# Examples of propaganda backfiring **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 6, 2014, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-propaganda-backfiring/685485 "2014-04-06T16:59:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-propaganda-backfiring/685485/41 "2014-04-09T02:40:18Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > How could the propaganda be worse than the truth? That’s not the point. Following Tiananmen, the Chinese authorities started putting a lot more emphasis on atrocities committed in WW2. This was done to divert popular dissatisfaction with the Chinese government towards a safe, foreign target. It’s one of the oldest propaganda tricks in the book. The question is not whether war crimes happened, but how this information is used by the Chinese government for its own interests. Where this backfires is that the strategy only sort of works. You get protests against Japan, which the government tacitly supports, but they often get out of hand and suddenly the protesters don’t seem to care all that much about Japan and start attacking government offices. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-propaganda-backfiring/685485/42 "2014-04-09T04:02:13Z")
[Listverse](http://listverse.com/2014/04/08/10-pieces-of-propaganda-that-backfired-badly/) has answered your question. ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-propaganda-backfiring/685485/43 "2014-04-09T13:10:56Z")
The commander-in-chief of the German air force, Hermann Göring, famously proclaimed shortly after the beginning of WW II: _If only one English fighter plane makes it past our air defense, if only one single bomb is dropped on Berlin, you can call me (Mister) Meier._ (Meier is a generic German family name). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-propaganda-backfiring/685485/44 "2014-04-09T13:59:24Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Leo Bloom** : > > You surely don’t think that other candidates, Presidents, etc., have never been in compromising or downright unattractive photos or set-ups, and that editors and producers never make decisions which to show or steer the subject into? Of course I don’t think that. Plenty of other politicians have made similar mistakes. And those mistakes would also be fair topics for this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-propaganda-backfiring/685485/45 "2014-04-09T15:51:48Z")
> [@John\_Bredin](#): > > I’m sure when Hitler organized the ceremony for [France’s surrender](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Armistice_at_Compi%C3%A8gne), with every detail choreographed (ahem) to humiliate France, he didn’t think the newsreel footage would be turned into [Hitler’s silly dance](http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/hitlers_silly_dance). :smack:😛 Hijack: Interesting example of a presumably hacked Wiki article. Some nice lines: [ul] [li]Following the humiliating, triumphant & undeniable German victory which annihilated the pathetically trained, poorly equipped & **sloppy drunkards** of the French Armies[/li][li]The mostly homosexual squadrons of the British Expeditionary Force [/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-propaganda-backfiring/685485/46 "2014-04-09T18:05:56Z")
I can tell you one that I don’t think a lot of people knew about - in Afghanistan there was a ton of leaflets drops and posters put up, and they had to be mostly images, to cross the language barrier. One of the first posters featured a peace dove, which caused a lot of Afghani men to show up looking for their free chicken. 🙂 OOps ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-propaganda-backfiring/685485/47 "2014-04-09T18:52:17Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > The commander-in-chief of the German air force, Hermann Göring, famously proclaimed shortly after the beginning of WW II: > > _If only one English fighter plane makes it past our air defense, if only one single bomb is dropped on Berlin, you can call me (Mister) Meier._ > > (Meier is a generic German family name). I want to steer clear of violating the FTFY rules here but Meier (Meyer) was a generic _Jewish_ German family name during that era. Which made [del]Fatso’s[/del] Göring’s remark particularly sarcastic. ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-propaganda-backfiring/685485/48 "2014-04-09T20:04:35Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > I want to steer clear of violating the FTFY rules here but Meier (Meyer) was a generic _Jewish_ German family name during that era. Which made [del]Fatso’s[/del] Göring’s remark particularly sarcastic. That’s not what Göring was referring to. Meier (and the different regional spellings Meyer, Mayer, Mayr, Maier etc.) is the 2nd most common family name in Germany. (BTW, I have no idea what FTFY means) ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-propaganda-backfiring/685485/49 "2014-04-09T20:11:43Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > That’s not what Göring was referring to. Meier (and the different regional spellings Meyer, Mayer, Mayr, Maier etc.) is the 2nd most common family name in Germany. > > (BTW, I have no idea what FTFY means) Fixed That For You. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-propaganda-backfiring/685485/50 "2014-04-09T20:55:02Z")
Soviet propaganda criticised Margaret Thatcher as an ‘Iron Lady’ - which was promptly picked up by British newspapers and turned around by her supporters into an honorific. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-propaganda-backfiring/685485/51 "2014-04-09T22:35:01Z")
“Mission Accomplished” ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-propaganda-backfiring/685485/52 "2014-04-10T06:17:17Z")
Not exactly propaganda (since it didn’t come from a state actor) but there’s a famous Vietnam era photo of the South Vietnamese chief of police shooting a handcuffed suspected Viet Cong in the head point blank. It was intended as a supportive photograph, but it backfired horribly when people saw the photo out of context. Eddie Adams, the photographer, would later write : [QUOTE=Eddie Adams] The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn’t say was, "What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers? [/QUOTE] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-propaganda-backfiring/685485.md?page=2)