VICE News
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 10 months, 2019–2022
31:48 · 12M views · Jun 29, 2019
VICE News reporter Isobel Yeung goes undercover as a tourist in Xinjiang, documenting heavy surveillance, policing and internment of Uighurs. It also covers children taken into state-run institutions.
HN cites it as first-hand, independent reporting on Xinjiang that does not rely on state-sanctioned access.
12 comments from Hacker News
Yes, totalitarian dictatorships are a literal alternative to Democracy, though I feel we're nitpicking on the semantics of my words here. When I say I don't see Totalitarian Dictatorships as an alternative, I don't mean in the literal sense, I mean in the viable sense. In the literal sense, yes, it's an alternative to Democracy. As is building a house on sand is a literal but not viable alternative to building a house on concrete. I don't think many would want to live under a Chinese authoritarian rule given the Democratic alternatives. Or perhaps they would until they're rounded up in Xinjiang camps, shot in the face with rubber bullets for wanting to protect their current way of life or ran over by Tanks by asking for change to better their way of life. But if we've seen what the conversations that are occurring in China about these violent acts taken by the CCP, it's clear the populace think it's in their best interests at this time. Though it's worth adding that the message we receive about the CCP's actions is very different to those living in China. I recommend anyone to watch the documentary created by Vice below about the atrocities that are occurring in Xinjiang and the first hand opinions of those that live there. I would guess the opinions of those being interviewed are honest with a side of oppression. [1] this video
Most people would be unequivocally against slave concentration camps. Do not confuse lack of action with lack of caring. Effective action may require collective action. But individually, most people care. Yet, collectively, they cannot seem to do anything meaningful. You are making a statement that is the definition of an ecological fallacy [0] The article you pointed out is hardly balanced. The access of journalists is heavily restricted. Naturally, any information that comes out from a standard news outlet with government sanctioned offices like Associated Press will sound like government propaganda. CCP will not let AP have access to any information that counters the narrative of the propaganda. For a different take on things, and an outlet that does journalism differently without official representation with CCP, have a look at this piece from VICE [1]. [0] [LINK] [1] this video
> Almost everything ughyur and xinjiang related has pretty much been shown to be propaganda and from highly questionable sources Do you have any evidence for that whatsoever? In contrast, here's a very thorough look from an established news source: this video
> Youtube videos from randos aren't very good sources Sure But a rado guy who have not even had the first-hand information, would be an even worse source. That's always been my #1 rule of assessing the reliability of any news reporting. My point still stands, the mainstream media's report on Xinjiang is lazy, they have no first-hand deep reporting. Note that the early reporting by Vice is the right approach [1]. But it still suffers from the same inconsideration to the different cultural and political aspects of Chinese society. For example, when reporters are followed by government employees, that's the usual lazy bureaucratic reactions to western media. Those are not evidences of "vanishing Uyghurs". Instead, if they just pretend to be normal travellers, and hop on trains, on bus, on the street, and gather the information through small talks and gossips with real locals, they'll have much more freedom to reach deeper. No, they dont think they should be restricted at all. They believe in free press; which was never been established in China since the unification in Qin dynasty. They believe that news reporting is so universally believed that, they would get whatever truth they seek just by showcasing their face. From a larger scope, government in US enjoys an legitimacy through voting democracy. So they usually do not care much about criticism about their performance from media. Individuals certainly are much more sensitive to such reporting, but that's same for Chinese beau
I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as China and North Korea, to 'see for yourself', especially when you don't know the language, when you're not willing to risk your life to understand and uncover the parts the government doesn't want you to see, like VICE did in Xinjiang: this video That being said, if you go then please try to walk into a random hotel/apartment you see on the street to try to book a room.. then you'll discover that 9/10 hotels/apartments won't allow foreigners to live there. I lived in China for more than a year before I realized this was the case, and I have on multiple occasions even been kicked out of friends/partners apartment because someone told the landlord there was a foreigner in the building (or maybe they saw through the surveillance camera).