'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

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'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

A terrific piece of investigative journalism courtesy of the New York Times & ProPublica that is well worth reading and viewing in its entirety:

'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang
nytimes.com wrote:Image

Thousands of videos of Uyghurs denying abuses against their community are showing up on Twitter and YouTube. They’re part of an elaborate influence campaign by Chinese officials to counter reports of human rights violations in Xinjiang.


Recently, the owner of a small store in western China came across some remarks by Mike Pompeo, the former U.S. secretary of state. What he heard made him angry.

A worker in a textile company had the same reaction. So did a retiree in her 80s. And a taxi driver.

Pompeo had routinely accused China of committing human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region, and these four people made videos to express their outrage. They did so in oddly similar ways.

“Pompeo said that we Uyghurs are locked up and have no freedom,” the store owner said.

“There’s nothing like that at all in our Xinjiang,” said the taxi driver.

“We are very free,” the retiree said.

“We are very free now,” the store owner said.

“We are very, very free here,” the taxi driver said.

“Our lives are very happy and very free now,” the textile company worker said.

These and thousands of other videos are meant to look like unfiltered glimpses of life in Xinjiang, the western Chinese region where the Communist Party has carried out repressive policies against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities.

Most of the clips carry no logos or other signs that they are official propaganda.

But taken together, the videos begin to reveal clues of broader coordination — such as the English subtitles in clips posted to YouTube and other Western platforms.

A monthslong analysis of more than 3,000 of the videos by ProPublica and The New York Times found evidence of an influence campaign orchestrated by the Chinese government.

The operation has produced and spread thousands of videos in which Chinese citizens deny abuses against their own communities and scold foreign officials and multinational corporations who dare question the Chinese government’s human rights record in Xinjiang.

It all amounts to one of China’s most elaborate efforts to shape global opinion.

Beijing is trying to use savvier and more forceful methods to broadcast its political messages to a worldwide audience. And Western internet platforms like Twitter and YouTube are playing a key part.
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by Holman »

Just to be picky about forum tidiness, why not use the "All Things : China" thread?
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by ImLawBoy »

Too many umbrella topics can get some specific things that people want to discuss buried.
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

Holman wrote: Wed Jun 23, 2021 2:41 pm Just to be picky about forum tidiness, why not use the "All Things : China" thread?
I felt it was sufficiently significant to warrant its own thread, and preferred not to relegate it to a more generic topic. YMMV.
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by LordMortis »

:ninja: I don't have any input but I found the topic/link interesting and never would have looked in all thing China :ninja:
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by Holman »

LordMortis wrote: Wed Jun 23, 2021 6:38 pm :ninja: I don't have any input but I found the topic/link interesting and never would have looked in all thing China :ninja:
I don't think it's a big deal, but I thought general topical threads were considered valuable since they kept related issues and discussions together. Imagine the chaos if (e.g.) we made a new thread for every Trump scandal of the past four years.

Again, no big deal. Carry on.

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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by dbt1949 »

Are the Chinese going for foreigners or their own people with this propaganda?
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by Kraken »

You have to admire China's skill with propaganda and soft power. And the NYT for exposing this one.
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by Jaymann »

How different in essence is this from poor white Appalachians swearing that Trump is the second coming?
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by El Guapo »

Jaymann wrote: Wed Jun 23, 2021 10:56 pm How different in essence is this from poor white Appalachians swearing that Trump is the second coming?
I think the difference is that these seem to be orchestrated specifically by the Chinese government, rather than being authentic expressions of private belief.
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by Kraken »

El Guapo wrote: Thu Jun 24, 2021 12:04 am
Jaymann wrote: Wed Jun 23, 2021 10:56 pm How different in essence is this from poor white Appalachians swearing that Trump is the second coming?
I think the difference is that these seem to be orchestrated specifically by the Chinese government, rather than being authentic expressions of private belief.
I tried to say that half an hour ago, failed, and abandoned the attempt. So +1.
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by Victoria Raverna »

El Guapo wrote: Thu Jun 24, 2021 12:04 am
Jaymann wrote: Wed Jun 23, 2021 10:56 pm How different in essence is this from poor white Appalachians swearing that Trump is the second coming?
I think the difference is that these seem to be orchestrated specifically by the Chinese government, rather than being authentic expressions of private belief.
How do you know it is not authentic expressions of those that are in the videos?
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

Victoria Raverna wrote: Fri Jun 25, 2021 10:23 pm How do you know it is not authentic expressions of those that are in the videos?
Quoting from the linked article:
nytimes.com wrote:Many of these videos of people in Xinjiang first appeared on a regional Communist Party news app. Then they showed up on YouTube and other global sites, with English subtitles added. (The excerpts of dialogue in this article are translated from the original spoken Chinese or Uyghur by ProPublica and The Times. They are not taken from the English subtitles in the original videos.)

On Twitter, a network of connected accounts shared the videos in ways that seemed designed to avoid the platform’s systems for detecting influence campaigns.

China’s increasingly social-media-fluent diplomats and state-run news outlets have since spread the testimonials to audiences of millions worldwide.

Western platforms like Twitter and YouTube are banned in China out of fear they might be used to spread political messaging — which is exactly how Chinese officials are using these platforms in the rest of the world.

They are, in essence, high-speed propaganda pipelines for Beijing. In just a few days, videos establishing the Communist Party’s version of reality can be shot, edited and amplified across the global internet.



Establishing that government officials had a hand in making these testimonials is sometimes just a matter of asking.

In one clip, the owner of a used car dealership in Xinjiang says: “Pompeo, shut your mouth.”

When reached by phone, the man said local propaganda authorities had produced the clip. When asked for details, he gave the number of an official he called Mr. He, saying, “Why don’t you ask the head of the propaganda department?”


Multiple calls to Mr. He’s number were not answered. Seven other people in the videos whose contact information could be found either declined to be interviewed or couldn’t be reached. (The name of the car dealership’s owner is being withheld to protect him from retribution by Chinese officials.)

In another sign of government coordination, language in the videos echoes written denunciations of Pompeo that Chinese state agencies issued around the same time.



On Twitter, ProPublica and The Times found, the clips were shared by more than 300 accounts whose posts strongly suggested they were no ordinary users. The accounts often posted messages that were identical but for a random string of characters at the end with no obvious meaning, either four Roman letters, five Chinese characters or three symbols such as percentage signs or parentheses.

Such strings were found in about three-quarters of the accounts’ tweets. They caused the text of the posts to vary slightly, in an apparent attempt to bypass Twitter’s automated anti-spam filters.

There were other signs that the Twitter accounts were part of a coordinated operation.

All of the accounts had been registered only in recent months. Many of them followed zero other users. Nearly all had fewer than five followers. The bulk of their tweeting took place between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. Beijing time.

The text of several of the accounts’ tweets contained traces of computer code, indicating that they had been posted, sloppily, by software.

Twitter suspended many of these accounts in March and April, before ProPublica and The Times inquired about them. Twitter said the accounts had violated its policies against platform manipulation and spam.

The accounts did not upload Xinjiang clips directly to Twitter. Rather, they tweeted links to videos on YouTube or retweeted videos that had been originally posted by other Twitter accounts.

Those YouTube and Twitter accounts often posted copies of the same Xinjiang videos at roughly the same time, according to analysis by ProPublica and The Times. Nearly three-quarters of the copied clips were posted by different accounts within 30 minutes of one another. This suggests the posts were coordinated, even though the accounts had no obvious connection.

Most of these accounts — seven on Twitter and nearly two dozen on YouTube — posted dozens of videos that originally appeared on Pomegranate Cloud. The accounts seem to have served solely as warehouses to store the clips, making it easier for other accounts in the network to share them.



The effort continues to evolve. In some cases, state media and government officials have begun to openly spread the clips attacking Pompeo. Other videos have found new issues and people to target.

In one clip, a woman denies accusations of forced labor. “I have five greenhouses, and no one forces me to work,” she says.

She turns the camera toward several other women behind her.

“Friends, is anyone forcing you to work?” she asks. “No!” they cry in unison.

The clip was posted by Global Times, a state-controlled newspaper, on the Chinese platform Kuaishou on Jan. 25. Two days later, the video was posted on Twitter and YouTube by the warehouse accounts within 30 minutes of one another. Just over a week later, two representatives for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted the clip on Twitter as well.

The ministry did not respond to a faxed request for comment, nor did the Xinjiang offices of the Communist Party propaganda department.

Two months later, another wave of videos, shot in the same style and distributed in a similar way, raged against H&M and other international clothing brands that have expressed concern about possible labor abuses in Xinjiang’s cotton and textile industries.
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by Unagi »

Kraken wrote: Thu Jun 24, 2021 1:09 am
El Guapo wrote: Thu Jun 24, 2021 12:04 am
Jaymann wrote: Wed Jun 23, 2021 10:56 pm How different in essence is this from poor white Appalachians swearing that Trump is the second coming?
I think the difference is that these seem to be orchestrated specifically by the Chinese government, rather than being authentic expressions of private belief.
I tried to say that half an hour ago, failed, and abandoned the attempt. So +1.
So in other words, it’s not nearly as troubling as the Appalachian variant.
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by Daehawk »

If you want to see the views and real stuff inside China of a couple guys who lived in China for over 10 years check out Serpentz and Laowhy86 on YouTube.

The first is from South Africa and the latter is an American. Both were friends and lived in China and married there and had their businesses and homes there. Ive watched them for at least 5 years. Found them by finding a video of Serp's on Chinese toilets lol. They started making videos from within China of just the stuff there, motocycle adventures across the country and their lives.It was a view from the inside. Not bad stuff. But in the last few years they've finally given up and left and now show the dirty side of it . Their last couple videos have been on exactly this topic of China and their fake online presence.
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by coopasonic »

Unagi wrote: Sat Jun 26, 2021 1:34 pm So in other words, it’s not nearly as troubling as the Appalachian variant.
I don't know. I think they are each troubling in their own special way.
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by Unagi »

coopasonic wrote: Sat Jun 26, 2021 4:50 pm
Unagi wrote: Sat Jun 26, 2021 1:34 pm So in other words, it’s not nearly as troubling as the Appalachian variant.
I don't know. I think they are each troubling in their own special way.
Certainly.
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Re: 'We Are Very Free’ - How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang

Post by Paingod »

ImLawBoy wrote: Wed Jun 23, 2021 2:45 pmToo many umbrella topics can get some specific things that people want to discuss buried.
I've always looked at the broad & random topic threads as good places to fly over and drop a bowling ball into the ball pit. Gets some balls to bounce and keep going.

If you want to actually play in the ball pit, you've got to land and jump in.

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