i hate the way that (obvious) fake news and sensationalized reports are acting as a poison pill to good faith efforts to hold china accountable for what's happening in xinjiang

random acounts post videos with no context, no sourcing, and nothing to even indicate they take place in xinjiang, and twitter eats it up.

a vertical video of a dour Chinese countryside wedding? proof that Uyghur are forcibly married to Han

a video of central asian women laughing and drinking in their home? proof that Uyghurs are being forced to imbibe alcohol

as the fake videos get more sensational, there's a cumulative effect where people start believing anything they're told about xinjiang

even if any of these claims like "they're being force-fed pork" end up being true, it's likely not in the way the sensationalized telephone-game version of these stories would have you believe

and it's a problem because the fake/sensationalized stories are the most popular

which means that it's extremely easy for @neomaoist69 to come on and talk about how it's all Red Scare, xenophobic propaganda and there's nothing wrong happening in China and you're suckers for believing in scary stories America is trying to use to shake down China

the Uyghur cause doesn't actually benefit from any of the misinformation and impressionable keyboard activists need to think rationally about what they're being told and actually try reading (stuff not on twitter) before they open their mouths

there's a lot that we actually know to be true for a fact in Xinjiang because of the work of actual journalists who have been there, satellite imagery, interviews, the admissions of the Chinese governments and leaks

the existence of mass detention is not questioned, confirmed by satellite, then by the Chinese govt
we know for a fact that mosques (not just in Xinjiang) are being demolished
the repression of markers of religiosity, the multiple forms of physical and digital surveillance...

....the repression of native Uyghur culture, and mass arrest of uyghurs without cause are all well-documented

there was a massive leak of Chinese documents days ago detailing the workings of the detention camps themselves but the inaccurate TikTok that got banned is the only thing that average people are discussing on here

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/exposed-chinas-operating-manuals-for-mass-internment-and-arrest-by-algorithm/

equally annoying as the online activists who regurgitate fake news on xinjiang are their opponents who are all too eager to dispel the myths but never have anything to say on the proven mass detentions (or worse, rationalize it all as some great initiative against terrorism)

this topic in particular is just so absolutely overshadowed by everyone's own affiliations and biases that an alarming number of people seem to fall into equally wrong camps