Slashdot Mirror
China Spreads Propaganda to U.S. on Facebook, a Platform it Bans at Home (nytimes.com)
Paul Mozur, reporting for the New York Times: China does not allow its people to gain access to Facebook, a powerful tool for disseminating information and influencing opinion. As if to demonstrate the platform's effectiveness, outside its borders China uses it to spread state-produced propaganda around the world, including the United States (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source). So much do China's government and companies value Facebook that the country is Facebook's biggest advertising market in Asia, even as it is the only major country in the region that blocks the social network. A look at the Facebook pages of China Central Television, the leading state-owned broadcast network better known as CCTV, and Xinhua, China's official news agency, reveals hundreds of English-language posts intended for an English-speaking audience. Each quarter China's government, through its state media agencies, spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy Facebook ads, according to a person with knowledge of those deals, who was unauthorized to talk publicly about the company's revenue streams. China's propaganda efforts are in the spotlight with President Trump visiting the country and American lawmakers investigating foreign powers's use of technology to sway voters in the United States.
I would be *amazed* if the USA is not trying to further the US agenda (whatever that is) using social networks targeted at/in other countries. Is there much difference between Voice of America and such a practice?
You obviously are not aware of how Communist government works. First of all, it is a dictatorship. They call it that way themselves: "dictatorship of proletariat". No other party is allowed to exist. They rely on mind control for their existence (look at what happened at Russia after Gorbachev relaxed the regime). Censorship is the moving force in the country. Dissidents are being executed by a firing squad.
That is a silly argument. Should we have censored Watergate reporting because it only hurt one side? Should Woodward and Bernstein have been required to wait until they had some counterbalancing dirt on the Democrats?
The Constitution says "no law" abridging free speech. It doesn't make an exception for "unbalanced" speech, nor does it make an exception for censorship of foreigners.