No fucking way!
It’s always the ones you’d least expect…
Yup, always radio free Asia 🤣
“A thing that happened in China probably happened in China and therefore is the entire responsibility of the Chinese government”
CIA Mouthpiece, who is definitely not connected to the CIA
You mean University of Toronto? You read the article?
Good point. Maybe the original report should’ve been linked there rather than the CIA mouthpiece reporting of it. I’ve never seen this laboratory and they should not automatically be trustworthy just because they are from an university, since it is not peer-reviewed, but let’s analyse their claims.
Summary from their report:
H3. INORGANIC, CHINA STATE-SPONSORED
Most Likely Scenario
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The majority of the evidence that we have identified is consistent with the hypothesis of a state-backed influence operation.
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The timing coincidence between the removal of a Chinese state-sponsored IO by Twitter in July/August 2019, and the start of the HKLEAKS campaign, is an indicator tilting the analysis towards HKLEAKS being backed by the Chinese government.
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Javascript code used by HKLEAKS contained Mandarin words and acronyms in Hanyu Pinyin spelling, typical of mainland China.
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Some doxxing used privileged information, only available to the Hong Kong and/or Chinese authorities.
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It is possible that the campaign also benefited from some degree of organic engagement by sympathetic online communities.
First and last one are just opinion based on the three in the middle. First actual one is just about another “operation” of spammers on twitter that “originated in the PRC”. Although they claim in the summary that they were “state-sponsored” both they and their source on that (which is the Australian govt btw) provide only as evidence that they have spammed against people who are generally hated by patriotic Chinese people like Guo Wengui. In all honesty, to me it just seems like they assume it is state sponsored because the tweets are in Chinese and coming from China, and even the “timeline” is not that much of a certainty with a 3 week gap between both events for a riot timeline of around 3 months. China has a lot of people with very high approval for their own government, and there is no listed evidence there besides the “coincidence” for both of them being the same group, let alone being handled by the same shadow branch of the government.
Second one is just bizarre, obviously if the campaign is coming from mainlanders it is going to use mainlander lingo. Again, that only narrows it down to being made by mainlanders (possibly even mainlanders that participate in Hong Kong), and does not implicate the government.
The last one is the best smoking gun they have, but that could also be a leak and there’s no evidence presented to determine any intentional participation from the actual government. Their main source on this. They also link to this facebook post as a “other reports”, not sure what is up with that. I’ll admit that the reported response by the agency doesn’t help their case, but I haven’t dug into that and it is not an admission of guilt either.
So in conclusion, I see very little evidence in the report itself that it was state-sponsored other than trusting blindly the Aussie govt or assuming that because something is from the mainland it is made by the government. They don’t even include their shy “Most likely scenario” assessment in their conclusion, and it is only in a random box in the middle of the report.
I still stand by my words that this is basically “something that happened in China happened in China, therefore is the fault of the government” kind of nonsense. Feel free to correct me though.
I’ll leave you with a Weibo post from one of the alleged spam accounts which I found really recognisable for Westerners. I wonder what that’ll mean for northwestern countries. Is the USA sponsoring disinformation campaigns on twitter during protests and riots?
In the past four months, rioters in Hong Kong have blocked the subway, the airport, the roads, surrounded the government headquarters, stormed the police station, destroyed public and private property, insulted the national flag and national emblem, attacked journalists and tourists, exposed the identity of police officers and their family members recklessly, incited sexual harassment of the wives of the police, and bullied the police’s children who were still in kindergarten. These illegal acts are shocking and outrageous! Today’s Hong Kong is devastated, and Chinese people all over the world are heartbroken and find this unacceptable!
Kudos for the well-reasoned reply. I see your points and now agree that it is difficult to draw conclusive links based on opinion. I also agree the third point would likely be the smoking gun here and is most concerning. It’s hard to prove or disprove, though. As you said, it could be a leak. I suppose if leaks become regular or frequent, it would be another matter though. We’ll see. Fair points though, thanks.
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CIA is getting desperate for things to say about China that might be bad. I guess they shot their shot with the Uighurs and then found out what’s gonna happen at the BRICS summit and are scrambling for something better then Adrian Zenz saying that China is installing over 100 IUDs per capita in Xinjiang.
linking CIA
Radio Free Asia (RFA) was a news agency operated from 1951 to 1955 by the Central Intelligence Agency, through the Committee for Free Asia, to broadcast anti-Communist propaganda.[1][2][3][4][5]: 120
RFA first broadcast in 1951 from RCA facilities in Manila, Philippines. Broadcasts were made in three Chinese dialects, as well as in English.[3] RFA maintained offices in Tokyo, and aside from in the Philippines, broadcasts were also made from Dhaka and Karachi, Pakistan. Although intended to broadcast anti-Communist propaganda into mainland China, as well as to overseas Chinese and others, the news agency faced difficulties in doing so.[3] In mainland China personal radio ownership was low, and in other parts of Asia, radio reception was poor.[3][1] In 1953, the Committee for Free Asia decided to terminate RFA,[6] with it finally going off the air in 1955.[1] However, propaganda broadcasting continued with new facilities in Seoul through Radio Of Free Asia until 1966.[7][8]
Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia were later preserved by the Clinton Administration and repurposed into their modern iterations.[9][page needed]
During the Cold War, RFE was broadcast to Soviet satellite states, including the Baltic states, and RL targeted the Soviet Union; RFE was founded as an anti-communist propaganda[11] source in 1949 by the National Committee for a Free Europe, while RL was founded two years later. The two organizations merged in 1976. Communist governments frequently sent agents to infiltrate RFE’s headquarters, and the KGB regularly jammed its signals. RFE/RL was headquartered at Englischer Garten in Munich, West Germany, from 1949 to 1995. Another broadcast site was operated at the village of Glória do Ribatejo, east of Lisbon, Portugal, from 1951 to 1996. European operations have been significantly reduced since the end of the Cold War.
From Wikipedia.
[audible, but clearly sarcastic gasp]
I guess it’s official that I can blame the American government for anything that happens in America, right?
