this was the Greyzone's Big Lie technique - claiming that everything came down to @adrianzenz then launching an attack on his beliefs, not his work (which they're utterly unqualified to challenge.) https://twitter.com/daokedao1234/status/1309567199858786308

Adrian's work is great and very important! It's also extensively sourced, you can check it yourself, and only part of a huge mosaic of sources, analysis, and testimony from numerous people.

But the number of times I've seen know-nothings show up with 'this is all from one man and he is discredited' - both untrue. What's really noticeable is they never respond or respond angrily to the provision of other sources and evidence, which suggests they didn't care anyway.

It's worth remembering that the rise of denialism is a result of *success* in drawing attention to the atrocities in Xinjiang. But it's also deeply insulting and painful to victims and their families.

When you dig in, though, you can see the split between teenkies and useful idiots in the West ('nothing bad is happening and China is multicultural and good') and nationalists ('Nothing bad is happening to the Uighur and if it was it would be all their fault, Muslim terrorists)

In something like Qiao Collective, you get the collision of these two, resulting in a nominally leftist Western group openly cheering for an extremist War on Terror and Islamophobia as long as China's doing it.