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Buzzfeed journalist denied China visa following coverage of Xinjiang crackdown

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Re: Buzzfeed journalist denied China visa following coverage of Xinjiang crackdown

#31
post #8

The question is, how did the Chinese immigration know? for each applicant do select count(*) from people_who_pissed_us where social_username = applicant.fb.username?

It's not that hard. When you apply for a visa you must state if you're a journalist or not. After that, a quick Google should suffice, especially if the articles written by her became popular.

> a quick Google

After switching of The Great Firewall for ones own browser, that pesky thing blocks useful information.

Re: Buzzfeed journalist denied China visa following coverage of Xinjiang crackdown

#32
post #8

The question is, how did the Chinese immigration know? for each applicant do select count(*) from people_who_pissed_us where social_username = applicant.fb.username?

It's not that hard. When you apply for a visa you must state if you're a journalist or not. After that, a quick Google should suffice, especially if the articles written by her became popular.

What constitutes journalism?

I remember in the mid-2000s that online-journalists whose sites had millions of impressions per month were denied journalism visas because they weren’t traditional established print newspapers - then there was a debate about the difference between a blogger and a journalist.

I’d like to know if a non-journalist who maintained a very popular blog, such as an influential software engineer, who occasionally blogs about political or topical stories, constitutes a journalist or not. If they’re in the country for an industry conference but write about political events on their blog while they’re in the country have they violated their visa?

Re: Buzzfeed journalist denied China visa following coverage of Xinjiang crackdown

#33

An indirect reminder that now that YC China is a thing @sama and @paulg and any other affiliated will have to avoid saying anything negative about China in order to keep doing business there.

If YC China succeeds and becomes big there, it'll inevitably draw Chinese attention back to YC US including news.ycombinator.com. I would expect they'll have to begin blocking sensitive discussions on HN in the near future. The wave of one hand is all it takes to destroy YC China, because of one upsetting thread on HN getting back to authorities in China. If they plan to stay in bed with China and all that entails, i…

If that time comes it will be interesting to see how the owners of ycombinator react. China's anger has made many high profile companies fold at the earliest signs of tension. Remember the guy who got fired from the hotel chain because he was logged in to the hotel social media account and simply like a pro-Taiwan post? Within days China had put pressure on the hotel to get rid of him. Remember when the clothing company put out a shirt that showed a map of the world and had Taiwan as its own country? Chinese pressure made them completely pull that piece of clothing and redesign it to remove Taiwan.

God forbid they allow Chinese moderators on HN or some type of Chinese-centric oversight

Re: Buzzfeed journalist denied China visa following coverage of Xinjiang crackdown

#34

An indirect reminder that now that YC China is a thing @sama and @paulg and any other affiliated will have to avoid saying anything negative about China in order to keep doing business there.

If YC China succeeds and becomes big there, it'll inevitably draw Chinese attention back to YC US including news.ycombinator.com. I would expect they'll have to begin blocking sensitive discussions on HN in the near future. The wave of one hand is all it takes to destroy YC China, because of one upsetting thread on HN getting back to authorities in China. If they plan to stay in bed with China and all that entails, i…

HN is already blocked. Funny, right?

Re: Buzzfeed journalist denied China visa following coverage of Xinjiang crackdown

#35

Not excusing YC because I don't care about them, but Jesus, stop trying to apply the standards of the liberal west to all the world. Say what you will but they're finding a solution to the Muslim problem, something the west doesn't have the balls to do (and by the time we come up with something it'll be too late)

No, no, no. Terrorism is a problem, but a very small minority of Muslims are terrorists. If I lived in China, I would be at least as violent. Concentration camps are terrible. I've spoken with people who lived in them. Don't ever support them or call them a "solution" to the "problem" of an ethnicity, religion, or culture. That's what the nazis did.

Not refuting your comment at all, but I just want to point out one thing. If even 1% of a population is bad, 1% of a billion is 10 million. 0.1% is still a million. That's an awful lot of bad people.

Re: Buzzfeed journalist denied China visa following coverage of Xinjiang crackdown

#36

An indirect reminder that now that YC China is a thing @sama and @paulg and any other affiliated will have to avoid saying anything negative about China in order to keep doing business there.

Miss out in the future number one market on earth or stand up for human rights? Certainly a scary future.

> future number one market on earth

Is there an example of a western brand that has yet gained significant traction in China? My understanding is that unless you are a Chinese company, your chances of competing in this “number one” market are slim. Businesses obsess at the population numbers but ignore the reality.

Re: Buzzfeed journalist denied China visa following coverage of Xinjiang crackdown

#37
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that hard. When you apply for a visa you must state if you're a journalist or not. After that, a quick Google should suffice, especially if the articles written by her became popular.

> a quick Google After switching of The Great Firewall for ones own browser, that pesky thing blocks useful information.

But the government doesn't block itself. I'm sure the Chinese government can access the open Internet.

Re: Buzzfeed journalist denied China visa following coverage of Xinjiang crackdown

#38
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that hard. When you apply for a visa you must state if you're a journalist or not. After that, a quick Google should suffice, especially if the articles written by her became popular.

What constitutes journalism? I remember in the mid-2000s that online-journalists whose sites had millions of impressions per month were denied journalism visas because they weren’t traditional established print newspapers - then there was a debate about the difference between a blogger and a journalist. I’d like to know if a non-journalist who maintained a very popular blog, such as an influential software engineer,…

That's a very valid question and from their documents, it looks like they define journalist as someone who does it professionally as a career:

"The term "resident foreign journalists" means career journalists who are dispatched by foreign media organizations to be stationed in China for a period of not less than six months for news coverage and reporting."

http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/ywzn/mtyw/press_1/t944225.h...

Re: Buzzfeed journalist denied China visa following coverage of Xinjiang crackdown

#39

I wonder how many pro-China green accounts, accounts used solely for anti-US sentiment, etc we will see commenting on this story. It seems the propaganda folks are turning more attention to HN. There were 3 at the time of this posting with the usual bothersiderisms, etc. One even went full "Sharia law in the US!"

It's nice that the green name is there for easy screening, but eventually, that goes away. HN is still small enough that this kind of spam is easy to detect, but it may not always be that way. Botting/this type of spam on reddit has gotten increasingly sophisticated over the years, and some of the things the people implementing that stuff have learned there would work pretty well on HN too.

Re: Buzzfeed journalist denied China visa following coverage of Xinjiang crackdown

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miss out in the future number one market on earth or stand up for human rights? Certainly a scary future.

> future number one market on earth Is there an example of a western brand that has yet gained significant traction in China? My understanding is that unless you are a Chinese company, your chances of competing in this “number one” market are slim. Businesses obsess at the population numbers but ignore the reality.

iPhones?
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