China is waging a disinformation war against HongKongprotesters HongKongProtesters
BEIJING - When a projectile struck a Hong Kong woman in the eye this week as protesters clashed with the police, China responded quickly: Its state television network reported that the woman had been injured not by one of the police's beanbag rounds, but by a protester.
The result, both in mainland China and abroad, has been to create an alternate version of what, seen from Hong Kong, is clearly a popular demonstration movement. In China's version, a small, violent gang of protesters, unsupported by residents and provoked by foreign agents, is running rampant, calling for Hong Kong's independence and tearing China apart.
Since China's censors have the ability to quickly remove offending comments, the abundance of them suggests that the government is willing to tolerate the warning they deliver, however ominous it sounds. Propaganda in the traditional sense, Mr Pomerantsev said, would try to win over an audience, while disinformation is meant simply to sow confusion and fuel conspiracies.
The state media - whose history of propagandising stretches back to Mao Zedong's era - have also made powerful inroads in the new media online, filling the mainland's information vacuum with an officially Sinicised worldview. That changed on July 1, when protesters stormed Hong Kong's Legislative Council building after a day of peaceful demonstrations. A flurry of articles and editorials in China's state media followed, condemning the vandalism and violence - without explaining what the protesters were protesting about.
Just across the border from Hong Kong, in the city of Shenzhen, the Chinese security forces have conducted large-scale operations in recent days, in a nationalistic display that got prominent coverage in the state media.
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