laid there to detect subs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The US famously spied on Russian underseas cables in Operation Ivy Bells [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells) during the cold war. A spy sold the secret to the Russians and they recovered the recorders.

Of course they used submarines, so there was no plot on normal publicly- accessible marine maps..

The Russians have several subs with mini-subs too and are building more; there is a good list of links at the bottom of the article!

</comment><comment><USER8> Russia is doing a lot of fearmongering in the run-up to the US elections. I stumbled across some agitprop on Twitter yesterday, where I read that Russia was recalling all students who were studying abroad. Out of curiosity (to say the least) I tracked down the source article, which was a) not available in English, and b) just Russians criticizing privileged Russians who sent their kids abroad to study. Looking around the rest of the agitprop stuff that I could find at a cursory glance, there is a ton of literal FUD going around right now, to the tune of "WWIII imminent."

Wonder who they're trying so hard to influence?

<comment><USER9> Putin recalled Russian military family members. For those that don't understand Russian culture that's Defcon 3.

<comment><USER7> The western media has been fed a story that Russian diplomats' families have been recalled. No proof of that yet. No leaked emails, memos, letters, boarding passes of families, people moving out of their apartments, motorcades of diplomatic people rushing to the airports... nothing.

Who benefits from putting that story out there?

Why would you believe that story?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks like the ship is currently off the coast of Lebanon.

You can watch/follow this ship in semi-real time as long as it's transponder is active/in-range of a receiver (and not being spoofed):

[http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:121...](http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:1215053/mmsi:273546520/vessel:YANTAR)

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks like the site is down. Mirror: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Iq7DDCu...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Iq7DDCul7nAJ:www.hisutton.com/Yantar.html&num=1&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

<comment><USER12> Link from site to marinetraffic site showing the ship and location:

[http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:121...](http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:1215053/mmsi:273546520/vessel:YANTAR)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems like at this point you're really depending on encryption to keep your data safe. You have to assume one or more entities is poring through your bits looking for interesting information.

<comment><USER14> and also logging the bits forever so that they can reinterpret what is "interesting" at a future date.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does anyone else feel like if there's enough evidence that a public site is noticing this ship loitering, that intelligence agencies the world over are plenty aware of it already? What are the chances this website has a "scoop" here that governments aren't aware of? If the intent of this site isn't to make government agencies aware of the loitering, what is the goal? What should members of the public do with such information?

<comment><USER16> I don't think it was intended as a call to action. Do you think all non- actionable information is worthless?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ars Technica had a great piece on how these undersea cables: [http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/how- th...](http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/how-the-internet- works-submarine-cables-data-centres-last-mile/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Ships do not "loiter" in international waters. "Loiter" implies the loiterer is violating some rights the accuser imagines himself to have. Russia may be simply legally installing its surveillance equipment on cables it found in international waters. There's no 'loitering' involved here.

I invite you to study the speeches of Anson Chan, less you believe that this irritating political weasel-wording we are so used to currently is universal.

<comment><USER19> "Loiter" is especially used in military and strategic contexts to mean simply holding position. No implication of violation or anything. Aircraft loiter over a waypoint, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The story now has coverage from motherboard.vice.com

[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-theory-about-a- russian...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-theory-about-a-russian-ship- tapping-syrian-internet-is-weird)

</comment><comment><USER20> How hard - or detectable - is one tapping on an underwater fiber?

I suspect it's very hard to tap and easily detectable.

</comment><comment><USER21> the ship appears between lebanon/syria and cyprus, not turkey and cyprus.

</comment><comment><USER22> Cyprus must have an extremely good internet connection :)

<comment><USER23> For the benefit of a certain low-key UK military base:

        http://espresso.repubblica.it/inchieste/2013/11/04/news/the-history-of-british-intelligence-operations-in-cyprus-1.139978?refresh_ce

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Well, how accurate are those cable lines?

<comment><USER25> There are very accurate maps available publicly.

When a ship lays anchor it's not just the end but can end up being a mile of chain as the real holding force(with the ship bouncing around). Fishermen are able to damage cables as well

<comment><USER7> If you could source that very accurate map that's available publicly I'd be very appreciative; I can only find the paper version for sale and don't want to pay $100 for something that will only arrive in a few weeks. The lines on the images that are being circulated are not accurate in the least, they are very rough estimates.

<comment><USER25> Paper and $100 is still very public, we're just spoiled. It's also going to cost you less time contacting/accessing each website individually.

You might have some luck with RL social networking.

Or could settle for info graphic form(and link/contact info) at submarinecablemap.com

<comment><USER7> That's the problem. SubmarineCableMap.com and similar web sites show logical, not physical, representations of the underwater cables. Cables are not that neat and tidy. A proper nautical chart would; I'll pay for it, if I find a downloadable digital one for sale.

I apreciate @CovertShores's diagram showing a general area where cables are believed to be, but we can do better with a nautical chart showing exactly where the cables are, to prove or disprove the RV Yantar is over top of them.

RV Yantar's slow methodical movements suggest they're doing _something_ , but I don't know that it suggests they're tapping cables. It looks more like a search pattern using underwater equipment that moves very slowly.

Towed sonar arrays can usually move ~4kn, so I don't think it's towed sonar. I believe it's a remote operated vehicle sniffing along the ocean's floor, on a tether, and they need to move the ship slowly, at 0.5kn to "keep up" with the ROV at the end of the line.

Are they _looking_ for the cables themselves? Maybe. Are they looking for pre- existing taps on those cables? If they're doing anything to do with underwater cables, I think so. Are they putting their own taps on the lines? Maybe, I can't disprove that, but I'd like charts to show _exactly_ where those underwater cables are, to see if they're even doing something cable related - which is total speculation at this point.

If the cables are shown to be 10 miles away, they're clearly looking at something else.

Isn't it possible the Russians want you to think they're looking at cables, and not helping a stuck submarine, or other unmentioned possibility?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is no evidence that the Russians are "tapping" or "sabotaging" undersea cables; the Americans and Israelis would also tap those cables, and I think it's far more likely the Russians are doing counter-espionage of taps on Turkish, Syrian and Lebanese cables, to win favour with their governments.

<comment><USER26> You provide no evidence why one scenario is far more likely than the other. There are much more direct ways that Russia is winning favour with those governments such as fighting Syria's wars for them or signing a gas pipeline deal with Turkey.

<comment><USER7> If Russia was tapping Syrian cables... they'd do so on shore. They don't need to do it at the bottom of the ocean; it's the same way the United States taps cables in many allied countries.

It is rumoured that Russian SIGINT tipped off the Erdogan government of the coup, not American SIGINT, which would suggest that Americans were complicit with the coup. To win further favour with the Erdogan government Russia would love to pants the United States by showing they are tapping their "ally's" telecom infrastructure. You may remember the NSA also tapped Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, an ally. You may also remember the NSA tapped all Greek telecom as well; also an Ally. Do you think the United States _isn 't_ tapping the Turkish telecom lines?

The Israelis clearly have the Lebanese telecom system tapped in about a hundred different ways, from buried taps on shore to underwater taps at sea. Do you doubt that too? Wouldn't it be in Russia and Syria's best interest to help Hezbollah?

<comment><USER27> I think you may have misunderstood the grandparent comment's use of the word "evidence".

<comment><USER7> _Why_ would Russia tap Turkey's telecom? _Why_ would Russia tap Syria's telecom? _Why_ would Russia tap Lebanon's telecom?

I've offered up motive for why they would be looking to un-do taps that are already there, but haven't heard any competing explanation to why Russia would tap commercial undersea cables.

The American military does not use commercial undersea cables for their trans- continental communications, by the way. So, if the RV Yantar is not near commercial cables, they could be near secret military cables, or Anti- Submarine Warfare equipment set up by the Americans, Israelis, Greeks - <USER2> knows.

I'm trying to point out that latching onto the idea that they're loitering above and tapping/sabotaging underwater commercial cables is only one of many things they could be doing. Since we don't even know the location of those cables, it's extremely speculative to say they're loitering above them to begin with.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN/PG: What causes this sudden drop-off behaviour on HN submissions? - <AUTHOR> http://hnrankings.info/4805154/ <comment><USER3> It looks like this "Show HN" post wouldn't have a high "gag" score [1], so either the post has been flagged multiple times (unlikely), or, most likely, the majority of those early votes came from the same location, causing the voting ring safeguards [2] to kick in.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1782058> [2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3894695>

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, I know this wasn't the case - I didn't provide the link to anyone in our office, which has it's own IP, and I know they weren't aware of the HN post until afterwards. I also wouldn't publicly use this as an example if I knew I had been rigging the votes!

So maybe it was just a case of HNers flagging the story as it became popular, as the title was fairly link-baity? I was under the impression that flagging a story kills it rather than suppresses it, but regardless, if that's the case then it makes sense.

Edit: One comment in your example link by ColinWright seems to state 2 or more "flags" can cause this behaviour: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3893207>

If that's the case, it's probably best people don't know about it, as used maliciously it would be fairly disruptive.

<comment><USER4> > Unfortunately, I know this wasn't the case

You can't know -- just because it wasn't in _your_ office doesn't mean it didn't happen.

One of the first readers to see it may have mass emailed his/her colleagues who all read/upvoted when they got into work in the morning, for example....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You set off the voting ring detector.

<comment><USER6> There was really no need to respond so pointedly or awkwardly, the parent posted a genuine question and it really begged a slightly more polite response.

I understand that you are an extremely busy man and I don't mean to bag on the owner of the site, but at the risk of getting hell-banned or massively down voted your response came across as being unhelpful and rude, if it had been someone else making the comment they would likely have been down voted for it, or at the very least treat with indignation and ignored.

Perhaps you didn't meant to come across this way and perhaps I'm in completely the wrong mindset about it, but such a short answer does nearly nothing to help the parent, you simply stated they had set off a trigger and gave no details as to why, what they could do in the future to prevent this or any kind of statistics or advice to aid them.

<comment><USER7> He gave an answer when he was under no obligation to do so.

Anybody that is monitoring the effect of their submissions and is asking what went wrong is asking about potentially dangerous information. HN is a pretty fine balancing act, it would not take much to wreck it and the secret sauce serves us all well.

<comment><USER6> None of us are under any obligation to give a response or answer a question put to us on this site, but the fact of the matter is that we choose to.

The key point I've taken away from this is that everyone says that the websites monitoring software is secret and details can't be given, etc. but in this case it is people who are not privy to this knowledge in the same way that PG is.

Simply put, he saw the post, he responded, yet other people have had to give the tangible and useful responses when it could have easily been subverted by PG spending a little more time to explain his comment.

If he had the time to come on HN, look at the graph presented to him, come to a conclusion and comment upon it, he must have understood much more than he gave away and an expansion upon his first statement would have been useful, for instance: "Your submission set off the voting ring detector, it believed that ... and this caused it to trigger and lower your submissions ranking on the site." would have been an order of magnitude more effective. Even if it was only one short paragraph, it would have been _better_.

<comment><USER8> What strikes me as rude and presumptuous is when people complain about the HN site. There is no HN Pro with a support package. We're not paying to take part in this community. It reminds me of all the stories of freemium products where the free version users are more demanding than the paying customers.

<comment><USER9> Well, this is really promotional site for Y Combinator, in the same way as Joel's blog was a promotional blog for his company (Fog Creek). So by this token we (users of the site) serve a double function - consumers and producers of content and marketing audience, i.e. we are paying for use of the site by being marketing targets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It seems unlikely that this is algorithmic, hence, I would guess if a post is deemed to not be meeting HN standards / guidelines, moderators can "demote" a post, essentially removing it from the front page. So in this case, was the title simply too link-baity? And who judges that?

This is obviously a guess, and looking through the FAQ (Official and unofficial!), I can't seem to see it stated anywhere.

Another possibility could be user flagging, but that would seem too easy to game maliciously.

I think whilst some elements of your filtering you want to keep secret to stop spammers, it would be helpful to understand this throttling behaviour to help people submit better content. Transparency is often helpful to create less work for both sides, so if an answer could be given, I think people would be interested to know!

<comment><USER10> i don't know how current it is, but i believe that hn source is included in the arc download - see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1390685> \- so you could try looking there to see how flagging is handled.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point - could be in here, but it's 1:30am and I probably shouldn't be learning Arc right now! Will take a look in the morning.

        (= flag-threshold* 30 flag-kill-threshold* 7 many-flags* 1)

        ; Un-flagging something doesn't unkill it, if it's now no longer
        ; over flag-kill-threshold.  Ok, since arbitrary threshold anyway.

        (def flaglink (i user whence)
          (when (and user
                     (isnt user i!by)
                     (or (admin user) (> (karma user) flag-threshold*)))
            (pr bar*)
            (w/rlink (do (togglemem user i!flags)
                         (when (and (~mem 'nokill i!keys)
                                    (len> i!flags flag-kill-threshold*)
                                    (~find admin:!2 i!vote))
                           (kill i 'flags))
                         whence)
              (pr "@(if (mem user i!flags) 'un)flag"))
            (when (and (admin user) (len> i!flags many-flags*))
              (pr bar* (plural (len i!flags) "flag") " ")
              (w/rlink (do (togglemem 'nokill i!keys)
                           (save-item i)
                           whence)
                (pr (if (mem 'nokill i!keys) "un-notice" "noted"))))))

<comment><USER11> This is the craziest programming language I have ever seen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Are there any YC companies competing directly in the space? 42Floors comes to mind, although I believe they are focused exclusively on commercial real estate at the moment.

If there is a YC company that competes directly with you, I could see incentive for a mod to suppress your post. </tinfoil hat speculation>

<comment><USER13> It's not tinfoil hat speculation. Sharp dropoffs also happened when the story of an AirBNB house being robbed broke. Rather than just seeing one story dropping off we need a way to see every time this happens to make our own minds up over whether it's above board.

<comment><USER14> From everything I know about PG and YC, I highly doubt they themselves would take that kind of action unless a post was outright slander. It just seems Nixonian.

That said, there is obviously quite a bit of goodwill on HN for PG and YC. You could call it fanboyism if you were feeling uncharitable. To me, that seems a much more likely scenario - an anti-YC submission getting a bunch of flag votes, rather than an intervention by admins.

<comment><USER13> Agree, plenty of goodwill from me as well, which is why I was surprised to see a popular voted question about a YC company having trouble suddenly disappear then. Without a good explanation it makes me lose trust in the transparency of HN, whether due to flag votes or direct intervention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> You 're all entrepreneurs (or wannapreneurs). Why doesn't one of you create a service that will employ mechanical turks as seed to bootstrap a new website by using it and providing honest feedback? I know i would pay for that. Being on the frontpage in HN will not guarantee seed userbase; it's more of an ego boost.

</comment><comment><USER16> Probably the algorithm, check out these(old) posts on it...

<http://amix.dk/blog/post/19574>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781013>

<comment><AUTHOR> Those posts describe a smooth drop off as a function of time and votes - <USER2> some instances (such as the one linked to) that clearly isn't the case.

<comment><USER17> I'm wondering if there's any description of the voting ring detector used by HN

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What I want to know is how I get tons of HN traffic daily months after my post is off the front page.

<comment><USER19> Search engine results. The comments are indexed and are often niche enough to dominate certain search terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Can I ask what js framework/proj. you are using to graph the data?

<comment><USER21> looks like highcharts JS

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Because you're on the 15th page by then?</comment>


Ask HN: Can seed funding be partly used for basic salary? - <AUTHOR>

I am applying to an accelerator program that gives 30,000 euros for 6% and also gives all the mentorship and support for 12 weeks. I would quit my full time employment if I got accepted but am just wondering how I am going to live i.e. food, mortgage etc. Is it acceptable to use part of the seed money for basic living expenses or is the frowned upon? <comment><USER2> You must contact the accelerator program to answer this question - some (like startupchile) allow for you to pay yourself a salary - others may not.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks kitcar!!!</comment></comment>