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

#101

Post by angio » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:31 PM UTC

ardy42 wrote: post #86

free_rms wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the Comintern was merely meant to promote workers rights? It's definitionally a propaganda arm of the government. If you think that we're the good guys, then they're the good guys, but they're still propaganda.

> It's definitionally a propaganda arm of the government. If you think that we're the good guys, then they're the good guys, but they're still propaganda. If it's propaganda, it's propaganda for western-style journalism and liberal values. The question shouldn't be "is it state sponsored or not;" it should be "is its reporting reliable or not." On that question, RFA's reporting on this topic has gotten the endorsemen…

> On that question, RFA's reporting on this topic has gotten the endorsement of the news pages of at least one top-tier American paper.

While we like to consider the mainstream press as completely free and unbiased, I think it's fair to remind everyone that in the early 2000s all publications were parroting the US lie that Iraq was hiding WMDs. Something similar happened last year with the election in Bolivia and subsequent coup.

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

#102

Post by dgellow » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #88

FooBarWidget wrote: post #76

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 bl…

Travel in Xinjiang isn't restricted for foreigners at least a year ago. There are a lot of security checkpoints, but they will just ignore you if you're not brown.

> but they will just ignore you if you're not brown.

Is that true? Based on Vice's reports last year, journalists and tourists where forced to show their phone to border agents and to install some surveillance app: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/7/3/20681258/china-u...

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

#103

Post by actuator » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #99

loceng wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How to compare that with this experience then? https://youtu.be/v7AYyUqrMuQ Also, it's interesting that on Twitter of sharing related articles you'll have Asian people with accounts commenting with very short messages simply saying "you're stupid" or similar without explaining themselves nor actually engaging with the comments - their replies getting 4+ Likes from near bot-looking accounts. It seems the CCP is workin…

Can you show some of those tweets? I don't think I've ever seen them, so I'm curious.

I think those would be easy to find. Most of the accounts will have locations of Chinese mainland and only post good things about China and bad thing about others. Some of them will post funny/beautiful photos/videos to gain following as well. Since Twitter is banned in PRC, why would people be constantly on VPN just to post this stuff. All you need to do is, find state sponsored account, see the users retweeting/liking their tweets like this account: https://mobile.twitter.com/eaglet_CH

There are accounts at a higher level than this, who would make more sense in countering and spread positivity as well.

Few articles about bot networks.

- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-12/china-s-d...

- https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/06/12/182000-...

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

#104

Post by throwaway69123 » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

meiraleal wrote: post #33

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.

That's funny. For me as a Brazilian, 99% of things coming from China are made by American companies. I'd love to be able to not consume of this too.

This is china's greatest weakness, they own manufacturing but very few brands.

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

#105

Post by yorwba » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #76

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 bl…

He repeatedly mentions Arabic as the local language instead of the various Turkic languages of the region, indicating that he most likely doesn't speak any of them, so he probably didn't have much interaction with less-educated people, who'd be the major targets of forced Mandarin education etc. So when he talks about people feeling safer now, is that representative of everyone in Xinjiang or just the people he chose to associate with?

It's not unlike a European visiting the US when they were busy killing natives and enslaving blacks, but being thoroughly enamored by their egalitarian democracy.

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

#106

Post by James_Henry » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #94

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…

Does anyone know why the above post gets downvoted, even though it's only inquiring people for opinions, and not even presenting its own opinion? What have I done wrong, and what should I have done differently?

Because it's presenting a very blatant false dilemma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

It could have not been on purpose, but it doesn't come off as a good faith desire to find out what people believe. I'm not sure how you can really, effectively figure out what specifically people think on this forum, especially because it very well could be the case that most people reading and commenting on this article haven't been following the situation incredibly carefully beyond just having a sense that something really bad is happening in China concerning persecution of an ethnic and religious minority and the occasional headline with a few more specifics.

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

#107

Post by thismythrowaway » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #94

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…

Does anyone know why the above post gets downvoted, even though it's only inquiring people for opinions, and not even presenting its own opinion? What have I done wrong, and what should I have done differently?

Because we see you in every thread spreading Chinese nationalist propaganda. We recognize your username.

Option A is the CCP party line, and by presenting it as a legitimate alternative you are minimizing what is going on in Xinjiang. I understand that you might not want to believe the reports. But there are apparently a significant contingent of people on HN, myself included, that think what you are doing here is irresponsible.

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

#108

Post by Aunche » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #102

Aunche wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Travel in Xinjiang isn't restricted for foreigners at least a year ago. There are a lot of security checkpoints, but they will just ignore you if you're not brown.

> but they will just ignore you if you're not brown. Is that true? Based on Vice's reports last year, journalists and tourists where forced to show their phone to border agents and to install some surveillance app: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/7/3/20681258/china-u...

It looks like that's done at China's borders. Most journalists and tourists fly directly into China.

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

#109

Post by abj » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

thoughtstheseus wrote: post #74

abj wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Ah that makes sense, thanks. I was wondering how other western youtubers had channels full of interviews.

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

#110

Post by duxup » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #76

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 bl…

Do we feel like someone riding a bicycle through a region would necessarily discover something about such camps?

If I randomly traveled in any country would I know about these things? Would I know if I was "without government supervision"?

I'm not inclined to believe that any given rando foreigner would somehow provide a good view of what is going on locally.

I've traveled plenty, there's a ton I could not see / know.

I've actually seen this concept put forth a lot, especially when it comes to China that rando traveler didn't see something so we should doubt it (often put forth with stories about how little crime there is). I don't really understand why anyone would think that makes sense... particularly with all the rest of the information we have on this topic.