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.

  • dneaves@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Well I ask these cause authoritarianism seems counterintuitive to the main philosophy around Marxism. Saying “the proletariat should have greater value and power in a business, since they’re doing the actual labor”, but then rolling over and accepting a dictatorship where the populace has no political say seems nonsensical.

    Hence why I suspect the authoritarianism must have come first. So I can’t necessarily agree to “communism predisposing itself to authoritarianism” since it doesn’t make sense for a True-Marxist society to want to accept that sort of government.

    As for how to set up the government in a communist-economy state: probably more of a Republic. People elect multiple representatives, and these representatives meet and decide on policies for the country and how to run it

    • Tedesche@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      A one-party system is inherently authoritarian; that’s what predisposes communism to becoming a dictatorship. Communism starts with the premise that the old regime needs to be violently overthrown. I don’t know how much clearer a line towards authoritarianism you can get.