I used to think that the brigading of politically sensitive posts must only be coordinated by paid actors (the colloquial term is 五毛) because how could anyone with a shred of decency actively ruin public discourse. (I.e. HK protests 2019)

.... But the fact is indecent people use the internet too and outrage marketing is lucrative 🫠

When the state gets involved,

they explicitly make their presence known with violence, follower counts don't mean much when they can just wipe people from existence (digitally or physically). Consider Jack Ma

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yeah fair point, and I do think there are a lot more 小粉 than 五毛 these days

Sign of the times, increased reliance on the nanny state 🥲 can't increase social credit any other way

It's a shame really, when times were "good" the Chinese internet was pretty entertaining with how users conducted themselves with their own internet slang to get around the censors, now that times are "bad" they don't even bother. It's a drastic shift even from an outsider looking in.

Can't expect much from those who protest on their knees 🫠

I still remember the days when we were "too simple, sometimes naive"