We all understand that ideology is a bit like dominos; confidently sharing something that subsequently gets disproven doesnt just make you question that specific fact, it makes you question the ENTIRE ideological framework that led you to believe in that thing in the first place.

I think there’s another effect on how other people perceive that ideology too. Getting caught in a lie (or as you said, confidently sharing something false) is embarassing. It can be humiliating. If someone wanted to embarass, humiliate, or discredit a pro-China movement in the West, what better way is there than to catch them spreading lies that you can point and laugh at?

In a world that pretends to be rational, grounded, and truthful, if you can make someone look gullible, susceptible to manipulation, or (the wrong kind of) idealistic, you can push them to the margins.

I’m picking up what you’re putting down. Let me carry it a little further. The first time I saw the video, I didn’t think too much of it. The second time I saw it, I wondered, what were the comments saying? And in the comments, they were overwhelmingly positive. There was a sentiment of “at least somebody’s doing something” or 'China leading the way" or “China standing on its principles.” That sort of thing. It wasn’t until the third one that I saw someone pointing out that the video that was being shown was from an earlier time. But again, the comments were overwhelmingly positive in regards to China, and there was a shared sentiment of, like, “thank goodness.”

Once I did some digging and I found that these videos were obviously fake or misrepresenting past events. The first conclusion my brain drew was maybe these videos and their intention are to pacify people. The thinking being that if enough people see this message, accept it uncritically, and share it far and wide, then it may have a kind of cooling effect on the population’s thinking towards the current situation in Gaza. They might think, “oh, thank goodness, something is happening, that means I don’t need to do something now, because China is.”

I don’t know. It’s very cynical, but it seems like everything is on the table.

Your comment made me think of this.

Same with the Traore posting that’s been going on recently

Considering how badly the US airdrops went because, you know, its not a great idea to airdrop shit into one of the most densely populated areas in the world, I would hope they would think this “propaganda” through.

In these cases, my senses tell me “Russian psyop”, but who knows?

inb4 “u russiagate liberal”

Tbf when was the last time any western media cared about factual accuracy. The only reason we should care about this is because if it comes out it’s fake, every asshole in the west will point to it as “evidence” each time they want to claim something China says is fake. But they’ll probably do that regardless.

In terms of factual accuracy, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. I’ll start caring about the factual accuracy of aid drops when the west starts caring about the factual accuracy of Israel bombing hospitals and killing children.