I hope Vice is satisfied, their lackluster journalism may have gotten someone killed as a response. She was my favorite tech internet personality, and I always marveled that she got away with all of that in China of all places.
(As a clarification, I didn’t get the news from whatever YouTube this is; that’s my least favorite platform for news stories. I looked it up.)
Can you elaborate? To me it reads like she outed herself by going against tencent, or more probably/accurately, her government and one of its convenience spyware. She had already said for many years that she was under scrutiny, and her assumption was that her western followers would somehow compel the CCP to back off.
I’m not a hater, but for anyone paying attention that’s ludicrous. With her knowledge, she couldn’t be that naive.
Vice exposed a lot of information about her in their article, which they were specifically asked not to; this compounded the situation beyond what she was prepared to deal with. Outing her sexuality, as an example. It was a terrible and inhuman move.
Ok, not to be pedant, but it’s her activism that got her in trouble, not Vice? Just trying to connect the dots between this message and the previous one.
Also, not defending Vice, I did read the article and it looks like Naomi freaked out and lashed at Vice on social media before she even got to read the piece about her, which might have Streisanded the same things she wanted to keep under the rug (ironically and to the point, despite having watched many videos of her, it’s your post that made me aware of the matter of her sexuality, which I suspect not many of her followers in the maker space care about).
You could just check my posts history before calling me a “tankie”, I even have this apparent habit of drawing hostility from anything lemmygrad and hexbear-related, which makes your comment extra funny.
Then if you could please point-out what exactly I wrote that makes you think that I am blaming her (or anyone?), and for what (?), that’d be helpful.
I know her works because they overlap with some of my hobbies, in other words, I “know” her for what she does, but not so much the side of her activism on social media. If I got myself trapped in some controversy, and that just mentioning some aspects of it is taboo, then so be it, I’ll make sure to stay away from the vendetta.
Fine, care to explain how? I’m legit curious (despite the hostile tone).
Regarding the Vice piece, here’s what you find in it:
But Wu’s form of activism can also be hostile and combative. She wields her impressive Twitter presence to confront people she disagrees with. I know this from personal experience, as Wu took issue with my reporting after I returned from China.
Wu told me she didn’t want to discuss her marital status, but before publishing the piece, I followed up with her.
[…]
At the same time Wu responded to me, she started tweeting about VICE. Over the next several weeks, Wu publicly shopped our correspondence to journalists and tagged me, my former colleague, my editor, and VICE in dozens of tweets; her followers sent me many more.
In emails, Wu accused me of blackmailing her and writing a “hit piece.” Without having seen the story, she wrote that if I published the article under my byline, VICE “will throw you to the wolves.”
“If you don’t believe me, I’ll direct my tweets to your name- see if they come help under the VICE brand or make an excuse why they should stay out of it so they can blame you later for acting alone and cut you loose- with a reputation written where it can never be erased as the female journalist who signal-boosts harassment campaigns against women in tech,” she wrote.
Wu asked to see a draft of the story prior to publication, which we declined to do as it is against our editorial policy. She took issue with other standard editorial protocols, such as when a fact-checker reached out to other sources for this piece.
“We just need whatever article you vomit out to determine in just how many ways you violated basic journalistic ethics,” Wu wrote in an email to my editor.
I know this is one-sided, but if at least the chronology is correct, this seems overblown.
This other piece below mentions her not so recent history of activism “conflicting” with the law enforcement of her country, this predates Vice (2018):
This is such a disgrace. Naomi Wu is one of the most interesting personalities out there. Absurdly enough, she was always very careful to not paint China in a negative light. She also managed to show everyday life and culture in China from an inside perspective, which is rare enough. It’s a real shame and a huge loss to the maker community. Let’s hope this gets some publicity, which may help protect her.
she was always very careful to not paint China in a negative light.
A few times she even called out Chinese companies that were acting scummy to foreign customers and asked that they act better to not damage China’s reputation.
(I’m sure that language ws specifically chosen to have maximum impact for someone who understood they might face very real consequences over damaging China’s image)
That visit to the UMIDIGI office for GPL compliance was 👌
Ben commented:
Hi,
You can request the shareable source codes (most of them are not free and owned by MediaTek) at our Shenzhen office (only Chinese speaking) in working hours.
The address is:
405-407 Jinqi Zhigu Building , 4/F , 1 Tangling Road , Nanshan District , Shenzhen City, P.R.C
The problem was that after Vice published her info, she basically lost any protection she had. Also how no foreign press is really saying anything or asking about her. She was protected when China thought the world was watching her; now that they know they’re not, she’s been silenced.
Her girlfriend is also Uighur, which had her in another precarious situation. She’s said she can’t leave China because her girlfriend can’t.
No, I really wasn’t sure if it was a weird power-play I’ve had folks online do where they THINK they’ve found out my real name and are are using it to throw me off.
And oh, bless your heart, you’re still trying. You have yourself some kinda day now.
Renowned Chinese maker Naomi Wu has been threatened and questioned by Chinese authorities, facing imprisonment if she continues posting openly online.
Wu has brought attention to privacy issues with popular third-party keyboards in China that could record keystrokes and send them to developers like Tencent.
Researchers recently confirmed this vulnerability in a report to Tencent, who were slow to address the problem.
Shortly after, Wu was detained and warned to limit her online discussions or face consequences.
Wu feels silenced and that Western audiences who once supported her have abandoned her.
The video creator blames Elon Musk for ruining Twitter and limiting their ability to stay connected to people like Wu.
Centralized social platforms play a role in protecting dissenting voices by giving them visibility and an audience.
Frequent disruptions to platforms force rebuilding connections and communities elsewhere.
Wu’s outspoken views on technology and politics in China came with risks, which authorities are now cracking down on.
There are calls to raise more awareness of Wu’s situation through media coverage and online sharing.
I mean… we’re talking makers and hackers. If I was a Chinese cop I wouldn’t want to piss off a gazillion terminally online simps with the skills to fuck up your IT.
That part of the video is more “it sucks these rich assholes are ruining our ability to stay connected by destroying the experience we’d come to enjoy and become used to.” It’s not saying he meant it, just mentioning how hard it is to stay connected with people online while switching platforms, and how easy it is to lose track of things you found important before.
Television and magazines are far more general. Television as a medium could be compared to Web as a medium. YT could be compared to a specific TV channel.
…Yeah, that falls apart when you consider YT is full of specific channels. That’s why I specifically compared it to TV. It’s far closer to cable than a single channel.
Give up. You could post an article by a Pulitzer Prize Winner and it wouldn’t be good enough. Hell, I posted an English translation of a Chinese article about the arrest of a Chinese LGBT author and it wasn’t good enough.
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