List of poor quality/trash outlets on PLA matters

I'm not sure why I've never thought of doing this before, but I think we should have a running list of poor quality outlets and websites which have an established record of posting large quantities of poor quality information on the PLA.
Such outlets are either they are outright misleading, or they are phrased in a way to exaggerate, or they do not do due diligence in the care of their reporting.

Which is to say -- these are outlets which are a significant "net negative" to the PLA watching discourse, by virtue of when they talk about the PLA.

I will edit this first post on a running list as people offer contributions, and I encourage members to refer to this list if they see an article from any of them and think "this is an article worth posting about".
In fact, I insist on it, really it might save us a lot of time and thread space.



19 FortyFive
Bulgarian Military
Business Insider
DefenceBlog
DefensePost
Defense Security Asia
Eurasian Times
GlobalFirepower.com
Interesting Engineering
Military Watch Magazine
National Security Journal
South China Morning Post
The National Interest
Warrior Maven
WDMMA.org

Virtually all news sites of Indian origin
Virtually all news sites of Taiwan origin

(Above list not exhaustive)


I welcome people to post worthy contributions, which I will add to the list above over time.

I think any site that reported that the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force filled their missiles with water (even though I believe they are solid based) and that PLA soldiers used missile fuel for Hotpot is a start.

So that means from a quick Google Search:

Bloomberg
Radio Free Asia
Newsweek
Businessinsider
Militarytimes
CSIS

Whoops. Didn't know that many big name sites were involved.

Randomuser said:

I think any site that reported that the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force filled their missiles with water (even though I believe they are solid based) and that PLA soldiers used missile fuel for Hotpot is a start.

So that means from a quick Google Search:

Bloomberg
Radio Free Asia
Newsweek
Businessinsider
Militarytimes
CSIS

Whoops. Didn't know that many big name sites were involved.

Click to expand...

Blitzo already mentioned some factors to consider, like "posting large quantities of poor-quality information" and being a "significant net negative". It's not exactly the same as the water-missile story, though one can argue that it has contributed significantly in a negative way.

Anyway, I would suggest this channel: roywalker or 落英行者

It's especially bad because their content is very detailed and seemingly convincing, so inexperienced viewers would have an extremely hard time understanding why it is actually a bad source.

00CuriousObserver said:

Blitzo already mentioned some factors to consider, like "posting large quantities of poor-quality information" and being a "significant net negative". It's not exactly the same as the water-missile story, though one could argue that it has still had a significantly negative effect.

Anyway, I would suggest this channel: roywalker or 落英行者

It's especially bad because their content is very detailed and seemingly convincing, so inexperienced viewers would have an extremely hard time understanding why it is actually a bad source.

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Click to expand...

This guy has a nickname, "Luo chief engineer", obviously, due to an ironic purpose.

Are the following sites relevant to be added or tangential?

Ridiculous military rankings :

GlobalFirepower.com: (reason: quantitative without qualitative assessment + Russia ahead of China in 2026 is a joke)

WDMMA.org: (reason: pro-US bias + IAF over PLAAF is a joke)

I will consider add "", the posts are almost always exaggerated and/or misinformed.

shiftenter said:

I will consider add "

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", the posts are almost always exaggerated and/or misinformed.

Click to expand...

There are a lot of clickbait accounts on X with names like “China XXX” or “PLA XXX” from South Asia. Basically, just ignore them. Accounts with real substance wouldn't use such a grand name.

Instead of blacklisting the bad guys, it's probably better and easier to whitelist the good ones.

伏尔戈星图: Reads many papers but lacks analytical skills.

lyman2003: Clickbait plagiarist; look at the materials he copied, not his analysis.

琴石2022: Same as lyman2003.

西葛西: Can make CG but his analysis is terrible.

兰墨飞花: Same as 西葛西, or even worse; his CG sometimes contains conjecture and exaggeration.

SanWenYu said:

Instead of blacklisting the bad guys, it's probably better and easier to whitelist the good ones.

Click to expand...

That would be a very short list:
SDF (with about 40% of posters on the ignore list)
CDF (no idea, I haven't been there in a long time)
???