This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, no, not the fact that it is China, but the fact that it is happening. Just a digital form of propaganda and digital rogue social influential propaganda.<p>But, I did find this part entertaining in the beginning "imagine how much worse it would be if the US government employed a couple hundred thousand people to "shape the debate" among online political forums. Crazy, right? What government would ever attempt it?"<p>Arguably, the US does. Maybe not the US "government", but the employees of it (politicians, the President's cabinet, etc.), those looking to become employees of it, lobbyists and so on...<p>An oversight of the last decade?
e.g.'s:
President's Cabinet - "Weapons of Mass Destruction",
Healthcare Reform Bill - Both sides of the debate guilty,
The Media - let's not even go there,
And what was that fake grassroots incident on FaceBook that was exposed last year or earlier this year?<p>Well, you can go ahead and add a million other examples.
When I read this article, I thought for a moment about the China apologists, and those who repeatedly jumped to China's defense whenever the CCP was casted in unfavorable lights on HN. And I laughed.
Great. Now anybody who takes a non-comformist line in the china debate is going to be accused of being paid by the Chinese government. Great way to go with making sure there is only one opinion on this issue.
Grass mud horse is a homonym for "fuck your mom" i believe.<p>Anyways I don't think swearing in Chinese is that big of a deal. <i>Everyone</i> I knew as a kid said it and I said it to my parents all the time... Or maybe we were obscene.
They are known as the 50-cent party:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party</a>
<i>China, which allegedly employs 280,000 people to troll the Internet and make the government look good.</i><p><i>...Many more people do similar work as volunteers—recruited from among the ranks of retired officials as well as college students in the Communist Youth League who aspire to become Party members...</i><p>That's truly a staggering number.<p>Key up "but everybody does it" posts...