China is using the world's largest known online disinformation operation to harass Americans, a CNN review finds | CNN
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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 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.

  • Patapon Enjoyer
    -12•1 year ago

    The goal of democratic socialism, like all socialism, is communism. My guess is you either meant social democracy instead of democratic socialism (easy confusion to make) or you’ve been made to think communism means stalinism (also prone to happen if you’ve lived under McCarthyist propaganda your entire life).

    • @NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
      5•1 year ago

      The goal of democratic socialism, like all socialism, is communism.

      Uh, actually the Wikipedia page for democratic socialism says the exact opposite of this.

      • Patapon Enjoyer
        10•1 year ago

        No it doesn’t? Literally in the overview section

        Some Marxist socialists emphasise Karl Marx’s belief in democracy[51] and call themselves democratic socialists.[20] The Socialist Party of Great Britain and the World Socialist Movement define socialism in its classical formulation as a “system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the community.”[52] Additionally, they include classlessness, statelessness and the abolition of wage labour as characteristics of a socialist society, characterising it as a stateless, propertyless, post-monetary economy based on calculation in kind, a free association of producers, workplace democracy and free access to goods and services produced solely for use and not for exchange.[53] Although these characteristics are usually reserved to describe a communist society,[54] this is consistent with the usage of Marx, Friedrich Engels and others, who referred to communism and socialism interchangeably.[55]

        The only difference between a socialist party and a communist party is branding for people who don’t know what either thing is

        • @girlfreddy@lemmy.ca
          8•1 year ago

          I’m not trying to be pedantic here, but I did want to add that there is a big difference between democractic socialism and social democracy. Jacobin has a great article on what the differences are … below are 2 quotes that highlight the basics.

          Nordic countries — Finland, Norway, and Sweden — are social democracies. They have constitutional representative democracies, extensive welfare benefits, corporatist collective bargaining between labor and capital that is managed by the state, and some state ownership of the economy.

          Democratic socialism, on the other hand, should involve public ownership over the vast majority of the productive assets of society, the elimination of the fact that workers are forced into the labor market to work for those who privately own those productive assets, and stronger democratic institutions not just within the state but within workplaces and communities as well. Our characterization of democratic socialism represents a profound deepening of democracy in the economy.

          • @jackalope@lemmy.ml
            -4•1 year ago

            It’s really more of a spectrum.

            Also words are literally determined by use. Arguing about then as if they have inherent meaning is stupid.

            • @StalinsSpoon@lemm.eeEnglish
              1•1 year ago

              Sure, but it’s important to distinguish when a word is being used two different ways, and the only way to do that is define them.

              There are people who use Lenin’s definition of “socialism” as the name for the transitioning stage between capitalism and the communist goal in the Manifesto.

              There are also people who use “socialism” to mean any time the government does any regulation or helpful policy of any kind.

              • @jackalope@lemmy.ml
                1•1 year ago

                Fair. The only thing I’m trying to do here is fight the unnecessary reification of words.

                Also worth noting that Marx never refers to two stages transition between capitalism and communism. He does refer to higher and lower stages of communism but those don’t map to lenin’s usage with socialism etc.

        • @NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
          -1•1 year ago

          You know most people differentiate between socialism and communism now right? It is definitely more nuanced than your argument of all democratic socialism wants to transition into communism.

          • @Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
            6•1 year ago

            No, it’s not. Even they differentiated between socialism and communism. But they are correct in their assertion that the ultimate goal of socialism would be achieving a state like communism. Not a state as in a nation. But a state as in a state of being.

            Whether or not you think such thing is possible in this moment. And I think most people would say it’s probably still a little ways off. Even you ultimately would like a society in which you were free to do whatever you desired. Whatever stimulated you intellectually and explore your passions. Without having to worry about being a wage slave.

          • Patapon Enjoyer
            6•1 year ago

            People can call themselves whatever they want to call themselves, but if their goal isn’t a currencyless, stateless society without private property and based on mutual aid they aren’t socialist they’re sparkling capitalists.

            • @lolcatnip@reddthat.comEnglish
              -8•1 year ago

              I bet you’re also one of those people who goes around complaining about “liberals” and then wonders why so many people think you’re a right winger.

    • @lolcatnip@reddthat.comEnglish
      3•1 year ago

      I assume from the second half of your comment that you’re in favor of communism, but I question your strategy of using literal Republican scaremongering statements as your argument for it.

    • Brokkr
      3•1 year ago

      The goal of democratic socialism is not communism, generally. I’m sure there are a range of individual goals.

      Democratic socialism is closer to a fully capatalist system than it is to communism, but attempts to limit capatalism in ways that could be detrimental society (regulation and taxation). Additionally, it implements programs that benefit society (public infrastructure, Healthcare, etc).

      A completely capatalist society will kill itself. A fully communist society will grind to a halt. A careful balance between those extremes can deliver many of the benefits of both. Finding that balance is difficult and there are reasonable debates to be had about how. Unfortunately, there are a lot of unreasonable people in power.

      • Patapon Enjoyer
        16•1 year ago

        You’re describing Social Democracy. As I said earlier, it’s easy to confuse the two.

        • Brokkr
          0•1 year ago

          It is, because it depends on the country and decade that we’re talking about. Best I can tell is that it is a distinction without a difference.

      • Kool_Newt
        3•1 year ago

        A completely capatalist society will kill itself. A fully communist society will grind to a halt. A careful balance between those extremes can deliver many of the benefits of both.

        A socialist country will simply kill itself more slowly – any system that accepts the continued exploitation of the planet is unsustainable. Considering how much damage has already been done to the environment, even if we all went socialist today and started driving electric cars we’d only push back the inevitable a decade or so.

        An authoritarian “communist” (I use quotes because I don’t believe actual communism can be forced) society will degrade and grind to a halt the same way any system that has positions of power will as the power struggles ensue.

        Communism doesn’t imply pacificism. A decentralized anarcho-communist society with a culture that recognized and managed consistently bad actors before they had an opportunity to gain power, and was moneyless (as communism is) meaning those seeking power would have limited ability to pay anyone to back them up seems the only logical sustainable path.

        This may seem like an impossibility, but it was arguably the way humanity existed for 200K years before the consistently bad actors got the upper hand, took power and used money to keep it.