Distraction Is Actually Ruining This Country: Bear with me. Earlier this month, a new paper came out on the Chinese government’s practice of blanketing social media with fake comments, racking up a total of about 448 million fabricated posts a year. For years, Chinese social media users had speculated about the posts and their objective: were they intended to steer sensitive conversations in a pro-government direction? Or to argue with people who criticized the establishment?
As the researchers found, the posts in fact did only one thing: shower praise on all things China. They tended to emerge in bursts around events that might stir protest — for example, the riots in Xinjiang province in 2013 (1,100 fake posts), the rail explosion in Urumqi the following year (3,500), and the Qingming festival, a time often characterized by political unrest (18,000). The fabricated posts’ sole purpose? To distract people from the temptation to organize — by stealing users’ time and mental energy. The Chinese government had decided that the ability to distract was one of the most powerful features of social media.
As the researchers found, the posts in fact did only one thing: shower praise on all things China. They tended to emerge in bursts around events that might stir protest — for example, the riots in Xinjiang province in 2013 (1,100 fake posts), the rail explosion in Urumqi the following year (3,500), and the Qingming festival, a time often characterized by political unrest (18,000). The fabricated posts’ sole purpose? To distract people from the temptation to organize — by stealing users’ time and mental energy. The Chinese government had decided that the ability to distract was one of the most powerful features of social media.