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A few days ago the New York Times me ProPublica published extensive research on how the Chinese government manipulated public discourse in its favor during the worst months of the coronavirus pandemic in the country, employing hundreds of thousands of people in online censorship and propaganda activities, with the intention, including the other things, to reduce the perception of the danger of the virus just as it was spreading outside the country.
The investigation is based on a large number of documents (3,200 directives, 1,800 reports) stolen by a group of hackers from the office of the China Cyberspace Administration, the Chinese agency that deals with Internet regulation (CAC) in Hangzhou. a city of ten million people in the east of the country, not far from Shanghai. The documents were obtained by a group of hackers called CCP Unmasked (CCP stands for Communist Party of China) and passed to the New York Times It’s in ProPublica. The hackers also obtained documents and information about Urun Big Data Services, a company that produces software used by Chinese administrations to monitor Internet conversations and manipulate speech online.
The research, in addition to providing some elements on the censorship and manipulation of information during the pandemic, shows from the inside the operation of the Chinese censorship apparatus, which is extremely sophisticated and requires employment, at least part-time, of hundreds of thousands of people both in censorship activities and, above all, in the dissemination of propaganda messages and in the publication of comments in favor of the regime.
The China Cyberspace Administration is an agency created in 2014 by Chinese President Xi Jinping with the aim of centralizing all online censorship and propaganda activities. The agency reports directly to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, one of the most important organs of the state, and has offices throughout the country. Usually these offices deal with censorship and propaganda at the local level: complaints against the administration, problems of public order, small protests, etc. However, from the beginning of January 2020 and during the following months, the Hangzhou office began to continuously deal with the national crisis caused by the coronavirus.
For example, a central CAC directive required all media to use only official material to communicate the new virus and avoid comparisons with SARS, which caused a very serious epidemic in 2002, although the WHO at the time already stated that the two diseases were similar.
– Read also: How did you do with SARS
In early February, as the virus continued to spread, the central government ordered an additional restriction on online communication, and the CAC began issuing very strict guidelines on what content news sites could display and how pages should be composed. Of start. and even how long each article could stay online and which titles to highlight. One of the most important orders was to limit the perception of the danger of the epidemic, for example avoiding the use of adjectives such as “lethal”.
In addition, the media were ordered not to testify to news about donations and purchases abroad of medical devices such as masks, gloves and respirators, for two reasons: not to give the impression that the country depended on the outside and, above all ,, divert attention from the fact that China was accumulating large stocks of medical devices obtained in the international market, just as the virus was spreading abroad. In the months that followed, China would pay great public attention to donations of masks made to European countries heavily affected by the coronavirus.
The biggest problem for state censors, however, arose after the death of Li Wenliang, a Chinese doctor who was among the first to raise the alarm about the new coronavirus in a talk with colleagues on December 30, 2019, and that for this had been punished. Dr. Li, an ophthalmologist, later became ill and died of COVID-19 on February 7. His story, broadcast on local social media, especially on Weibo, created a stir both in China and abroad and became a symbol of the Chinese government’s bad faith in managing the crisis.
– Read also: The cult around Li Wenliang
In documents obtained from New York Times me ProPublicaChinese censors wrote that Li’s death was “an unprecedented challenge” and issued numerous directives to regulate online speech and contain anger, for example allowing displays of affection and farewell, but removing all content that could “arouse Public opinion “. In the days after Li’s death, many online duels began to disappear, and at the same time the police were activated, arresting or threatening users who had posted the most critical or dangerous comments. The media were also instructed to praise the heroic acts of doctors and other medical personnel, especially if they were members of the Communist Party.
More importantly, to manipulate public discourse, the Chinese government used hundreds of thousands of low-level officials who, often part-time, spread propaganda messages, posted positive comments on social media, led online conversations, and assisted. to the censorship reporting most of the content. controversial. The Chinese government has been using large numbers of people for years (in the West around 2008-2009) to control and manipulate speech online: these officials are called wumao, which means 50 cents, because initially 50 cents of a yuan (at the current exchange rate of about 6 cents of a euro) were paid for each positive comment.
the New York Times me ProPublica obtained an updated rate sheet reported to the city of Guangzhou, in southern China, showing, at least in this unique case (but it is not specified whether the rate has ever been applied), a significant increase in inflation, because officials paid 160 yuan (about 20 euros) for a post of at least 400 words, and 2.5 yuan (about 30 cents) for each negative comment.
– Read also: How it ended up in Wuhan
The sophistication of this system is also demonstrated by the documents stolen from the Urun company, which produces software that enables the automation of many processes related to censorship and propaganda. The software created by Urun, for example, allows you to monitor trends online and massively manage fake social media accounts to spread propaganda. Urun has also developed an app that commenters can download to work with their smartphone, as well as a kind of game to see which commenters are most effective in their propaganda work (the rate sheet above comes from the Urun docs).
Paul Mozur, one of the journalists of the New York Times who covered the investigation, in a Twitter thread added some details not present in the article, writing among other things that he was “shocked” by the level of ingenuity used by China in manipulating the internet shown in the stolen documents. Mozur lives in China and has been involved in the internet, censorship, and propaganda for years as a correspondent. Among other things, Mozur shows the level of detail with which the Chinese bureaucracy documents its censorship activity: the local CAC offices prepare numerous reports daily to be sent to headquarters, in which they list all the accounts one by one, all sites, all messages closed or deleted, as well as all propaganda activities.
For example, during the outbreak, each district in Hangzhou returned forms at 4:30 pm and 5:00 pm summarizing their activity for the day. How many harmful posts did they delete, how many accounts did they close. How much traffic the government commenters received. Incredibly thorough and methodical. pic.twitter.com/d31jfV3mJy
– Paul Mozur 孟建國 (@paulmozur) December 19, 2020
As they write the New York Times me ProPublica, it is impossible to say whether a freer flow of information in the first weeks of the spread of the coronavirus would have turned the tide of what later turned out to be a terrible pandemic globally. The documents show that the goal of the censorship and propaganda work was not only to avoid panic, but also to give the impression that the epidemic was less severe and the government’s response more efficient.
As Mozur also points out on Twitter, months later the regime has achieved its purpose: Li Wenliang is practically forgotten and a very positive consensus among the citizens has been created around the management of the crisis by the Chinese government, also favored by the A fact that the severe measures adopted after the first Chinese closure managed to prevent the return of contagion in the country.
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