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Buzzfeed journalist denied China visa following coverage of Xinjiang crackdown
- mattigames 8y agoAn indirect reminder that now that YC China is a thing @sama and @paulg and any other affiliated will have to avoid saying anything negative about China in order to keep doing business there.
- adventured 8y agoIf YC China succeeds and becomes big there, it'll inevitably draw Chinese attention back to YC US including news.ycombinator.com. I would expect they'll have to begin blocking sensitive discussions on HN in the near future. The wave of one hand is all it takes to destroy YC China, because of one upsetting thread on HN getting back to authorities in China. If they plan to stay in bed with China and all that entails, it might not be a bad idea to formally separate HN off from YC (for the sake of YC and the sake of HN). The Chinese authorities are extremely sensitive about certain things, easily insulted, and unforgiving about the lack of compliance. They've barred far larger targets for far less than the discussions that go on here.
- Rotdhizon 8y agoIf that time comes it will be interesting to see how the owners of ycombinator react. China's anger has made many high profile companies fold at the earliest signs of tension. Remember the guy who got fired from the hotel chain because he was logged in to the hotel social media account and simply like a pro-Taiwan post? Within days China had put pressure on the hotel to get rid of him. Remember when the clothing company put out a shirt that showed a map of the world and had Taiwan as its own country? Chinese pressure made them completely pull that piece of clothing and redesign it to remove Taiwan. God forbid they allow Chinese moderators on HN or some type of Chinese-centric oversight
- oh-kumudo 8y agoHN is already blocked. Funny, right?
- yorwba 8y agoWhere? Over the last 2 years I visited HN from China almost daily without any issues. I'm no longer there, but this test seems to indicate that HN is not blocked: https://viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/?domain=news.ycombinator.com https://viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/?domain=news.ycombinato...
- shalmanese 8y agoHN isn't blocked in China
- oh-kumudo 8y agoWell it is definitely blocked last time when I was in China, or in Beijing, but that is like 3 years ago.
- chaostheory 8y agoAll it takes is for a stuffed bear related post to make the front page.
- thatcat 8y agoYC and HN are symbiotic. Much easier to just make YCChina and news.ycchina considering it won't be in English. >They've barred far larger targets for far less than the discussions that go on here. Can you give any example of China successfully censoring any large media companies outside of their own territory?
- driverdan 8y agoThey should issue public statements condemn China's terrible rights violations now and promise they won't retract them. Establish integrity and refuse to give it up in the name of Chinese money.
- robdachshund 8y agoTell that to the people decrying tariffs and saying we can never bring back American manufacturing. The only reason for the state of things is that we've tolerated both utilizing industrial era labor standards and outsourcing all of our manufacturing. If China is forced to bring its labor standards to 1st world levels, there is no reason why we can't both purchase goods from them at a better rate, while improving our buying power by revitalizing dead industries within our nation. We can't keep buying dirt cheap goods from the east while also complaining about our economic woes. If we could get people to understand that moving to this quasi slave labor is the reason we are now having to depend on it maybe we could break this feedback loop. But as things are now, we are in a catch 22. We dont have a strong economy because we have outsourced our manufacturing, and now can only afford to keep relying on that labor. China is going to have to deal with actually developing their economy. They have become an economic superpower by essentially being allowed to cheat the system. It is now negatively impacting global economies and their business model is utterly unsustainable. We are seeing things improve with their labor standards due to public outcry, and now we are starting to rebuild by reintroducing stateside manufacturing and tariffs. We shouldn't need to rely on China for anything other than rare earth minerals and luxury goods that can't be produced in the west.
- justinzollars 8y agoMiss out in the future number one market on earth or stand up for human rights? Certainly a scary future.
- lainga 8y agoIt's happened before. Think of all the Fanta those settlers in the Reichskommissariat Moskau are going to drink!
- ryandrake 8y ago> future number one market on earth Is there an example of a western brand that has yet gained significant traction in China? My understanding is that unless you are a Chinese company, your chances of competing in this “number one” market are slim. Businesses obsess at the population numbers but ignore the reality.
- monocasa 8y agoiPhones?
- robinduckett 8y agoApple
- lainga 8y agoThere are over 5,000 KFC locations in China
- walrus01 8y agoBuick, oddly enough. https://www.google.com/search?q=buick+china+popularity&oq=buick+china&aqs=chrome.3.69i57j5j0l2.4717j0j4&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=buick+china+popularity&oq=bu...
- adventured 8y agoThe trick isn't whether these brands can access China, it's in what manner. Western brands sell very well in China, who gets the proceeds is the issue. The big European luxury goods brands are doing a wild business in China. [1][2][3][4] If you want to make a lot of money on China as a foreigner, you want to be selling a luxury brand product rather than offering a local service (eg fast food chain). That might be an iPhone or a Gucci bag or a Mercedes. Owning certain intellectual property, such as characters, can be equally lucrative (eg Marvel and Mickey Mouse). Nike and Jordan Brand have done a great business in China. KFC in China for example, isn't controlled by Yum Brands US. It's controlled by Yum China, minority owned by Yum US. McDonald's has a small sliver of its own business in China. Disney only owns 43% of its big new $5.5b park in Shanghai, the most popular park in China. Wang Jianlin had touted that he'd personally chase Disney from China, and that his parks would dominate instead. Disney really had no choice but to acquiesce and partner up. They'll make a lot of money from it and they had to cede control to do that. Tesla is building a factory in China for the same reason everyone else has, there is no great alternative. You have to give local Chinese partners their big cut, or else. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-26/l-oreal-gets-a-lift-from-china-s-demand-for-luxury-cosmetics https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-26/l-oreal-g... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-20/hermes-expects-profitability-near-record-as-china-boom-continues https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-20/hermes-ex... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-24/lvmh-shines-as-luxury-s-allure-eclipses-trade-war-fears-in-china https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-24/lvmh-shin... [4] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-28/luxury-back-in-vogue-as-china-s-women-middle-class-lead-the-way https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-28/luxury-ba...
- tsuabing 8y agoI'm Taiwanese, and I would have second and third thought about applying to YC, given the relationship Sam wants to have with Chinese government. I would imagine that muslims, people from Hong Kong and Tibet, Japan, Vietnam, people that would prefer democracies over authoritarian governments, libertarians, techies that treasure freedom on the net, would hesitate and would not apply to YC for moral reasons.
- reustle 8y agoIs this surprising at all?
- shoulderfake 8y agoNOPE
- busterarm 8y agoSeriously. What did she think was going to happen? She's lucky they were nice enough to wait out the rest of her visa instead of revoking it and deporting her on the spot. Shrewd move on their part for that, btw. If she was a citizen they would have just disappeared or killed her.
- wiradikusuma 8y agoThe question is, how did the Chinese immigration know? for each applicant do select count(*) from people_who_pissed_us where social_username = applicant.fb.username?
- 0x4f3759df 8y agoOne infers their systems are highly integrated (tax/crime/social/banking/education/gps all unified)
- wyldfire 8y agoOr even as simple as a procedure: (1) search for the applicant on google/baidu (2) if the searches reveal support or sympathy for dissident or seditious activity, deny the visa application.
- mlazos 8y agoOne would think, but at the same time knowing the bureaucratic garbage that happens at tech companies (and I would think communist party HQ is a bit worse), I imagine their system is likely a giant mess and it probably took a number of months to get back about the visa.
- chrischen 8y agoIt's actually quite surprising how un-integrated US government agencies and systems are.
- kardos 8y agoIt's not a bug, it's a feature
- 0x8BADF00D 8y agoDecentralization is what most of the founding fathers wished for. It is indeed a feature, and one we must all be vigilant of.
- 8y ago
- oathbreaker 8y agoWhy is this even a news on HN ? All governments including USA denies visa to foreigners for political reasons. I remember USA denying visa to an Indian chief minister in past because of lobbying by evangelists and Islamist. It might come as a surprise by American journalists are not entitled for a visa from China and I wish more countries would crackdown on click-bate rags like Buzzfeed.
- Analemma_ 8y ago> I remember USA denying visa to an Indian chief minister in past because of lobbying by evangelists and Islamist. This is whataboutism. You might be suprised to learn that I can and do oppose both. > click-bate rags like Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed's business model is to use the stupid memes and "Which Disney princess are you?" polls to subsidize serious investigative journalism and not have to keep it behind a paywall. You can agree or disagree with this choice, but it's an interesting alternative to requiring a subscription and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. The article in question, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/the-police-state-of-the-future-is-already-here https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/the-police-stat..., is not "clickbait" in any sense: it is well-researched, well-written, and informative.
- oathbreaker 8y agoIrrelevant. Let us assume Buzzfeed is a paragon of journalistic virtue. Still does not mean the journalist deserves a Chinese visa. It is a privilege and not a right. Pretty much how a US visa is a privilege and not a right. Americans outraging that their journalist was denied is nothing but very imperialistic attitude.
- thrillgore 8y agohttps://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division
- danso 8y agoForeign journalists based in China write critical stories about China on a regular basis. It's a bit bizarre to me why you're calling Buzzfeed a "click-bate [sic]" rag when we're talking about a journalist who had just published an investigative story about the Chinese police state involving Uyghurs.
- eahman06 8y agoNot excusing YC because I don't care about them, but Jesus, stop trying to apply the standards of the liberal west to all the world. Say what you will but they're finding a solution to the Muslim problem, something the west doesn't have the balls to do (and by the time we come up with something it'll be too late)
- willstrafach 8y agoWhat do you believe the “problem” is, exactly? What will it be “too late” for?
- chronic1921 8y ago1. Muslims come to the US 2. Progressives embrace them 3. Muslims slowly acquire voting majority in specific regions 4. Muslims start implementing Sharia Law (aka religious law) in the US due to the number of voters and democratic voting principles of the US. 5. Progressives will complain about their slow loss of rights, but can't do anything about it. 6. The US becomes an Islam-controlled territory. That's the problem.
- bootlooped 8y agoSomething like this has probably been said at least once about every group of immigrants in the history of the United States. As far as I know the only time it ever became true was when white people displaced the Indians.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoThere was that time a bunch of Californians move to Colorado and turned the place into California Lite (TM).
- sergiotapia 8y ago@dang, remember I said there is collective here mercilessly killing wrongthink in threads? Marking as "flagged"? Exhibit A.
- JohnTHaller 8y agoI wonder how many pro-China green accounts, accounts used solely for anti-US sentiment, etc we will see commenting on this story. It seems the propaganda folks are turning more attention to HN. There were 3 at the time of this posting with the usual bothersiderisms, etc. One even went full "Sharia law in the US!"
- marcelluspye 8y agoIt's nice that the green name is there for easy screening, but eventually, that goes away. HN is still small enough that this kind of spam is easy to detect, but it may not always be that way. Botting/this type of spam on reddit has gotten increasingly sophisticated over the years, and some of the things the people implementing that stuff have learned there would work pretty well on HN too.
- mrep 8y agoThe green name goes away but if you aren't very active, you will then get automatically shadowbanned. I had a second account which I used to disclose specific things about the company I worked at but when I tried to reuse it after a while, all my posts went immediately to dead.
- dang 8y agoPlease don't break the site guidelines by insinuating astroturfing or shillage without evidence. Someone having an opposing view to yours is not evidence. Neither is an account being new. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- JohnTHaller 8y agoI wasn't insinuating, I was stating. These types of troll/propaganda/astroturf accounts are obvious on the left/right or pro/anti-US side of things on Twitter/reddit and are similarly obvious here. You banned the specific account I mentioned for trolling. I was unaware that discussing astroturfing, trolling, and propaganda on HN was prohibited. Apologies, I will refrain from calling attention to it in the future.
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoI found an interesting paragraph in the article [1] from Buzzfeed: "But critics say [positive gestures from China towards Uighur] are overshadowed by the government’s more repressive measures, which have fueled the propaganda of a small number of extremists, including the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), a radical Uighur militant group, some of whose adherents are believed to have been active in Syria and Afghanistan. According to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute, TIP released an issue of its online magazine on Aug. 29, calling for its fighters in Syria to prepare for future battle against the Chinese state in East Turkestan, a name many Uighurs use to refer to Xinjiang.". The last sentence there struck me as unusual given what that implies: [2] "The medieval Persian toponym "Turkestan" and its derivatives were not used by the local population of the greater region, and China had its own name for an overlapping area since the Han Dynasty as Xiyu, with the parts controlled by China termed Xinjiang from the 18th century onward. The historical Uyghur name for the Tarim Basin is Altishahr, which means "six cities" in Uyghur. Starting in the 20th century, Uyghur separatists and their supporters used East Turkestan (or "Uyghurstan") as an appellation for the whole of Xinjiang, or for a future independent state in present-day Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (presumably with Ürümqi as its capital). They reject the name of Xinjiang because of an allegedly Chinese perspective reflected in the name and prefer East Turkestan to emphasize connection to other westerly Turkic groups. However, even in nationalist writing, East Turkestan retained its older, more narrow geographical meaning. In China, the term has negative connotations because of its origins in European colonialism and present use by militant groups." [1] - https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/the-police-state-of-the-future-is-already-here https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/the-police-stat... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Turkestan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Turkestan
- spork12 8y agoChina is the true enemy of freedom for the 21st century.
- dang 8y agoNationalistic flamebait will get you banned here. Please don't post like this again, regardless of what you're for or against. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- hardsoftnfloppy 8y agoI am “shocked” This is “shocking”