In a YouTube video, a voice in English announces that China has researched and developed its own ultra-thin 1-nanometer chip – a staggering claim given that the chip isn’t expected in commercial devices for another decade.
“Recent news from China has sent ripples of excitement and astonishment across the globe,” gushes the voice-over on the China Charged YouTube channel. “This revolutionary breakthrough is more than a technological marvel; it is a game-changer that will redefine the global tech landscape.”
“Prepare to have your mind blown,” says another video, this time on the channel Unbelievable Projects. “Welcome to today’s video, in which we’ll discover why America remains behind China in infrastructure development.”
These voices and their “good news” about China are evidence that the Chinese Communist Party and its overseas proxies are using artificial intelligence to flood YouTube with propaganda videos, according to a new report that describes a “coordinated inauthentic influence campaign” on the platform.
I’d be surprised if it’s just China
At this point, I assume every major government has the capabilities and the intent to use AI for exactly this purpose.
Oppose at all fronts you can, this is not okay.
The specifics of this article aside, I am so not looking forward to the continued proliferation of AI based bullshit on the internet/public discourse/the media/etc. It’s gonna get so so much worse, we’re just scratching the surface right now. The validity of any photo or video will be destroyed and nothing will be trustworthy anymore. This is great news for fascists who thrive in a world where the truth is unknowable and meaningless.
The specifics of US propaganda aside…
> The videos are part of at least 30 channels identified by researchers as being part of the “Shadow Play” network promoting pro-China and anti-U.S. narratives, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
> according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute
> Australian
Culturally there is no real concept of plagiarism or cheating in China. Any shortcut is acceptable, because if you aren’t using it someone else is.
Sometimes I wonder if there are different “levels” of propaganda nation states put out. Like you have this obviously fake crap get a bunch of surface-knowlege people. Then you have more subtle things put out - like social media accounts pretending that something false is a ground truth. You’ll then get people who can catch the fake videos and then believe the fake accounts no problem because it’s obviously can’t be propaganda - because you know what propaganda looks like. cough gell-mann amnesia cough
Or maybe nation states are really that incompetent and the only level of propaganda they can put out is like the article’s videos. Honestly people give way too much credit to how much these folks know/plan out. There’s no secret cabal playing 5d chess. They’re normal people (ie. dumbfucks) pushing a message.
Who knows.
Propaganda is a quantity over quality game. You’re not trying to convince the die-hard supporters of the other side, that’s not realistic. You’re trying to give informational cover to your own side.
It’s like suppressive fire. Is the machine gunner specifically trying to kill the enemy? No, he’s sending bullets whizzing overhead to change their behavior. Then his buddies can circle around their cover and very specifically aim at and kill them.
edit: You are right that it’s no 5d chess though. It’s more like the excuses you’d get out of a young kid. Just flak, intended to get in the way. Fired in quantity.
There’s also Russian style propaganda which isn’t really about sending any specific message but more about sowing chaos. It’s about blasting people with so much contradictory information that they become overwhelmed and exhausted and just give up trying to pay attention to anything. To say it a different way it’s about lowering the signal to noise ratio to the point where most people lose the signal.
China tends to favor targeted disinformation, they tightly control what people hear and have specific messages they push. Russia just tries to scream incoherent gibberish where nobody can hold a conversation anymore.
There’s also Russian style propaganda which isn’t really about sending any specific message but more about sowing chaos. It’s about blasting people with so much contradictory information that they become overwhelmed and exhausted and just give up trying to pay attention to anything.
“Flood the zone with shit”
— Steve Bannon
That makes sense, but the targets of my first paragraph wouldn’t be the die-hards. It would be people who think they can identify fake news - but their hubris is what makes tricking them even easier. It would actually be much easier making fake accounts than making the fake YT videos.
If I was to use your analogy - it’d be like if the gunner’s level of effort to land hits or to whiff were the same. [S]he’d obviously just hit them.
I’m shocked.
They’ve also infiltrated the administration of lemmy.ml and specifically c/worldnews.
Can someone please explain to me the drama of Lemmy.ml and why everyone seems to be leaving it?
I don’t know. I just saw a thread there yesterday about “young people are more favorable on China” and inevitably the discussion ended up being largely about the many Chinese atrocities, all of which the mods promptly removed, as well as leaving all the comments claiming that those were all CCP bots coming to…spread anti-Chinese propaganda?
I dunno, don’t take my word for it, head over to worldnews@lemmy.ml and have a look for yourself through the barren comment sections.
Better yet, look at the modlog.
honestly they just expect more evidence
I think they’re not moderated by Americans so their standard for what’s “acceptable” is less “what’s politically-aligned” but “what’s backed by the available evidence”
I mentioned EVs aren’t the savior that people are pitching because they still require plastics and rare earth metals and often are fueled by electricity made with coal/oil.
They got so fucking mad lol
These are conservative talking points that have been repeatedly dispelled. Where are you getting this info from?
Give them a break they don’t have a 24 hour cable news channel for propaganda
Alarming as this may sound, they’re beating a dead horse. Most of the people who would believe this shit uncritically also think Fox “News” is the gospel truth. They’re already lost.
What’s next? They landed on the dark side of the sun? North Korea already did that.
They do it here too. Anything positive coming out of china is full of this shit and bootlickers quick behind them.
Do people really get their news and information from random YouTube channels?
YouTube is not a reliable source!
Neither is Wikipedia
or Lemmy
and yet…
Next week: China develops world’s first 0nm chip!
Why is this a sign that they’re using “Artificial Intelligence”? Sounds like they’re just as likely using text-to-speech for planned propaganda. It’s not like they don’t have an ay of people to work on it.
Because contemporary tts use ml, a form of ai.
tl;dr: AI is creating the voices, not the script.
AI hate gets people emotional and leads to more clicks. Couple that with anything to do with China and you end up with a couple bucks of ad money.
Well, China has to steal their tech from some foreign company, why not lie about it before they do.
Disclaimer: I didnt watch the video but did see the original post in question on Lemmy and was impressed. Now I’ll never believe another pro-China post again. Nice work!
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RFA is literally a propaganda source.
Yes but it’s pro-Western and thus good
