The Chinese government has built up the world’s largest known online disinformation operation and is using it to harass US residents, politicians, and businesses—at times threatening its targets with violence, a CNN review of court documents and public disclosures by social media companies has found.

The onslaught of attacks – often of a vile and deeply personal nature – is part of a well-organized, increasingly brazen Chinese government intimidation campaign targeting people in the United States, documents show.

The US State Department says the tactics are part of a broader multi-billion-dollar effort to shape the world’s information environment and silence critics of Beijing that has expanded under President Xi Jinping. On Wednesday, President Biden is due to meet Xi at a summit in San Francisco.

Victims face a barrage of tens of thousands of social media posts that call them traitors, dogs, and racist and homophobic slurs. They say it’s all part of an effort to drive them into a state of constant fear and paranoia.

  • Tedesche@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    What’s sad is I can’t even tell if you’re being serious or not, so I’ll just post this:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba#:~:text=Cuba is one of a,political opposition is not permitted.

    Cuba is one of a few extant Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist states, in which the role of the vanguard Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Cuba has an authoritarian regime where political opposition is not permitted.

    Yes, it’s a fucking dictatorship.

    • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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      1 year ago

      Who’s the dictator? Are their laws literally forced down upon the people? Is there no democratic process?

      According to the constitution, Cuba is a socialist republic where all members or representative bodies of state power are elected and subject to recall and the masses control the activity of the state agencies, the deputies, delegates and officials. Elections in Cuba have two phases:

      election of delegates to the Municipal Assembly, and election of deputies to the National Assembly. Candidates for municipal assemblies are nominated on an individual basis at local levels by the local population at nomination assemblies. Candidates for the National Assembly are nominated by the municipal assemblies from lists compiled by national and municipal candidacy commissions. Suggestions for nominations are made at all levels mainly by mass organizations, trade unions, people’s councils, and student federations. The final list of candidates for the National Assembly, one for each district, is drawn up by the National Candidacy Commission.

      Cuba’s national legislature, the National Assembly of People’s Power, has 605 members who sit for five-year terms. Members of the National Assembly represent multiple-member constituencies (2 to 5 members per district), with one Deputy for each 20,000 inhabitants

      Candidates for the National Assembly are chosen by candidacy commissions chaired by local trade union officials and composed of elected representatives of “mass organisations” representing workers, youth, women, students and farmers. The provincial and municipal candidacy commissions submit nominations to the National Candidacy Commission.


      Article 88(h) of the Cuban constitution, adopted in 1976, provides for citizen proposals of law, prerequisite that the proposal be made by at least 10,000 citizens who are eligible to vote.


      The Cuban government describes the full Cuban electoral process as a form of democracy. The Cuban Ministry of External Affairs describes the candidate-selection process as deriving from “direct nomination of candidates for delegates to the municipal assemblies by the voters themselves at public assemblies,” and points out that at the elections to the municipal assemblies, voters do have a choice of candidates. The ban on election campaigning is presented as “The absence of million–dollar election campaigns where resorting to insults, slander and manipulation are the norm.”


      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Cuba

      It’s different than our liberal “democracy” for sure. It has far more mass involvement at every level.

      https://cuba-solidarity.org.uk/cubasi/article/187/all-in-this-together-cubarsquos-participatory-democracy

      • Tedesche@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I don’t for one second believe you need this history lesson; you’re just trolling, but for the sake of documentation.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro#:~:text=Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and,reforms were implemented throughout society.

        There is no possible democracy in a one-party system, because all of the politicians you can vote for have to be approved one way or another by the only allowable party. This isn’t complicated, and the fact that you point to Cuban sources and claim that’s all that’s going on is pretty laughable. I could point to Iranian sources and claim that’s not a corrupt state, but it wouldn’t be true.

        Honestly, you sound exactly like one of the trolls described in the OP article, and this is the end of my convo with you. You’re either trolling or as detached from reality as a Trumper.

        • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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          1 year ago

          Fidel is dead, btw. Who’s the dictator of Cuba? How are laws made in Cuba? What process do they go through?

          Maybe look into things like that before blindly spewing western propaganda.

      • TheTetrapod@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They won’t reply to this. Far too much fact here for them to handwave away, so they probably won’t bother.

    • VentraSqwal@links.dartboard.social
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      1 year ago

      Tbh I think having everyone in the country in the same party might be a perk. It’s an interesting way of abolishing the idea of political parties. Basically opposition is allowed, we saw that with those protests before, the economic reforms, and the Constitution updates, but it’s done by people changing things within the party.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        When you cannot vote for anyone but communists, you don’t have a democracy

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I call it “You need to get involved in local politics and run your candidates through the system.”

            Bernie Sanders would never call himself a capitalist. If you want to change the system, elect 50 of him.

            • RichCaffeineFlavor@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Bernie Sanders can call himself a strawberry crepe if he wants to. He’s a new deal democrat. Not only just a social democrat but one who lines up to support every foreign adventure the US sets out on.

              And you’re dodging the point. This is a country that murders leftists when they get too organized. You’re not allowed to vote for another system.

              • SCB@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Cool, so start there and drive it forward. Or run a credible third party from the grassroots up.

                It’s nonsensical to suggest that “outsider” candidates and beliefs can win in our system when the Tea Party, MAGA, and shit like Moms For Liberty all represent a new direction that has never existed in US politics.

                You can’t credibly say it can’t be done, you just don’t want to be the one to do it. That’s fine, but be intellectually honest about it.

                Leftist candidates can’t win in the US because leftism isnt popular. If you want to change that, you can.

                This is a country that murders leftists when they get too organized

                This is nonsense and just you copping out.

                • StalinsSpoon@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  This is nonsense and just you copping out.

                  The assassinations of MLK, Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton were just coincidences, then? Sure seems like any credible movement wound up being eliminated if it required any systemic change.

                  • SCB@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    These are civil rights leaders from 70 years ago, not current leftists.

                    Again, this is just a massive cop-out on your part.

                    The reason leftists will never succeed in America is that they are completely unwilling or unable to do the work required - that’s their only barrier of entry.

                    You’ll note all of the above actually succeeded in their goals, as well.

        • HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          In a single-party state, I’d expect the actual debate occurs inside the framework of the party. You’ve still got different viewpoints and factions, but they’re not directly campaigning for votes. That might encourage more work towards consensus, because it’s not an every-four-years winner-take-all battle for control.

          The fetish for electoral democracy runs the risk of confusing means for ends. Democracy is one way to deliver good governance, but is it the only one? Is it the best one for all situations?

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Democracy is one way to deliver good governance, but is it the only one? Is it the best one for all situations?

            Liberal Democracy is the only acceptable form of government.

            Also please note you’re harping for the CCP (a one-party state) in a fucking thread about how people online are targeted with CCP propaganda.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              I hesitate to say it’s the only acceptable form, but it’s the best one I’ve seen so far. I like Churchill’s quote here:

              Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…

              It’s possible someone will come up with a better form of government, and perhaps that already exists on paper. However, Communism/socialism ain’t it, at least not the one party form used today.