Refugees and activists tell the BBC intimidation tactics are tearing apart Uyghur communities overseas.
    • fishtacos ( fishtacos@lemmy.ml ) 
      28·
      3 years ago

      I found this to be a decent enough primer: https://medium.com/@bobbyarlan/a-case-study-in-racist-anti-chinese-sentiment-fuelled-by-american-bots-and-western-propaganda-f0a69978d568

      A decent TLDR: The article argues that anti-Chinese propaganda spread by the U.S. and Western media is fueling racist sentiment. Claims of mass detention of Uyghurs are based on flawed studies and sources like Adrian Zenz, a far-right Christian fundamentalist. Atrocity propaganda is a common tactic used by the U.S. to justify wars. The U.S. is threatened by China’s economic rise and technological progress, so it is trying to portray China negatively and prepare public opinion for a potential conflict. However, most of the world sees China positively and as an economic opportunity, making a new Cold War against China unlikely to succeed

      In short, a lot of information about China that has come out of Western news media has been proven to be based on known biased sources, known anit-China rhetoric, and/or outright lies. It’s difficult to prove/disprove of any information specifically, that takes time and reporting, but a lot of people see the anti-China pattern in BBC reporting, and tend to dismiss it because of known history.

    • SpooneyOdin ( SpooneyOdin@lemmy.ml ) 
      27·
      3 years ago

      I see it all over Lemmy unfortunately. I think it is because Lemmy is still relatively fringe and it is where lots of pro communism communities emerged. Normally, I find it actually pretty refreshing to see more left wing stuff but the pro China (or at least the kneejerk reactions to anything anti China) to be exhausting.

      To be fair, I used to see a lot of it on Reddit as well. I think they are just a bigger proportion percentage wise on Lemmy so you see much more of it.

      • I_Has_A_Hat ( I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.ml ) 
        30·
        3 years ago

        It’s a bit of a mixed bag. There are a lot of pro-China comments that are just… Well they either drank the kool-aid or are dishing it out. Especially when it comes to social policies.

        On the other hand, China has been making significant technological accomplishments that you just don’t hear about in Western media. They’ve made a lot of advancements in spaceflight and manufacturing processes that humanity as a whole could benefit from if we were more cooperative. And that’s not even mentioning Nuclear Power.

        China is WAY ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to new nuclear power. They’re the only ones with Gen 4 reactors, the only ones working on Thorium reactors, and are on track to build over 100 new nuclear plants over the next few years. China is to nuclear power as the US is to weapons; sure other countries might be tinkering with some stuff, but there’s really no comparison when they’re doing more than the rest of the world combined.

        I wish there were more unbiased sources. Unfortunately, there’s usually only one of two sides. Either you get news from China which usually boils down to “We’re amazing and nothing we do is ever bad or wrong. Anyone saying otherwise is just lying because they’re jealous/afraid of our wild success!” Or you get news from the US/West that’s basically “China is a totalitarian poo-country that’s on the verge of collapse. They contribute nothing to global advancement and the only thing they’re good for is making cheap, poor quality, crap.”

            • OurToothbrush ( OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml ) 
              5·
              3 years ago

              Wait, do you think there aren’t people who tour Muslim cultural sites, of which there are many? Do you not think that anyone ever goes to interior spots? In the US, the rocky mountains and the Appalachians are both used a lot for tourism.

              Do you think there aren’t uyghurs in the cities in the region?

              It sounds like you dont know anything about the situation and are trying to justify already held beliefs by making rhetoric that doesn’t really apply to the reality of the situation.

                • GarbageShootAlt2 ( GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml ) 
                  1·
                  3 years ago

                  You can visit North Korea and never see their work camps either.

                  Firstly, there is much more restriction on tourist movement in the DPRK for a litany of reasons, mostly pertaining to national security. Tourists in Xinjiang can move pretty freely, though if they are going all over the place they will cumulatively need to pass through many checkpoints.

                  Secondly, “work camps” here is what people call prison labor in Bad Country. The DPRK has prisons, certainly, and we can have discussions about penal labor, but it’s much less notable than people pretend and much less secretive as well.

                  Thirdly, “work camps” are not remotely comparable to committing genocide against one tenth of the entire population of the region, which is the claim that was popularly made against Xinjiang before it got walked back to “cultural genocide”.

        • psilocybin ( psilocybin@discuss.tchncs.de ) 
          6·
          3 years ago

          As long as you don’t question that the enemies of US imperialism deserve it you should be mostly fine. The big geopolitical topics are more sensitive.

          I was permabanned from multiple subs for sharing this telegraph article for example:

          https://web.archive.org/web/20230701133656/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html

          It differs from sub to sub but the bigger and more political the stronger the imperial narrative is enforced.

          r/worldnews is one of the worst, and honestly suspect its astroturf and run by assets or a derivative of an imperial institution (council on foreign relation, think tanks, the likes)

          • socsa ( socsa@lemmy.ml ) Banned
            3·
            3 years ago

            There are literally pictures of bloodshed.

            I legitimately don’t understand why Leninists are so keen on making folk heroes out of tyrants. Why exert the energy to defend this shit instead of learning from it and building a better class of socialist??

            • psilocybin ( psilocybin@discuss.tchncs.de ) 
              1·
              3 years ago

              I legitimately don’t understand why Leninists are so keen on making folk heroes out of tyrants.

              What a sentence! You’re jumping to conclusions all over the place!

              You’re conflating information with a desire to “make folk heroes out of tyrants”, trying to denormalise a desire to understand what was actually happening.

              There was bloodshed but not on the Tienanmen square and the conditions are less clear than you believe

              It is obvious that most peoples idea of what happened is heavily influenced by propaganda, I know mine was.

              If you could stop sabotaging efforts to cut through the disinformation that would be great thanks

              Also: “They are tyrants” thanks I’ll defer judgement as long as the evidence you present us with turns out to be propaganda, there are other “tyrannical governments” much more in reach

              • socsa ( socsa@lemmy.ml ) Banned
                1·
                3 years ago

                A big part of my gripe here is precisely the idea that one can engage in critical analysis of statecraft, while hand waving away inconvenient statecraft. Or worse - supporting broad censorship of inconvenient statecraft.

                • psilocybin ( psilocybin@discuss.tchncs.de ) 
                  1·
                  3 years ago

                  A big part of my gripe here is precisely the idea that one can engage in critical analysis of statecraft, while hand waving away inconvenient statecraft. Or worse - supporting broad censorship of inconvenient statecraft.

                  I have no idea what that sentence is supposed to mean.

                  My gripe here is that nobody can have an informed opinion on foreign policy if they do not acknowledge the tons of pro US propaganda that surround them on EVERY issue in this category and dominate most of it.

                  It is important to call you out on your power-serving statements.

                  You tried to push critical thought out of the overton window when you painted it a kind of sacrilege (“make folk heroes out of tyrants”) and everyone engaging in it someone that needs to be shunned by society (a “tankie”).

                  Mind you all without addressing, let alone contesting, the facts.

                  With all due respect: As long as your actions are indistinguishable from those of a US intelligence social media asset, don’t expect any good will engagement.

                  Have an open mind and start to reflect a little more

        • psilocybin ( psilocybin@discuss.tchncs.de ) 
          1·
          3 years ago

          Lol standard halfwit take:

          Adopting the “tankie” slur for everyone without substance and obviously no knowledge of what they are talking about - check

          Being embedded in propaganda and blaming others who point it out - check

          “You’re not including facts” - lol for what? Am I responding to a factual argument? Am I demanding facts from you?

          But sure have some facts:

          Guardian from 2011 - Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media

          Intercept from 2014 - HACKING ONLINE POLLS AND OTHER WAYS BRITISH SPIES SEEK TO CONTROL THE INTERNET

          Believe me it has only gotten worse in the >10 years since

          Twitter files revealed pentagon bots were whitelisted as well

          If you miss your propaganda friends that hard reddit is still there for you

          Edit: I realize your missing punctuation threw me off, I read: “(aka anything, they don’t like including facts)” …doesn’t change much though

    • socsa ( socsa@lemmy.ml ) Banned
      16·
      3 years ago

      First day on Lemmy? There are quite a few suspiciously active trolls on here, especially on worldnews communities

      Edit - ah right on cue

      • abraxas ( abraxas@lemmy.ml ) English
        15·
        3 years ago

        I really wish Lemmy supported defederation of instances by individual users (so I’d auto-block anything that came from lemmygrad or its users for any reason). I have been threatened with death by communists enough and just want to be left alone to my far-left-but-not-communist devices.

      • fishtacos ( fishtacos@lemmy.ml ) 
        18·
        3 years ago

        Wow, talk about conspiracy theories…

        “Every person who doesn’t participate in Sinophobi is paid off by the Chinese government”

        Like, really? You actually believe that? Was 911 an inside job? How hot DOES jet fuel get??? Is Q-anon real? Is the earth flat?

        If you’ve ever debunked a conspiracy theory, you should reconsider the idea that maybe, just maybe, not everyone hates China. It’s probably more likely than you think…

        Edit: And then they edited their comment to be more defensive instead. Perfect.

        • pinkdrunkenelephants ( pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.ee ) 
          3·
          3 years ago

          It literally wouldn’t even matter, you’ll just deny it and refuse to concede even the most minor of points because for you, debate is not a means to find truth, it’s a power play. We’ve all seen it countless times. We know your game, your patterns of behavior, and since you do not want to play fairly because you’ll know you’ll lose, you don’t get to play at all. You don’t get to participate in discussions with us, especially not me. You’re isolated to your cult now. I hope you find happiness in choosing genocide.

          • GarbageShootAlt2 ( GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml ) 
            1·
            3 years ago

            Pardon me, I thought you were responding to a different comment (I was replying in my inbox to many different disputes). Seeing the actual context, this is ridiculous. You accuse me of being a paid actor and then say that you have no reason to present evidence of the accusation?

            Let us imagine that I was a paid actor and would behave exactly as you expect. Aren’t there other people reading the conversation? Wouldn’t it be worth proving to them that you aren’t just going on paranoid rants because your ideology has no way to deal with the concept of westerners freely disagreeing with you on these issues?

      • OurToothbrush ( OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml ) 
        11·
        3 years ago

        It doesn’t mean that reports are false just because two states are enemies (which is an exaggeration).

        If they were strongly cited I would not be criticizing people believing them. All sources are biased, the question is how factual a source is.

        The BBC is strongly biased against China. If they make claims without proof the most logical course of action is to not assume they are telling the truth and not incorporate what they say into your beliefs. (Note that this is different than “assume they are lying”)

      • socsa ( socsa@lemmy.ml ) Banned
        6·
        3 years ago

        Aren’t these threads wild? These people don’t want to engage in actual discussion here. They just want to remove your agency by calling you brainwashed, do the sealion “source” thing, and then ad hominem away any sources you do provide.

        I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - the world deserves a better class of communist.

        • GarbageShootAlt2 ( GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml ) 
          6·
          3 years ago

          They just want to remove your agency by calling you brainwashed

          Unlike when the liberals in this very thread accuse people of being brainwashed or paid shills, because then it is righteous!

          do the sealion “source” thing,

          lmao what dastardly trolls they are to care about sourcing

          and then ad hominem away any sources you do provide.

          Like you’d ever accept People’s Daily or whatever. The “tankies” need to mostly rely on liberal outlets because you will discard reporting out of China (etc.) out of hand.

          the world deserves a better class of communist.

          If we had a better class of communist, you’d hate them too because you’d believe everything you’re told about them, just like you do with the existing breeds.

      • OurToothbrush ( OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml ) 
        6·
        3 years ago

        I have no doubt, every nation has secret police. I simply doubt they are doing what the article suggests theyre doing. It seems to me the article is interested in explaining why there aren’t many uyghur Muslims joining their narrative and why a lot of them are supportive of China and feel their culture is respected.

  • iknt ( iknt@lemmy.ml ) 
    34·
    3 years ago

    Sample size: 58 people

    18 in the U.K., 28 in Turkey, and 12 in Thailand.

    The authors wish to extend their gratitude to the individuals and organisations who supported this research by providing concrete feedback for revisions on the report, offering suggestions and advice at the planning stages, and offering ongoing collaborative and moral support while conducting this research: Elise Anderson, Campaign for Uyghurs, Freedom House, Tim Grose, Ondřej Klimeš, Julie Millsap, David O’Brien, the Rights Practice, Radio Free Asia, Isabella Rodriguez, David Stroup, Hannah Theaker, Emily Upson, the Uyghur Human Rights Project, the Uyghur Transitional Justice Database, the World Uyghur Congress, the Xinjiang Documentation Project, the Xinjiang Victims’ Database, and Adrian Zenz.

    Author

    Yes, very trustable! /s

    • fishtacos ( fishtacos@lemmy.ml ) 
      12·
      3 years ago

      This is so key to propaganda. When researchers do a study on 58 people, you can barely claim you have a good representation of the population. And even in that case, if they are good, high quality researchers, they aren’t pushing any opinion, just stating facts. It’s just that 58 people can’t represent the population well, It’s just a starting point.

      Now if we’re talking about an opinion and not just stated facts, 58 people is hardly representative, easy to manipulate, especially when you don’t have to cite specifics, just conclusion.

      Okay, let’s assume these are facts. 58 people were threatened, etc. This is still propaganda. Opinion, and interpretation can push the conversation in one direction or the other very heavily.

      For example, let’s draw a comparison to a system that people find more familiar (For westerners, at least), such as the united states police system or the FBI. How many US citizens are threatened to stop talking when pushing the limits of conversation publicly (Say, about calling out the inhumane treatment of others by the US military)? How many people have talked publicly about being approached by the FBI, or said they can’t comment on their interactions with the FBI, or of some private corporation that paid them off to keep their mouths shut about some insider deal, money laundering, or underage sex scandal? Governments and even private citizens coming after people who are talking shit publicly happens in capitalist states all the time.

      And that’s just taking into account regular people who live in western countries. How about an even more direct comparison? The Uyghurs are Muslims that participated in terrorism in China, but the United States had Muslim terrorists of their own, what did they do? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_post-invasion_Iraq You can find all kinds of resources about the human rights violations that the united states participated in against the muslin people, even in western sources such as wikipidia, and others https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/03/iraq-20-years-since-the-us-led-coalition-invaded-iraq-impunity-reigns-supreme/ have lots and lots of facts surrounding this.

      “rules for thee, but not for me” comes to mind.

      Sorry didn’t mean to unload on you. I’m vehemently agreeing!

          • GarbageShootAlt2 ( GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml ) 
            5·
            3 years ago

            And yet surely these people must have a reason to believe it, don’t they? Even if one assumes they are wrong, this doesn’t just come from nowhere, it must have some cause to seem reasonable to them, right? They are like you, thinking human beings, and no progress can be made in understanding the disagreement if you start from them being, in so many words, intellectually inferior to you.

              • GarbageShootAlt2 ( GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml ) 
                5·
                3 years ago

                The beliefs of Marxism / Leninism . . . or any of their offshoots (i.e communism / socialism)

                I suppose it’s just a matter of syntax, but I first read this as a very silly statement wherein “communism” is an offshoot of “Marxism / Leninism”.

                Anyway, don’t worry, I’m familiar with the “real Marxism has never been tried!” line that some people have for various reasons, but I a) can’t see how this is particularly useful as a distinction compared to other states and b) don’t think this remotely answers my question.

                I think you and I both know why the so-called marxists who say “real Marxism has never been tried” exist, or at least our beliefs on the matter are a close enough parallel that it’s not a very enticing discussion, but what you have failed to do is explain the basic prompt of why a westerner would support a state like China.

                I can give an internally-consistent answer for these groups and yourself coming to their beliefs: You all live to varying degrees in a bubble of western Discourse and pseudo-historical mythmaking.

                The “never been tried” Marxist believes everything the State Department says about its enemies but still believes in some sort of ever-failing communism like a good little Trot because they are, for the time being and in part motivated by their social position, appalled by what capitalism has wrought even in the imperial core and want something better even if they struggle to conceive what that could be in practical terms, since every success of socialism has been transmuted into an ultimate failure. Nonetheless, “there must be an alternative,” and that possibility, however hazy, is worth fighting for over the corrupt establishment.

                The liberal believes everything the State Department says about its enemies and comes to the reasonable conclusion (if we assume the State Department is honest) that socialism has failed its many chances and therefore “there is no alternative”. They are more likely to have a higher social position than the previous group because it is much easier to say capitalism works when it works for you.

                The “tankie” is typically the worst off of the three groups in social position, with long term prospects that look pretty grim, and this has pushed them into a desperation to find a way to improve their prospects since they can’t afford a hazy future and communalist circle-jerking but the invisible hand of the free market would crush them even faster, so they do something that these other groups are not driven to, which is some level of serious research, and by this means they were able to accept that the State Department lies as often as it speaks and that they have been born into the slightly unnerving position of being nestled in the imperial core as the empire runs roughshod over as much of the world as it can. Whether they simply concluded that states like Russia or Iran were plainly the lesser of two evils for their opposition to NATO, or they found a more extreme position like genuinely believing in the project of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, they were able to develop a framework that gives them a path forward where previously they felt they had none.

                Of course, various biographical details can also be vitally important, like being the descendant of defectors vs generic diaspora, or knowing people who are. I’m white as the driven snow, but I know Chinese people from both groups. The “tankie” one didn’t persuade me on very much (though I learned a lot about the Korean War and various elements of the 20th century PRC) but the diaspora descendant taught me things that I still am trying to process, because they made genuinely ridiculous claims (e.g. Mao burning down libraries during the Civil War) that I have not been able to find repeated by even the most ridiculous anti-PRC rag when I search online. There’s a bizarre sort of cult to intergenerational trauma that seems to emerge where stories are embellished and exaggerated over time (deliberately or not) and the truth of these stories cannot be questioned because, in so many words, “it’s their truth.”

                I meant it when I said I’m still processing it, because to me it’s in many respects a bizarre behavior even though it’s actually not that hard to explain sociologically (view it like religious trauma and it’s trivially simple). I think there is more to learn from it, but I couldn’t tell you what.

  • SpooneyOdin ( SpooneyOdin@lemmy.ml ) 
    16·
    3 years ago

    This is pretty crazy if true. I wonder if it has any connections to the alleged “ghost” CCP police stations that were reported around in Canada. I believe it was being claimed the stations were being used to bully Chinese people that were in Canada.