As far as I can tell from reading her Medium article as well as Vice's article and some miscellaneous Reddit threads (a.k.a. take this with the appropriate grain of salt) the timeline goes something like this:
1. Koebler begins a correspondence with Wu and interviews her in person for an article he's writing. Wu makes it clear that one condition for her cooperation is not to talk about her relationship status or sexual orientation.
2. After interviewing her, but before publishing the article, Koebler sends Wu an email asking whether she'd like to comment on a a very public and ugly Reddit/4chan conspiracy theory that she was getting help from her husband? and that not all of her work was her own. Wu becomes fearful that this means the article will touch on the restricted topics that she specifically requested that Vice would not report on. Wu and Koebler have a back and forth where Wu tries to impress upon Vice just how damaging these topics can be to her in the PRC, especially given that Vice articles are often translated, where the government could severely damage her, causing both physical and non-physical harm. Wu asks to see the article before it is published. Koebler refuses, stating it is SOP not to share articles before publication.
3. Wu threatens to use her Twitter followers to cause Vice reputational harm and force Koebler out of his job. Koebler stops responding to Wu's emails.
4. Before the article is published, Wu decides to take action. She takes to Twitter to call out Vice and Koebler. Separately she doxes Koebler in a video shared with her Patreon followers. Vice's lawyers have YouTube remove the video and Patreon close Wu's account. Patreon is a large source of revenue for Wu which forces Wu to search for alternative sources of income within China, which force her into additional compromises without fully recovering her previous already modest level of income.
5. The Vice article is published. Although most of it focuses on Wu as a Maker, Koebler includes a couple of paragraphs outlining his interpretation of what happened with the post-interview situation. This presumably touches on the things Wu did not want talked about in the article. This is the only mention in a fairly long article about anything to do with Wu's relationship status. It is unclear whether the original draft of the article was like this or whether the scope of how much mention of relationship stuff was changed in as a result of the back and forth.
6. Wu responds with this Medium article, which she feels only reveals a fraction of what has happened because she cannot talk about the rest due to the PRC government.
I find this to be the best summary of the incident.
One aspect, which also needs to be considered, is the motive to write this now, i.e. the timing is clearly to take revenge on Sarah Jeong. Naomi would be very right in feeling wronged. But there is also an element of the politics which is being played with this article, in the context of getting back at Jeong, by her detractors.
Also, after reading the vice article[1] in question, I felt its largely supportive of Naomi. Minus the mention of 4chan harrassment, it may have sounded like a one sided puff piece. Rather they've made efforts to cover a lot about Shenzen, and the article is very educative about the Maker culture happening there.
As far as I understand, the pure act of going into these topics at all is already considered dangerous by Wu. I totally agree that the article sounds like a typical "puff piece", but if the person in question insists that this might put them in danger, especially if it's someone from a very different cultural and political world, you should just trust their judgement. Vice's statement of having the obligation to mention this to their readers or the picture would be incomplete is complete BS. You do not put someone's life in danger for that, especially if the article isn't some deep and thorough investigational masterpiece but just typical vice fluff. It really adds nothing of value to the article.
I also agree that Wu's reaction was far from appropriate or foresighted, but threatining with doxxing and then actually doing it just shows how desperate she must have been. She is targeting a western audience and her income depended on that. You don't put all that at risk if you don't seriously believe that even the slightest mention of that could harm you.
5.5 Sarah Jeong is hired by the New York Times as an editor.
This explains the timing and perhaps the purpose of the Medium article. Wu is trying to warn anyone in the People's Republic of China about what might happen if they talk with Jeong and/or the New York Times.
> Also, after reading the vice article[1] in question, I felt its largely supportive of Naomi.
VICE's approval is irrelevant, and not a gift. You would hope, as journalists, that they would give an honest evaluation of her as they see her.
They're not obligated to like her, if the piece were negative it wouldn't reflect on their integrity. What reflects on their integrity is their defiant endangering of her after having been warned about the conditions under which she would do an interview. She didn't want to respond to gamergate-reddit's allegations about her, because they included personal information that she felt endangered her, completely consist of an allegation that would make her look like a danger to the PRC, and were totally irrelevant to her work unless you assumed them to be true.
It's like saying that I can't complain about an article profiling the work I've done dedicating a paragraph or two to a subreddit that accuses me of child molestation, as long as the article maintains that there's no evidence that I've molested a child, and that the people posting about it on reddit are terrible people.
Or imagine that some health care or second amendment activist were married to a Russian national (but didn't spread that information around), and there was a subreddit that trafficked in rumors that her husband was her KGB handler.
1. Koebler begins a correspondence with Wu and interviews her in person for an article he's writing. Wu makes it clear that one condition for her cooperation is not to talk about her relationship status or sexual orientation.
2. After interviewing her, but before publishing the article, Koebler sends Wu an email asking whether she'd like to comment on a a very public and ugly Reddit/4chan conspiracy theory that she was getting help from her husband? and that not all of her work was her own. Wu becomes fearful that this means the article will touch on the restricted topics that she specifically requested that Vice would not report on. Wu and Koebler have a back and forth where Wu tries to impress upon Vice just how damaging these topics can be to her in the PRC, especially given that Vice articles are often translated, where the government could severely damage her, causing both physical and non-physical harm. Wu asks to see the article before it is published. Koebler refuses, stating it is SOP not to share articles before publication.
3. Wu threatens to use her Twitter followers to cause Vice reputational harm and force Koebler out of his job. Koebler stops responding to Wu's emails.
4. Before the article is published, Wu decides to take action. She takes to Twitter to call out Vice and Koebler. Separately she doxes Koebler in a video shared with her Patreon followers. Vice's lawyers have YouTube remove the video and Patreon close Wu's account. Patreon is a large source of revenue for Wu which forces Wu to search for alternative sources of income within China, which force her into additional compromises without fully recovering her previous already modest level of income.
5. The Vice article is published. Although most of it focuses on Wu as a Maker, Koebler includes a couple of paragraphs outlining his interpretation of what happened with the post-interview situation. This presumably touches on the things Wu did not want talked about in the article. This is the only mention in a fairly long article about anything to do with Wu's relationship status. It is unclear whether the original draft of the article was like this or whether the scope of how much mention of relationship stuff was changed in as a result of the back and forth.
6. Wu responds with this Medium article, which she feels only reveals a fraction of what has happened because she cannot talk about the rest due to the PRC government.