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ThingOne
Jul 30, 2011



Would you like some tofu?


Coolguye posted:

oh man, with sincx's entire meltdown i actually went back and was like "no seriously, who the gently caress is this guy", and it turns out he's the loving weirdo who stalked me through multiple threads and tried to paint me up as a white supremacist for clinically explaining the cultural roots of 'southern hospitality' (lack of hotels in the agrarian south) at one point

his callout posts were so weak that random posters were saying they were embarrassed for him lmfao

really puts this indignation at being hosed with, and assertion into context:

Lol he's the guy who compared Hololive to an "online Shenyun" because they didn't force Coco to apologize to the Chinese nationalists harassing her.

sincx posted:

Gamers everywhere tend to be right-wing and nationalistic, so there's definitely a market in the West (or at least in Five Eyes + Japan) for a "China bad" streaming troupe. An online Shenyun, if you will.

That might be where this company is going, if they're allowing their talent to say "gently caress u never come back" to former fans in China.

However, it does limit their ability to work with other companies that are still trying to make money from both sides.


This is what he's upset about.

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feizhouxiongdi2
Oct 9, 2019

This is a bit of an old news (May 2020) but a friend sent it to me today, apparently China has a feminization of male youth problem. Really reminds me of Candace Owens' "Bring back manly man" rhetoric. lol

http://special.chinadevelopment.com.cn/2020zt/2020qglh/dbwyzf/2020/05/1647314.shtml?from=timeline

Last year around the same time (April 2020), Taiwan health officials wore pink masks at a press conference to stand against bullying in schools. Their message was "No color is exclusive to girls or boys."

https://hongkongfp.com/2020/04/14/taiwan-health-officials-don-pink-masks-in-response-to-bullying-fears-among-students/

It's almost like these are two separate societies and going two completely opposite directions, one marching forward and one just turns around and sprints back to the beginning line (and more).

Only registered members can see post attachments!

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


It's nice having Taiwan as an example to point at and refute dumbass Chinese essentialism arguments.

Blistex
Oct 30, 2003

Macho Business
Donkey Wrestler

Grand Fromage posted:

It's nice having Taiwan as an example to point at and refute dumbass Chinese essentialism arguments.

Loved pointing this out to mainlanders who would say, "this cannot work with Chinese people or culture".

<Smoke starts coming out of their ears like a robot that Kirk gave a logic problem to>

(Actually they would pause, then ramble off a pre-taught talking point that was unrelated)

feizhouxiongdi2
Oct 9, 2019

Blistex posted:

Loved pointing this out to mainlanders who would say, "this cannot work with Chinese people or culture".

<Smoke starts coming out of their ears like a robot that Kirk gave a logic problem to>

(Actually they would pause, then ramble off a pre-taught talking point that was unrelated)

In many ways taiwan is more Confucianism than china

Mao never happened to taiwan!

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Also Taiwan had its own brutal hosed up dictatorship for decades then they... stopped. You can actually just not do that anymore and it's fine.

Blistex
Oct 30, 2003

Macho Business
Donkey Wrestler

Grand Fromage posted:

Also Taiwan had its own brutal hosed up dictatorship for decades then they... stopped. You can actually just not do that anymore and it's fine.

Funny how Korea and Taiwan seemed to do better by every metric when they dumped their authoritarian governments.

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Blistex posted:

Funny how Korea and Taiwan seemed to do better by every metric when they dumped their authoritarian governments.

Korea even had their own massacre of protesting students in the 80s. Fortunately they took a different path after that.

My students in China were actually watching a movie on the Gwangju massacre once and once I realized what it was I was like uh... you're allowed to watch this? And the one I asked just said yeah it's fine since it's about Koreans being bad and not Tiananmen Square.

Fojar38
Sep 2, 2011


Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia


also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/technology/commercial-disinformation-huawei-belgium.html

quote:

Inside a Pro-Huawei Influence Campaign

A covert online push to sway telecommunications policy in favor of the Chinese company may presage a new twist in social manipulation.

By Adam Satariano

Jan. 29, 2021. Updated 5:16 a.m. ET

LONDON — Edwin Vermulst, a trade lawyer in Brussels, did not think twice before he agreed to write an article for Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, that would criticize a Belgian policy that threatened to box the company out of lucrative contracts. He had worked with the company for years.

After the article was published Dec. 17 on a Dutch-language website, he moved on to other work. “That was the beginning and end of my involvement,” he said.

Little did he know that the article would take on a life of its own. It soon became part of a covert pro-Huawei influence campaign in Belgium about 5G networks, the high-speed wireless technology at the center of a geopolitical dispute between the United States and China.

First, at least 14 Twitter accounts posing as telecommunications experts, writers and academics shared articles by Mr. Vermulst and many others attacking draft Belgium legislation that would limit “high risk” vendors like Huawei from building the country’s 5G system, according to Graphika, a research firm that studies misinformation and fake social media accounts. The pro-Huawei accounts used computer-generated profile pictures, a telltale sign of inauthentic activity.

Next, Huawei officials retweeted the fake accounts, giving the articles even wider reach to policymakers, journalists and business leaders. Kevin Liu, Huawei’s president for public affairs and communications in Western Europe, who has a verified Twitter account with 1.1 million followers, shared 60 posts from the fake accounts over three weeks in December, according to Graphika. Huawei’s official account in Europe, with more than five million followers, did so 47 times.

The effort suggests a new twist in social media manipulation, said Ben Nimmo, a Graphika investigator who helped identify the pro-Huawei campaign. Tactics once used mainly for government objectives — like Russia’s interference in the 2016 American presidential election — are being adapted to achieve corporate goals.

“It’s business rather than politics,” Mr. Nimmo said. “It’s not one country targeting another country. It looks like an operation to promote a major multinational’s interests — and to do it against a European state.”

Graphika, which provided research for the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Russian disinformation, said there was not enough evidence to identify who was behind the pro-Huawei operation.

Huawei said in a statement that it had started an internal investigation “to try to find out what exactly has happened and if there has been any inappropriate behavior.”

“Huawei has clear social media policies based on international best practice, and we take any suggestion that they have not been followed very seriously,” the company said. “Some social media and online activity has been brought to our attention suggesting we may have fallen short of these policies and of our wider Huawei values of openness, honesty and transparency.”

Twitter said it had removed the fake accounts after Graphika alerted it to the campaign on Dec. 30.

“Platform manipulation is strictly prohibited under the Twitter rules,” the company said in a statement. “If and when we have clear evidence, we will take action on accounts associated with this practice, which may include permanent suspension.”

Huawei, the crown jewel of China’s technology industry, has suffered from a sustained American campaign to keep its equipment from being used in new 5G networks around the world. The Trump administration said the company posed a national security threat, arguing that the Chinese government could use Huawei’s communications technology for spying. Huawei has strenuously denied those accusations.

The Trump administration took several steps to hobble Huawei, including an effort to cut off its supply of critical semiconductors — policies that the Biden administration hasn’t committed itself to retaining. Britain announced a ban of Huawei products last year; Germany and other European countries are debating restrictions of their own.

The 5G contracts are expected to be worth billions of dollars.

Belgium, home to the headquarters of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, illustrates the risk Huawei faces across Europe, the company’s biggest market outside of China. Until now, Huawei and the Chinese company ZTE had dominated Belgium’s telecommunications-equipment market, according to Strand Consult, a research firm. But as the Belgian government considers new restrictions, wireless operators in the country are shifting 5G deals to rival companies.'

“They fear this could spread to other parts of the world,” said John Strand, the founder of Strand Consult, which works with many wireless companies.

Mr. Nimmo said the pro-Huawei effort in Belgium had been clumsily executed and easy to identify. But it shows, he said, how underhanded internet campaigns try to launder seemingly legitimate material like Mr. Vermulst’s article through a mesh of websites and fake social media accounts to give it an air of impartiality and authenticity.

Graphika discovered the pro-Huawei effort after spotting suspicious posts about Belgium’s 5G policy from Twitter accounts used in an earlier pro-China operation. The Belgian magazine Knack and Michiel van Hulten, director of Transparency International in Brussels, also identified suspicious efforts to spread pro-Huawei information.

The 14 fake accounts amplified by Huawei officials spread positive articles about the company and negative views of Belgium’s 5G policy. The three-week campaign appeared to be tied to a Dec. 30 deadline in Belgium to review the country’s 5G policy.

To the casual Twitter user, the fake accounts looked legitimate. They included bland profile pictures along with career information. Many had more than 1,000 followers.

But on closer inspection, investigators identified problems with the accounts. Many of their followers appeared to be bots. And the pictures had the hallmarks of being created by artificial intelligence software, with perfectly centered photos but small imperfections, like asymmetrical glasses. Online businesses sell these kinds of photos of fake people, which can avoid the risk of detection that using pictures of real individuals can bring.

The fake accounts shared articles and commentary from different online publications, including EU Reporter, which publishes government news to its own website and affiliates like London Globe and New York Globe.

“If the Belgium government excludes specific suppliers, who will pay for it?” read the headline of one news story published on different EU Reporter websites.

Colin Stevens, the publisher of EU Reporter, said in an email that he had “no knowledge of any fake Twitter accounts promoting our articles.” Mr. Stevens said that Huawei had paid EU Reporter to publish opinion articles in the past, but that those were always labeled with disclaimers. The Belgian 5G stories were independently assigned without Huawei involvement, he said.

“EU Reporter would never knowingly be part of a disinformation campaign,” Mr. Stevens said.

In a few instances, investigators found articles like Mr. Vermulst’s, which Huawei paid for and included disclaimers about the financial arrangement. Other articles critical of the 5G policy appeared on websites that accept user-generated content without review, alongside author pictures that were the same as the computer-generated images in the fake Twitter profiles.

Phil Howard, the director of the Oxford Internet Institute, said operations like this would become more common as disinformation became increasingly commercialized. In a recent report, Oxford University researchers identified 63 instances in which public relations firms were involved in online disinformation operations in 2020. The work is typically on behalf of political figures or governments, he said, but can be applied to businesses.

“The flow of money is increasingly there,” Mr. Howard said. “Large-scale social media influence operations are now part of the communications tool kit for any large global corporation.”

In Belgium, the campaign appeared to have little effect beyond drawing unwanted attention to Huawei’s lobbying efforts. Policymakers have shown no signs of backing away from plans to limit Huawei’s access to the 5G networks. The draft legislation must now be considered by the country’s Parliament.

Mr. Vermulst, the trade lawyer, said he hadn’t known about the fake social media campaign until being contacted for this article. And while he called the effort “silly” and “stupid,” he hoped to continue working for Huawei.

“Lawyers get paid for legal opinions,” he said. “Once that article is in the public domain, anybody can do with it what they want.”

Strategic Tea
Sep 1, 2012

Blistex posted:

Loved pointing this out to mainlanders who would say, "this cannot work with Chinese people or culture".

<Smoke starts coming out of their ears like a robot that Kirk gave a logic problem to>

(Actually they would pause, then ramble off a pre-taught talking point that was unrelated)

"Why do you complain the West is suppressing Chinese microchip fabrication? Taiwan's factories are booming!" <detonates>

Shumagorath
Jun 6, 2001
I was debating whether or not to put this in the Schad thread:

Meng Wanzhou loses bid to loosen bail restrictions

quote:

In a hearing that shone a light on Meng's extravagant life under a loose form of house arrest, the 48-year-old's lawyers argued earlier this month that she was at risk of catching COVID-19 from the changing roster of security guards assigned to prevent her escaping the country.

Meng's legal team claimed she has proven herself trustworthy enough during the two years she has spent on bail to be allowed to move around B.C.'s Lower Mainland during daylight hours without the three guards who accompany her everywhere at present.

But Ehrcke said nothing has changed in Meng's circumstances since she was first released on $10 million bail that would convince him that a loosening of restrictions is warranted.

And he said Meng has the ability to self-isolate at home if she is worried about catching COVID-19. The only appointments she must attend are her court appearances, and the judge said he's satisfied that making the short drive between her mansion in Vancouver's West Side and the courthouse with three guards in her vehicle does not present a threat.

quote:

The Crown raised pictures taken at a private photo shoot witnessed by the CBC last May during which Meng was spotted with more than a dozen friends on the steps of the downtown courthouse. No one was wearing a mask, and no one was maintaining physical distance.


Meng poses with friends and family on the steps of the B.C. Supreme Court building in downtown Vancouver in May 2020, days before a judge was expected to rule on her extradition case. Photographs of the gathering have been used in the current bail hearing. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

quote:

Complicating matters for the defence, Lions Gate Risk Management's chief executive officer said he would no longer be willing to act as one of the sureties for Meng's bail if Ehrcke agrees to let her move around without his guards during the daytime.

Ehrcke said he thought it was significant that the security company would not vouch for Meng unless she was under constant supervision.

Bright Bart
Apr 27, 2020

False. There is only one electron and it has never stopped
So these guys live in a mansion and both guard the lady while also preventing her escape?

That must be a really weird job.

Fur20
Nov 14, 2007

すご▞い!
君は働か░い
フ▙▓ズなんだね!
i'm not even sure they get to live in the mansion, it sounds like they're a team of guards who accompany her at all times when she leaves the mansion

Blistex
Oct 30, 2003

Macho Business
Donkey Wrestler
Pretty sure they sit in their cars all day and night and regularly patrol the grounds when she is home. They only interact with her when she wants to go somewhere.

I'm sure the two Michaels have a similar setup.

Bright Bart
Apr 27, 2020

False. There is only one electron and it has never stopped
Her Wikipedia page is pretty intense. Also parts of it read like it was by a pr firm.

I get that her arrest was be a big deal but seriously not sure any other business person has such a sprawl of text.

Strategic Tea
Sep 1, 2012

I imagine it wasby a PR firm, or direct from a state propaganda agency

Vesi
Jan 12, 2005

pikachu looking at?

Grand Fromage posted:

Korea even had their own massacre of protesting students in the 80s. Fortunately they took a different path after that.

My students in China were actually watching a movie on the Gwangju massacre once and once I realized what it was I was like uh... you're allowed to watch this? And the one I asked just said yeah it's fine since it's about Koreans being bad and not Tiananmen Square.

So which Koreans were bad, the students or the troops? Or both?

McGavin
Sep 18, 2012

The North Koreans, duh.

Pharohman777
Jan 14, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
A few leftist bilingual Chinese-english accounts are using the hashtag #wonderlandoftankies then they encounter horrible stuff they translate.
https://twitter.com/LurxismYenChiu/status/1354032486636941312
https://twitter.com/LurxismYenChiu/status/1351539364325539848
https://twitter.com/LurxismYenChiu/status/1346330440848719873
https://twitter.com/LurxismYenChiu/status/1330850705314246659

Porfiriato
Jan 4, 2016


Sounds like the WHO team in Wuhan is making solid progress in getting to the bottom of the origins of COVID-19 and definitely not just being given the runaround by the Chinese government.

https://twitter.com/antd/status/1355388562879832064?s=20

Mozi
Apr 4, 2004

Forms change so fast
Time is moving past
Memory is smoke
Gonna get wider when I die
Nap Ghost
seems pretty by the book to me

Barudak
May 7, 2007

A beautiful world with beautiful places to visit

Barudak fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Jun 28, 2021

oohhboy
Jun 8, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
One day. Could not put up the charade for one day. I expected it to last a bit longer than that.

Still :lol:.

WHO: "I am on a vital mission for all humanity to not only fight our current pandemic but prevent increasingly likely future illness. Untold millions of lives will be saved. The prestige's worth is more than any amount of money. Please help me"

Tourist scammer: "You buy now or no bus".

Porfiriato
Jan 4, 2016


The tour guide part was a bit of poking fun from the guy retweeting it (though dead-on for anyone who's ever been in a mainland tour group)...but I still expected the WHO to make it more than a single day before obediently trotting around to CCP propaganda museums, when they're ostensibly there to uncover the origins of the deadliest pandemic in a century.

https://twitter.com/chesh/status/1355413972955103233?s=20

Blistex
Oct 30, 2003

Macho Business
Donkey Wrestler

I'm guessing that the team made a concession, assuming their act of good faith and patience would be reciprocated . . .

MarcusSA
Sep 23, 2007

Blistex posted:

I'm guessing that the team made a concession, assuming their act of good faith and patience would be reciprocated . . .

Lol that’s a good one.

Dandywalken
Feb 11, 2014

I got the gochugaru. Its a miracle

KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD
Jul 7, 2012

Posted about this in bosthread and they directed me here: my close friend is from Tianjin, she can't go home for the new year due to her visa situation and COVID. She misses baiju and I am hoping to pick some up to help her feel better / more drunk. Does anyone know what brand a northerner like her would prefer? Also if there is somewhere to get this stuff in massachusetts?

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Ming River is the only widely sold one in the US that I'm aware of. It's supposedly pretty decent for baijiu, but I'm not going to investigate personally.

hakimashou
Jul 15, 2002
Upset Trowel

KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:

Posted about this in bosthread and they directed me here: my close friend is from Tianjin, she can't go home for the new year due to her visa situation and COVID. She misses baiju and I am hoping to pick some up to help her feel better / more drunk. Does anyone know what brand a northerner like her would prefer? Also if there is somewhere to get this stuff in massachusetts?

Sometimes Asian grocery stores have it, you could also probably order some online. If it’s northern Chinese it is probably the most foul kind so anything would do.

There is really expensive baijiu if you want to get something expensive


here's a list of stores shipping baijiu to mass.

https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/baijiu/1/usa-ma-y

hakimashou fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Jan 31, 2021

bob dobbs is dead
Oct 8, 2017

I love peeps
Nap Ghost
the expensive kind does not taste any less like gasoline, either

Zakrello
Feb 17, 2015

missile imbound

Blistex posted:

I'm guessing that the team made a concession, assuming their act of good faith and patience would be reciprocated . . .

a site visit ONE YEAR too late, I don't think one should expect anything meaningful coming out from all this BS show anyway

hakimashou
Jul 15, 2002
Upset Trowel

bob dobbs is dead posted:

the expensive kind does not taste any less like gasoline, either

I had one memorably actually delicious baijiu and I don’t even think it was expensive, it was 老桂林

Blistex
Oct 30, 2003

Macho Business
Donkey Wrestler

Zakrello posted:

a site visit ONE YEAR too late, I don't think one should expect anything meaningful coming out from all this BS show anyway

It's going to be like an episode of 1990's era Law and Order. They show up, start asking questions, and inexplicably a New York Wuhan dock worker (who is moving boxes by hand a distance of only 8') tells them he remembers seeing Li Wen giving a Pangolin oral behind a dumpster.

The team shows up at the dumpster to look for any evidence that might have survived and just as they are setting up a man with a Pangolin starts walking down the alley. He sees the team, drops the Pangolin, and runs.

They take Li Wen back to the local WHO lab and confirm his identity. By luck, there were two separate business CCTV cameras that caught the Pangolin suckfest and still had the footage from a year ago. DNA sequencing proves that Wen was patient zero and receipts in his wallet showed that he travelled extensively the week after contracting the flu. The icing on the cake is Wen giving a full confession and leading the team to where he buried the Pangolin body.

The team takes this info to the local government and are promptly taken to a museum that explains that the virus was a result of inter-species breeding experiments at Ft. Bragg in the US. The purpose was to create the perfect politician (photo of Obama) but it also released the "US Flu" which made it to China on some frozen Toaster Strudels being shipped to Wuhan. The team are then driven directly to the airport and deported.

blacksocks
Feb 20, 2007

I laughed, thank you for that image.

peanut
Sep 9, 2007


lol

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug

bob dobbs is dead posted:

the expensive kind does not taste any less like gasoline, either

The gasoline taste is constant, but I’ve noticed some variation in the “old sock smell” taste from brand to brand.

bob dobbs is dead
Oct 8, 2017

I love peeps
Nap Ghost
one strat i have found success w for gifting baiju is bringing along another bottle of different liquor so you can actually go get drunk off of that one and sorta look at the baiju, like liquid dwarf bread

Beccara
Feb 3, 2005

Blistex posted:

It's going to be like an episode of 1990's era Law and Order. They show up, start asking questions, and inexplicably a New York Wuhan dock worker (who is moving boxes by hand a distance of only 8') tells them he remembers seeing Li Wen giving a Pangolin oral behind a dumpster.

The team shows up at the dumpster to look for any evidence that might have survived and just as they are setting up a man with a Pangolin starts walking down the alley. He sees the team, drops the Pangolin, and runs.

They take Li Wen back to the local WHO lab and confirm his identity. By luck, there were two separate business CCTV cameras that caught the Pangolin suckfest and still had the footage from a year ago. DNA sequencing proves that Wen was patient zero and receipts in his wallet showed that he travelled extensively the week after contracting the flu. The icing on the cake is Wen giving a full confession and leading the team to where he buried the Pangolin body.

The team takes this info to the local government and are promptly taken to a museum that explains that the virus was a result of inter-species breeding experiments at Ft. Bragg in the US. The purpose was to create the perfect politician (photo of Obama) but it also released the "US Flu" which made it to China on some frozen Toaster Strudels being shipped to Wuhan. The team are then driven directly to the airport and deported.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVt5EZNAqLU

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hakimashou
Jul 15, 2002
Upset Trowel
I enjoyed drinking baijiu for quite a while until i had a real bad experience and then didn't enjoy it anymore.

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