
Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps - danso
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alison_killing/satellite-images-investigation-xinjiang-detention-camps
======
mzs
Journalist's thread that explains a bit more of how they did this:

[https://twitter.com/alisonkilling/status/1298933918620672000](https://twitter.com/alisonkilling/status/1298933918620672000)

edit: was used in creating this two part story:

[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-new-
inter...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-new-internment-
camps-xinjiang-uighurs-muslims)

~~~
jandrese
China's social media army is out in force on that Twitter thread. Deflect,
Deny, Discredit.

~~~
aluminum96
It is truly remarkable how many replies in that thread consist of bad
analogies, denials of clear third party reporting, and whatabout-ism.

~~~
systemvoltage
Same thing happens here btw on HN. Since I just said something against HN, I
guarantee this comment will get downvoted into oblivion.

~~~
grogenaut
generally downvoting happens when you talk about voting in the meta, which is
against the rules and spirit.

~~~
angry_octet
I can't talk about why I might have downvoted your comment.

~~~
angry_octet
The karma cycle of life. Humourless slashdot 4 eva.

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

~~~
abj
"Individuals cannot accept interviews without government approval." [12:06]

Does anyone know if this is a law?

~~~
thoughtstheseus
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.

~~~
bgee
> you need a license/approval before you can interview someone

[citation needed]

> Many western youtubers came under scrutiny for it.

came under scrutiny by whom? Their audience or CCP?

Disclaimer: I'm a China national.

~~~
askmike
> > you need a license/approval before you can interview someone

> [citation needed]

So it was stated by a police officer in the video above (I'm assuming it was a
real police encounter and not staged, and that the subtitles are correct as he
didn't say it in English).

~~~
bgee
That scene is at ~12:00.

For the record those police officers said people can't accept interviews
without approval, which is obviously BS.

------
gumby
This was supposedly a problem with a stealth ship designed by Lockheed’s
“skunkworks”: against the choppy noise of waves and swell, a blank spot (of no
radar return) stood out dramatically.

~~~
DrAwdeOccarim
Cool! Do you have a link?

~~~
pests
Skunkworks by Ben Rich has the stories and some photos.

~~~
gumby
That’s where I read this. I always wondered itpfbthat was really why it was
cancelled (that’s why I wrote “supposedly”) or if Lockheed simply couldn’t
make an adequate ship, being an aircraft company.

~~~
liability
This is about the Sea Shadow, right? Lockheed later got a contract for the
_Freedom_ class of litoral combat ships, with 10 of the planned 16 currently
active and five more fitting out or under construction. Those are being built
by a shipbuilding firm, not Lockheed directly.

------
tosh
interesting related read:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_data_in_China)

~~~
canada_dry
When I was traveling around China a few years ago it was extremely frustrating
trying to use my phone's GPS+offline map. Realtime mapping in China is
purposely offset by hundreds of meters making navigation quite challenging!!

------
uptown
You'd think going forward they'll fill in these blank voids with land that
works with the surrounding landscape in order to mask these gaps.

~~~
netsharc
They could put cartoon images of "land", like this TV show's overlay on top of
a lady wearing Muslim dress:
[https://youtu.be/17oCQakzIl8?t=270](https://youtu.be/17oCQakzIl8?t=270)

Interesting how the IMO Chinese "Eh, imma just half-ass it!" mentality
(hopefully having visited the country and experienced half-assery, I'm allowed
to comment) basically lead to this research work.

~~~
jandrese
The scale was definitely a problem. The article talked about how they had
millions of blanked out areas, anything of even the most minor strategic
importance was blanked out. It might even be an attempt to stymie this kind of
investigation by making the data too noisy.

They definitely screwed up when they made the censoring so easy to spot.

------
totetsu
After watching the old NHK/CCTV Silk Road documentary, I really wanted to
visit this region. Humans suck when we let our ideology be stronger than our
humanity. [http://www.infocobuild.com/books-and-films/social-
science/si...](http://www.infocobuild.com/books-and-films/social-science/silk-
road/episode-08.html)

------
Razengan
Speaking of maps, I've always wondered what's in that huge, mostly-unlabeled
region that is more than half of Russia.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Russia)

It looks like it could comfortably fit a few countries and then some.

Even when watching history documentaries there's a period where Russia is
basically a thin strip at the western edge of its current territory, before
suddenly and inexplicably blowing up to engulf almost half of Asia.

~~~
FranOntanaya
Horseflies.

~~~
082349872349872
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik1Y88n1Uog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik1Y88n1Uog)
[1] does give the impression of the sort of place where one wishes to avoid
the snowmelt line in spring. And that's down in the populated region.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-
Siberian_Highway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Highway) says
it was first fully paved in 2015.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfbbd-8hbWM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfbbd-8hbWM)

Also in the populated part, the
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family)
detached from their society and went foraging in the wild, but lost most of
their tech tree in doing so.

A former soviet colleague told me during perestroika that they planned their
taiga field work for winter, because dealing with snow was much easier than
dealing with mud.

[1] This clip has "women, horses, and wide open spaces." For "steam-baths,
vodka, accordion, and lox" you'll have to do your own searching.

------
icedata
I noticed this myself on Baidu maps a couple of years ago. Browsing around
Xinjiang with a friend, we discovered a weird conical structure constructed of
tiles. Also found lots of roadblocks in the region (those weren't hidden).

------
partiallypro
I'm still baffled that some people, even here, think this is all made up
propaganda from the West. Despite tons and tons of evidence. Kind of reminds
me of how it must have been with people in denial about the early Nazi
concentration camps, and Holodomor. I'm not saying this is as brutal as what
the Nazis did (at least as far as we know,) just drawing parallels to the pure
denialism or marking it up as pure exaggeration.

~~~
Miner49er
I think people are skeptical, because a lot of the people talking about these
camps clearly don't care about the people in them. They only care about making
China look bad. Many politicians in the US are using this as an example of why
China is bad, while simultaneously pushing for similar here with our prison
system or with ICE.

Plus, even if they aren't being hypocrital, it is in the United States'
interest to make China look bad, even if that means making things up or
exaggerating.

~~~
partiallypro
There is definitely a distinction between immigration policy of people coming
into your country vs rounding up your own citizens.

So, we now just have to believe everything China says because the US isn't
perfect? Germany and many European countries have camps for refugees from the
Syrian war, but that's not even remotely the same as taking your own citizens
into camps and harvesting their organs, hair, etc. Not even close. I am so
tired of that comparison, it's lazy whataboutism without even thinking about
the context or extent.

~~~
canadaduane
I think there's quite a leap from "people are being skeptical" to "we now just
have to believe everything China says".

------
mbar84
Can these findings be used to put some bounds on the number of prisoners?

~~~
dirtyid
I'm surprised it hasn't been. Some initial reporting measured expansion of the
camps by floor space which can be used to estimate internment numbers. One of
the researcher is a licensed architect, this is 101 stuff in terms of
occupancy/building use estimation. Source some commercial satellite service to
take pictures and start counting.

That said, if the intention of the system is to indoctrinate then we can
expect most of the 11M Uyghurs to be imprisoned at some time. Really the
question is concurrent numbers which makes for grabbing headlines. My personal
guess is if competent geospatial analysis was conducted the actual detention
capacity would be far lower than the commonly cited 1-3 million Zenz estimated
extrapolated from his claims of 1,200 detention centres. This study, alleged
to be comprehensive, found 260 (edit 315) camps in the entire region. At least
it's a good start.

------
newen
Apparently they are apartment complexes..

[https://twitter.com/_tchiek/status/1299386623390617601?s=20](https://twitter.com/_tchiek/status/1299386623390617601?s=20)

Love how easily propaganda and misinformation spreads.

------
m3kw9
Wouldn’t they also blank out other random spots to be less obvious?

------
davidzweig
Maybe someone can put the coordinates on a github repo so they are accessible
in China?

------
aminecodes
The least the EU and US could do is sanction and ban Baidu and other Chinese
tech companies responsible for covering up this genocide.

~~~
adventured
It would have very little effect, which is why it's not a primary threat now.
Despite China's aims, their tech giants have made little headway in pushing
their core businesses far outside of China. Huawei is the primary success
story in that regard (the US has obviously been aggressively targeting them
across the board). Baidu was supposed to conquer the world and defeat Google,
it failed miserably and is largely just a China search engine today, nearly
all of their revenue comes from China, so sanctions wouldn't do much. China's
tech giants are, for the most part, captives within China. ByteDance did
manage to build a global phenomenon in TikTok, however that too is now under
threat of being turned back.

Sanctions on most parts of China's system will have little effect, similar to
how China's retaliatory sanctions on US Senators are largely meaningless.

There are three primary ways to hurt China. 1) Cut them off on technology (eg
semiconductors), which is an angle the US is using to an extent. There is some
question over how long China will tolerate that before they just start
ignoring international rules/laws/norms and start openly steal-cloning the
tech they want (I'd bet they won't tolerate it for very long). 2) Humiliate
them politically, through isolation & exclusion; cut them out of the global
system; that requires a widespread effort from the top several dozen
economies, it can be done however. 3) Target their export machine & dollar
dependency, cut them off financially from the global economy (USD, Euro and
Yen combined entirely dominate the global economy, along with the connected
banking & financial systems); this will work for a while, however China is
aware of the weak spots and is very aggressively working to build out their
domestic service economy to lessen the importance of their exports to their
economy, and they're always looking to lessen their dollar dependency.

All that said, China is well beyond the point where you can really restrict
them in the sense that you can most nations (like Iran or Venezuela). They've
accumulated enough capability, tech, wealth, productivity, infrastructure,
domestic know-how, etc. that they are fully free standing now. They have $60
trillion or so in domestic wealth. They have the world's #2 military. They
have the world's largest manufacturing engine, and can increasingly
manufacture at or near the highest tiers (eg jet engines & planes,
semiconductors, etc). They have very few real weak points that can threaten
them in a serious sense. The last time it was possible to squeeze China was
before the great recession, when their economy was still far smaller than the
US & EU, and back then it was hoped that wouldn't be necessary.

~~~
mschuster91
> cut them out of the global system; that requires a widespread effort from
> the top several dozen economies, it can be done however.

The problem is that _many_ of the world's economies already depend on China -
either as a source of cheap products or, and that is an increasingly
successful threat, for money. China has been buying up, building or financing
construction works especially in South Europe (Italy, Greece, Croatia, Serbia
come to mind), and are involved across Africa.

~~~
adventured
> The problem is that many of the world's economies already depend on China

No question. On point 2, it wouldn't significantly harm China by any means.
The point would be to humiliate their power aspirations, as China has an
intense desire to be respected as a global superpower, to be viewed as a peer
with great powers, and so on. It's nothing more than an attempt at influencing
China, to exclude them from the global order that they obviously want to be
part of.

Isolation is a modestly potent influence weapon, even more so today than in
the past. Russia / USSR for example suffered from an intense desire to be
viewed as a power peer, they desperately wanted that recognition from the US
(Khrushchev sought that out with his populist visit to the US). Authoritarian
systems always seek that with a great degree of desperation (they know their
rule by force is illegitimate, so they seek outside sources - typically more
democratic sources - to legitimize them).

~~~
mschuster91
> they know their rule by force is illegitimate, so they seek outside sources
> - typically more democratic sources - to legitimize them

China, however, unlike the USSR and Yugoslavia, has the unique advantage of a
population so brainwashed that even Chinese students in foreign countries
experiencing the benefits of democratic countries are feared for their loyalty
to the CCP. Add to that the Great Firewall / their trend of a "Chinternet" aka
Walled Garden for their citizens where the CCP controls the narrative and the
informations, plus the strategy of allowing local small scale protests against
corrupt public officials so that people vent... China doesn't need anyone's
validation, they are too big. Unfortunately. The Western countries should have
nipped that shit in the bud instead of selling out human rights for cheap
crap.

------
silexia
Wow, enslaving millions...

------
FooBarWidget
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 less than the alleged 1+
million. No killing/genocide; no erasure of Muslim religion, artefacts or
buildings; any brutality in prisons are incidental rather than policy. All
people who are forced into camps eventually leave them.

B. Like A, except that there are no voluntary vocational camps: all camps are
forced. All people leave them after a while.

C. Like B, except that people aren't supposed to leave them. Masses of people
are imprisoned indefinitely. The alleged 1+ million number is true. Erasure of
Muslim religion and artefacts is true. Brutality within camps are true. But no
killing/genocide.

D. Full killing/genocide ala Nazi Auschwitz, on the full population,
everywhere in China.

E. None of the above. Would love to hear what you think is exactly going on.

Which of the above do people here think is true?

~~~
Hizonner
Too simplistic. Based on the generally available reports, and based on prior
probabilities given the way this stuff has tended to work all over the world,
I tentatively believe something close to this:

There is forced re-education, forced de-radicalization, and forced political
(and cultural) assimilation. One major motivation is probably to fight a
(largely illusory) danger of widespread separatist violence. In fact, the
policy will probably eventually provoke or exacerbate such violence from at
least a significant minority. That in turn will confirm in the leader's minds
that the entire populace is dangerous, leading to a heavier crackdown. Lather,
rinse, repeat.

Some voluntary vocational education is available, not necessarily in "camps",
but probably in somewhat less restricted residential settings as well as on an
"outpatient" basis. This "education" has a significant political component,
which is largely unnoticed by the people who create the curriculum. Failure to
absorb the political component is failure to absorb the lessons, and is
treated as such.

Some unknown, but probably not very large, number of people accept this on a
truly voluntary basis. Another unknown, but probably larger, number accept it
"voluntarily", because they expect full-on involuntary internment if they do
not. Both of these "voluntary" groups probably do get privileges like the
possibility to occasionally get a pass to leave the camp (or other facility).
Neither group is probably as large as the outright involuntary group, but it's
hard to tell.

Unless you can put on a good show of actually qualifying to "graduate",
guitting the "voluntary" group probably has a better than even chance of
getting you put into the "involuntary" group. On the other hand, if you're
genuinely an enthusiastic member of the "voluntary" group, and you manage to
prove it, that's a great thing and you'll get all kinds of rewards.

No genocide is intended; _assimilation_ is intended. The goal is not so much
to _erase_ any existing cultural identity as to make it _subordinate_ to
"Chinese" identity. That includes accepting a healthy helping of Han, but the
people defining the goals don't see that, and think of it as accepting
"universal values and pro-social habits". The intended assimilation would have
the long-term _effect_ of erasure and might meet the UN definition of
"genocide"... but that's not really the _purpose_.

There is no intentional genocide in the sense of planned mass extermination.
Nobody is killed outright _unless they resist with violence_. They are, of
course provoked to so resist, but that's not really intentional. Of course
anything that looks like participation in or aid to rebellion counts as
violent resistance.

If things escalate enough there may be more dehumanization, and a perceived
need for a "final solution", but that's not what the bosses want to do, and
they are probably not thinking in those terms at this point.

The intent with regard to religion is to tame it, and those in charge feel
they're enlightened and lenient for not outright suppressing it. The "taming"
includes bringing the practice under state supervision and control, and
removing any doctrinal elements that the regime finds threatening or that
might in any way tend to undermine the regime's _own_ doctrines. Some of the
altered elements are probably important to the religion as it exists and as it
is presently seen by its practitioners. It's very hard to create a
recognizable "socialist Islam".

The re-educators, for their part, cannot understand why anybody would be
unwilling to accept the "obviously reasonable" changes they're asking for, and
see any resistance as vicious intransigence.

The brutality, in or out of the camps, is neither policy _nor_ incidental.
It's just what _happens_ when you round people up and tell your troops that
they're recalcitrant and anti-social and need to be "re-educated". But Those
In Charge are predisposed not to see the brutality as what it is. It's simply
tough love for the recalcitrant, with the occasional rare aberration. If a
guard manages to make the bosses _see_ something as brutal, that guard is
probably punished with extreme severity.

Artefacts, buildings or whatever aren't an issue unless they become rallying
points or are seen as likely to be rallying points. However, "not an issue"
also includes "not very important to preserve". Which may make them into
rallying points.

The _goal_ is to have everybody in the camps re-educated (or brainwashed, as
we crazy outsiders would have it), and released. It's a regrettable reality
that certain elements resist this reasonable re-education, and therefore must
be detained for very long periods, maybe even for life. It wouldn't be
appropriate to release anybody who hadn't actually been reformed. After all,
it's for their own good, and don't doubt that the people at the top of this
_believe_ that it's for their own good. Of course, if somebody resists
"criminally" and becomes an enemy of the state, they may be imprisoned, or,
justifiably, executed judicially, or killed as imminent threats to the safety
of the state, the state's agents, or the social order.

How many people they actually manage to release is hard to tell. Exactly how
hard they try, or what they accept as adequate evidence of having been re-
educated, is also hard to tell. It probably varies.

It's also a regrettable reality that there are _many_ unregenerate elements in
the populace. Whether it gets to a million, I don't know.

So sort of C with elements of A, but it's more complicated than that.

You would _think_ they'd have learned about some of this from the Cultural
Revolution, but apparently not.

~~~
free_rms
This is the best post on this topic that has ever been written on Hacker News.

Only nitpick (after a bunch of brilliant conjecture that basically 'scans' as
far as human behavior, chinese society, and Xi's inclinations): The cultural
revolution was completely out of control once unleashed -- this seems much
more 'regular' as far as how it's being administered.

~~~
fspeech
There was
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Seventh_Cadre_School](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Seventh_Cadre_School)
during the Cultural Revolution.

------
paganel
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.

~~~
tomhoward
YC announced the closure of YC China last year.

[https://blog.ycombinator.com/an-update-on-yc-
china/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/an-update-on-yc-china/)

There’s no “using another legal entity to do their bidding over there”. It’s
just closed.

That said, it’s not clear that it’s unequivocally morally superior to deny a
service to all 1B+ Chinese people, many of whom could have been founders of
great companies or customers/beneficiaries of those companies, just because of
the actions of a government, particularly one that was not elected by those
citizens.

But that’s moot now. YC China has been closed.

~~~
yorwba
As the announcement mentions, Qi Lu continues to be active in the VC space
with a new company, MiraclePlus, which calls itself "formerly YC China" on
their website: [https://www.miracleplus.com/](https://www.miracleplus.com/)

~~~
tomhoward
Presumably he calls it that because he’s using the same business
strategy/model he was building for YC. But it seems quite clear that it’s not
YC. The new entity is a standalone VC fund [1], and YC is a recipient of LP
funds, not an LP in other VC funds. And besides, it would be hard for YC to
keep any involvement quiet after making this kind of announcement.

[1]
[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1792939/000179293919...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1792939/000179293919000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml)

------
throwaway69123
How as a consumer do I avoid the moral dread of buying made in China when 99%
of everything is made in China.

~~~
CWuestefeld
I'd suggest that this is less black versus white than it appears.

In buying products made in China, you're helping to raise a huge number of
people out of crushing poverty. I've traveled through China across 25 years,
and seen how their lives have improved, yet some are still trying to eke out
subsistence, farming what looked like a 1-acre plot with an ox.

Yes, the CCP is evil. But the moral calculus is never simple, I don't think we
can simply assume that the _net_ effect of purchasing from China is morally
bad. It does enable some bad things, but it also helps quite a lot of people.

~~~
fakedang
We're funding the upliftment of Chinese citizens, at the cost of the millions
of unemployed in our own home countries. And that according to you is still a
good thing?

I'm a firm believer in free trade and all that, as long as trade partners are
of the same ideological bend, even if flawed. Not the country that's actively
looking to rivalldestabilize every other Western democracy through backroom
dealings.

------
rjsw
There are blank spots on western maps too, I can think of at least one [1]
that isn't in Google maps.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviano_Air_Base](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviano_Air_Base)

~~~
t3rabytes
Not true --
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Aviano+Air+Base/@46.033364...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Aviano+Air+Base/@46.0333642,12.5899364,6763m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x47797a73c3f500fd:0x696a4ad38bdf15ea!8m2!3d46.0255886!4d12.6122712)

~~~
the_gipsy
Try this one, I just noticed it while on vacation nearby:
[https://maps.app.goo.gl/ccm3ZcQ771mb6Jtj8](https://maps.app.goo.gl/ccm3ZcQ771mb6Jtj8)

Edit sorry I can't link to satellite view from mobile. It's the Mola Fortress
on Menorca.

~~~
enriquto
In France, many military and nuclear facilities are also smoothed out in
google maps. It seems a bit ridiculous since you can easily see public (free
and paid) satellite images of the same places.

~~~
speps
Frenchelon example:

Blurred:
[https://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=44.786389~1.238056&style=h...](https://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=44.786389~1.238056&style=h&lvl=15&sp=Point.44.786389_1.238056_Frenchelon___)

Revealed:
[http://osmz.ru/imagery/#18/44.78662/1.23807/mp](http://osmz.ru/imagery/#18/44.78662/1.23807/mp)

------
throwaway4good
"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 well oiled propaganda arm
for whatever is on the US government's foreign policy agenda.

~~~
ardy42
> 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](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
> one of the few reliable sources of information about Xinjiang.

My understanding is that RFA, RFE, VOA, etc. are basically meant to promote
the idea free independent press in areas where only heavy-handed propaganda is
available, and the propaganda value is in _undermining_ blatant propaganda.

~~~
angio
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Agency_for_Global_Media)

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20191215131808/https://www.bbg.g...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191215131808/https://www.bbg.gov/who-
we-are/oversight/legislation/standards-principles/)

~~~
ardy42
> 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.

I don't think it means that. Sure, they're not going to run strongly anti-
American editorials, but we're talking about news reporting here, and they
don't seem to finch at reporting news that doesn't make the US look good. For
instance:

This article repeats criticisms of US police actions against journalism and
carries this gem: "“Abuse of power against journalism is really as old as
America itself,” Wheaton said. “It’s an eternal struggle between journalists
trying to expose and power trying to hide.”": [https://www.voanews.com/press-
freedom/police-response-press-...](https://www.voanews.com/press-
freedom/police-response-press-black-lives-matter-protests-tests-first-
amendment):

This article (republished from the AFP) is actually not too different from a
certain type of subtle anti-democracy propaganda you'd see on CCTV (i.e.
selectively emphasize foreign unrest to make Chinese authoritarianism look
good): [https://www.voanews.com/usa/timeline-us-race-
riots-1965](https://www.voanews.com/usa/timeline-us-race-riots-1965)

They have an entire category dedicated covering one of the biggest American
domestic problems (which, IMHO, doesn't make the US look good):
[https://www.voanews.com/usa/race-in-
america](https://www.voanews.com/usa/race-in-america)

This article reports on some harsh criticism of the Iraq war:
[https://www.voanews.com/europe/british-inquiry-finds-iraq-
wa...](https://www.voanews.com/europe/british-inquiry-finds-iraq-war-went-
badly-wrong)

This article does not paint pretty picture of the war in Afghanistan:
[https://www.voanews.com/middle-east/us-war-terror-kills-
near...](https://www.voanews.com/middle-east/us-war-terror-kills-
nearly-500000-afghanistan-iraq-pakistan)

This article (from a US conservative website) criticizes VoA for _not being
pro-government enough_ , and carries another gem: "The viewpoints generally
expressed in these Voice of America articles are those of demonstrators,
protesters, and rioters, and indistinguishable from coverage in The New York
Times or The Washington Post.":
[https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/the-
voice-...](https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/the-voice-
americas-one-sided-coverage-black-lives-matter-protests)

------
tyingq
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?

~~~
rsynnott
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 did journalism.

Due to the travails of the news industry, there are currently a lot of good
journalists and not a lot of jobs for them, so this sort of non-traditional
route works. Teen Vogue is another example, arguably, though a less dramatic
one; surprisingly good journalism in an outlet where you wouldn't
traditionally expect journalism at all.

------
knolax
> In total there were 5 million masked tiles across Xinjiang. They seemed to
> cover any area of even the slightest strategic importance — military bases
> and training grounds, prisons, power plants, but also mines and some
> commercial and industrial facilities. There were far too many locations for
> us to sort through, so we narrowed it down by focusing on the areas around
> cities and towns and major roads.

Translation: we looked at satellite photos of random buildings and determined
that they were "camps" because of unspecified "hallmarks".

This is literally a Buzzfeed article. One of the people they cite once tried
to do something similar by claiming an 800 year old mosque was demolished when
it was actually the building next door built in the 90s(by his own
admission[0]). In fact it seems they seemed to have been expanding/renovating
the mosque[1][2].

[0] [https://medium.com/@shawnwzhang/clarification-of-keriya-
etik...](https://medium.com/@shawnwzhang/clarification-of-keriya-etika-
mosques-current-situations-9678a6975a51)

[1]
[https://miro.medium.com/max/1106/1*_OL9z1ndMVuqZQ7_XxwYLQ.pn...](https://miro.medium.com/max/1106/1*_OL9z1ndMVuqZQ7_XxwYLQ.png)

[2] [https://geopoliticsalert.com/keriya-aitika-
mosque](https://geopoliticsalert.com/keriya-aitika-mosque)

~~~
jandrese
They correlated areas with known camps first.

~~~
knolax
> Of the six camps that we used in our feasibility study, five had blank tiles
> at their location at zoom level 18 in Baidu,

They "correlated" that out of 6 "camps" 5 of them had missing tiles, which
gives you the chance of a blanked out tile give a "camp", but not the chance
of a "camp" given blanked out tile.

------
FooBarWidget
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...](https://medium.com/@jerry_grey2002/abc-four-corners-tell-the-world-
analysis-1529e8aaf316)

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?

~~~
simonh
The section on separatism is unadulterated pro-authoritarianism. Examples of
regions that have peacefully seceded from a nation abound. Norway from Sweden,
Greenland and Iceland from Denmark, multiple states from the former Soviet
Union. Scotland had a referendum on independence recently and though they
chose to stay part of the UK, there was no threat or chance of violence.
Freedom to seceded, or coerced union are both choices and 'everybody does it'
is the worst excuse ever. Pure whataboutism.

The fact that the US has indivisibility in it's constitution is a weird
historical wrinkle, and one I find hard to reconcile given that they chose to
separate from Britain. How they didn't recognise a general right for self
determination is beyond me. But then I am a Brit.

I'm married to a former Chinese citizen and have family in China, and while
Ive not lived there I've been many times. It's oppressive enough of minorities
just in the relatively peaceful areas I've visited. There's a superficial
respect for ethnicities, but that's coupled with a sustained campaign of
cultural suppression, dilution and colonisation.

For example there's no smallness of degree of ethnic blood too thin to count
as part of that ethnicity, and ethnic groups get privileges Han don't,
encouraging registration as minority members. Plus registration is just a
matter of getting 'notorised', which is an unbelievably corrupt system. The
result is that the vast majority of official members of 'ethnic minorities'
have virtually, or actually no connection with the ethnic culture, but get
full say in how their 'minority' is represented and treated. All the people
who get an official say in minority relations are functionally 100% Han, and
party members to boot.

~~~
Grimm665
> The result is that the vast majority of official members of 'ethnic
> minorities' have virtually, or actually no connection with the ethnic
> culture, but get full say in how their 'minority' is represented and treated

Your whole last paragraph was genuinely interesting and not something I've
heard of before. Do you have a source I could read for more information?

~~~
jessaustin
This phenomenon is certainly not limited to China. Elizabeth Warren is the
public example who comes to mind, although I suspect that many of us know
people who claim particular backgrounds for their personal advantage.

~~~
simonh
Warrens actions were misguided, but it’s a stretch to read malice into it. To
me the line not to cross is marginalising the voices or representation of
those genuinely culturally indigenous, or of a minority.

------
fqye
If they were actual camps, can someone explain why they were all empty? No
cars, no trucks, no detainees, no guards at all?

To supply and run a crowded camp, you need guards and logistics. Nothing
there.

Nowadays, researchers could easily obtain satellites images showing actual
activities with all those clues.

Just by looking at the images, it not possible to draw conclusion they were
concentration camps. They could be barracks under construction and that would
also explain why blanket at Baidu map. The report didn't explain its logic to
conclude they were concentration camps. And they didn't even consider other
possibilities at all.

It is not serious research.

Remember the satellite image analysis of Wuhan's hospitals' parking lots that
was supposed to reveal the true scale of covid19 outbreak in Wuhan? High
resolution images with all the details. Still lots of flaws and no one takes
it seriously now.

New York Times obtained some leaked confidential documents of China's Xinjiang
policies. Nothing even close to concentration camp was revealed. It actually
did CCP some favor.

~~~
free_rms
It's a tough issue because it's hard to give the Chinese government credit for
lack of evidence when they're not letting journalists in in the first place.

I looked into it a year ago and the strongest evidence I found at that point
was two dudes drove around and took pictures of a bunch of facilities that
looked like re-education camps. They guesstimated 100k-1M, one news article
wrote "a million", then the rest of them started writing "millions", and
hacker news commenters write "genocide".

~~~
panpanna
Does it matter if it was 100k or 1M??

~~~
free_rms
It matters it it's mandatory job and language training vs ethnic cleansing or
genocide. There's evidence for the former, none for the latter. And a
paternalistic "we'll end this unrest by educating them" attitude would be
pretty on-brand for the Chinese Government.

Also, yes, quantity matters. How many do we have in jail on bullshit charges?
It would be nice to be less, right?

