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On the heels of what looks like blatant partisan censorship of legitimate news sites on the part of huge social media companies, the debate over free speech online has never been more contentious for Americans. Those fears are even more understandable following a report from The Epoch Times that reads like an anatomy of censorship. It details how the Chinese state pays online “trolls” to manipulate public opinion about a news report unfavorable to government following food contamination and an outbreak of a novel illness.
And the tactics look uncomfortably familiar.
The article, using internal documents from Chinese “censorship authorities,” purports to show how paid online “trolls” responded to an outbreak of African Swine Fever in a food product by writing “social media posts praising the authorities” and removing posts that were critical.
