Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps • Hacker News Board

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#71

Post by angio » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

ardy42 wrote: post #57

throwaway4good wrote: post #30

"Alison Killing conducted this reporting with a grant and further assistance from the Open Technology Fund." From wikipedia: "As of November 2019, the Open Technology Fund became an independent nonprofit corporation and a grantee of the U.S. Agency for Global Media.[7] Until its formation as an independent entity, it had operated as a program of Radio Free Asia." Radio Free Asia ... founded by the CIA and a today wel…

> Radio Free Asia ... founded by the CIA and a today well oiled propaganda arm for whatever is on the US government's foreign policy agenda. Eh, not so much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia > RFA is the only station outside China that broadcasts in the Uygur-language.[32] It has been recognized for played a vital role in exposing Xinjiang re-education camps.[33][34][35] The New York Times regards RFA as…

I think it is fair to call it propaganda. It is funded by U.S. Agency for Global Media [0], their first principle is to "Be consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States" [1]. That means they cannot be considered free independent press since they won't be able to take a stance that goes against the US government.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Agency_for_Global_Media

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20191215131808/https://www.bbg.g...

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#72

Post by flerchin » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #68

There are various levels of reporting in about what's happening in Xinjiang. I'm curious which ones of the following people here on HN believe are true. A. There is forced re-education, forced de-radicalization, and forced political assimilation (to fight separatism). Some camps are indeed for voluntary vocational education, others are for forced re-education. The number of people who are forced into camps, are a lot…

Seems like something between B-D. Some people leave, some people don't, some people are murdered.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#73

Post by nefitty » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

tosh wrote: post #13

interesting related read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...

Here’s another relevant Wikipedia article regarding censorship/absence of map data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satellite_map_images_w...

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#74

Post by thoughtstheseus » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

abj wrote: post #64

brundolf wrote: post #54

Vice also went undercover last year to get footage of Xinjiang in-person: https://youtu.be/v7AYyUqrMuQ

"Individuals cannot accept interviews without government approval." [12:06] Does anyone know if this is a law?

I’m not sure about giving but you need a license/approval before you can interview someone. Many western youtubers came under scrutiny for it.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#75

Post by throwaway894345 » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

dannykwells wrote: post #67

throwaway69123 wrote: post #25

How as a consumer do I avoid the moral dread of buying made in China when 99% of everything is made in China.

Maybe time to watch The Good Place. Wont solve your issue but will give perspective.

I have watched but don’t see what point you’re making. Care to elaborate?

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#76

Post by FooBarWidget » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:01 PM UTC

There is a Canadian named Jerry Grey, who went on a bicycle ride in China. He literally rode hundreds of kilometers in Xinjiang, away from mainstream tourist attractions, to remote places he himself is interested in. He was able to do that without government supervision; all the government checkpoints let him pass without much scrutiny. What he reports on is very different from mainstream media reports.

One of his blog posts:

https://medium.com/@jerry_grey2002/abc-four-corners-tell-the...

Does anyone know why his report is so different, and why the government would just let him go whereever, unsupervised? Do people here believe that his report is genuine, or do people here believe that it's fake?

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#77

Post by foolinaround » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:02 PM UTC

Beached wrote: post #28

throwaway69123 wrote: post #25

How as a consumer do I avoid the moral dread of buying made in China when 99% of everything is made in China.

unfortunately you will likely have to spend hours of research for every product, and be content with paying double once you find a suitable product.

maybe a crowdsourced google form or something?

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#78

Post by DarthGhandi » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

boplicity wrote: post #66

throwaway69123 wrote: post #25

How as a consumer do I avoid the moral dread of buying made in China when 99% of everything is made in China.

As a start, you can buy goods from non-Chinese owned companies, even if they're manufactured in China. Also, you can start paying attention to the manufacturing location, so at least you are able to make a conscious choice. It's not easy, but possible. For example, I'm planning on building a computer. I'm going to aim for components from Taiwanese and U.S. companies as much as possible. In terms of laptops, I won't b…

You should stop buying all goods or services from those who do serious business with China: large US farming corporations, Microsoft, GE, GM, McDonald's, KFC, Boeing, Nike and Apple.

This is where you can actually make a difference as much as many people don't want to hear it.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#79

Post by creaghpatr » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:04 PM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #20

tyingq wrote: post #11

The story seems to counter the popular view that BuzzFeed is low brow, low effort journalism. Did they have some kind of campaign to get better?

Buzzfeed does a lot of fluff ("You won't believe these 87 talking cats") plus decent, fairly well-regarded journalism (paid for by the fluff). This actually isn't that different to how normal papers operate; sports, gossip (called 'society' if the paper is sufficiently fancy) etc, bring in the money, with investigative journalism not exactly being a big earner. The difference is that Buzzfeed had the fluff before it…

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Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#80

Post by paganel » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:05 PM UTC

Curious how the YC involvement in China has panned out. I know they had divested somehow a couple of years ago, or at least they had started using another legal entity to do their bidding over there (maybe I'm mistaken on this).

Also, it was my impression that people directly involved with YC at the time (such as Sam Altman) were pretty "blinded" by what was happening elsewhere in China and their were focusing instead only on the potential monetary gains. Granted, they weren't alone in this, as much bigger fish such as Apple, MS, FB and even Google wanted a piece of the tasty pie and as such were ready to make huge compromises to get to it. Even so, for me at least it was a little disappointing, YC could have afforded to act on principles alone, its owners/founders are already pretty rich, plus they're not listed so don't have to battle with the tyranny of the shareholders.