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xinjiang, prc lab for repression

Oof.

Old article but indicates that if you stray 300 or so from your usual routine, the popo will be on your case. I think I posted something about the rollout of facial recognition a little while ago - seems to have been used a lot in the recent New year migration - demonstrating the amount of data processing that is involved with this project- and crucially , being heavily funded.

China testing facial-recognition surveillance system in Xinjiang – report
 
BTW, I was considering a trip up there last year when I spent some time in the PRC - I did some internet research before I went ( its not easy to do it when you are actually in the PRC) - CNN and Conde Naste seemed to think it was the great undiscovered destination and the next hot place to visit. like lolz
 
BTW, I was considering a trip up there last year when I spent some time in the PRC - I did some internet research before I went ( its not easy to do it when you are actually in the PRC) - CNN and Conde Naste seemed to think it was the great undiscovered destination and the next hot place to visit. like lolz
i'd quite like to go myself but i suspect the chinese have my number.
 
iflytek are in the news at the minute- tech company involved in AI and shit



Chinese robot becomes world's first machine to pass medical exam[1]- Chinadaily.com.cn

lol funny robot doing exams

iFlytek developing AI-enabled system for legal purposes - Chinadaily.com.cn

using AI to speed up judicial cases to suggest sentences for the guilty ( yes really )

oh...and this

China Collecting “Voice Pattern” Samples to Establish National Biometric Database

being used with gusto in Xingjiang to listen in on conversations..

"Similar purchases for voice pattern collection systems were also made in 2016 by the police bureaus in Xinjiang, a repressive region with 11 million ethnic minority Uyghurs, following the “Notice to Fully Carry Out the Construction of Three-Dimensional Portraits, Voice Pattern, and DNA Fingerprint Biometrics Collection System” (关于全面开展三维人像、声纹、DNA指纹生物信息采集系统建设相关工作的通知). A local police station reported that front-line officers are given monthly quotas for biometric collection"
 
There are reports that up to a million Uighurs have been sent to re-education camps.

They are going full blown Nazi under Xi.

China in the 21st Century is to Charlie Brooker what the Soviet Union was to George Orwell in the 20th. One was the potential horrors of the industrial age, the other the potential horrors of the digital age.
 
Uighur people also face a lot of discrimination when they go to live and/or work elsewhere in the country, to top it all off.
 
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Not xinjiang specific, but a lengthy propaganda piece that touches on some of the process used to keep control of the web - by the Cyberspace Administration of China

"Videos of pregnant teenagers or teenage mothers-usually unmarried and ages 13 to 18-appeared on the sites, describing their pregnancies or their lives as young mothers, and were forwarded to other sites in an effort to gain traffic and followers. That's despite the fact that sexual activity with people ages 14 or younger is defined as rape in China, while the legal age for female marriage is 20. Moreover, being a single mother does not accord with traditional values."

""We use facial identification methods for account registration and users must provide their ID cards. If they are under 18, they are not allowed to open an account. However, they are allowed to do so if they have written permission from their guardian. If the minors want to livestream, their guardian should aware of it," he said."

"The sites' CEOs promised to improve editorial responsibility, with Toutiao saying it will increase the number of staff members in its review team from 6,000 to 10,000, while Kuaishou will raise numbers from 2,000 to 5,000."

""Technology itself is neutral, but the loophole stems from the wrong values behind the algorithms programmed by humans," said Zhang Xiaoqiang, a professor of journalism at Chongqing University."

"He added that in addition to guiding the industry with timely policies, the regulators should encourage the public to report harmful content, because the number of users is rising so quickly that the regulators are unable to keep track.
"A tip-off system could be led by social organizations, and the public could engage with it. The system could be more effective if people were rewarded for reporting harmful content," he said."

Government moves to clean up internet content - Chinadaily.com.cn
 
There are rumours that a 10% about of the total Uighur population have been rounded up into re-education camps.

It is very disturbing, but the tight security and restricted access for journalists makes it impossible to verify. For the last year or two China has been actively trying to close any gaps in information. I had quite a few Uighur friends when I was in China, and it is now impossible to get in touch with them.

This is what we do know in terms of verifiable information:

1 - Ethnic Uighurs studying overseas have been forced to return by threatening their families, or coerced to host governments (e.g. Egypt) collaborating with PRC demands.

China’s Campaign Against Uighur Diaspora Ramps Up
Mahmut, a Uighur living in a Scandinavian country, describes 2017 as the “saddest” year for his family. Born to secular Muslim parents, Mahmut, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym, says his family’s troubles began in late 2016 when the Chinese government pressured a cousin and his wife to return to China’s far western region of Xinjiang from Egypt.

Local authorities threatened to imprison his parents and confiscate their property if his cousin, who was studying theology, did not return. When Mahmut’s cousin arrived in Xinjiang, the authorities jailed him and his wife.

Then, in early summer 2017, Mahmut tried to call his mother, who was recovering from a recent hospitalization. No one picked up, and Mahmut feared for the worst.

Communication with his parents was already sporadic, and when his father finally picked up the phone, Mahmut could sense fear in his voice. “Your mother went to study,” he told Mahmut, saying that community service officials had instructed her to go.

[font=Tiempos, Georgia, serif]2- Pakistani men in marriages to Uighur wives report that their wives and children have been sent to camps upon returning and they are not able to contact them.

Chinese crackdown separates Pakistani husbands from Uighur wives

3 - Some counties have been completely closed off. Nobody getting in or out.

ChinaAid: County in Xinjiang completely closed off, residents describe a ‘living hell’

4 - Government officials are sent to live with Uighur families to prevent private religious activities. This has been reported in Chinese state media but portraying it as a good thing.

Xinjiang: Public officials in Uighur homes to prevent prayer and fasting
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5 - Uighurs have been forced to install spyware on their phones. Their activities are monitored by AI systems.

China crams spyware on phones in Muslim-majority province

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This is a report on what is happening in the camps:

Opinion | What Really Happens in China’s ‘Re-education’ Camps
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More than anything, it is incredibly reminiscent of the lead up to the holocaust, and I think it is heading towards a genocide. Yet the world is silent.
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Even aside from the basic morality of this, the sort of surveillance technology used here and outlined above is very frightening.

There needs to be a Uighur solidarity campaign, and a boycott of Chinese tech companies involved in developing surveillance technology.
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Uighur women are being forced to marry Han Chinese. Their male relatives are locked up in re-education camps and only by them marrying Han can they get them released. (allegedly)
 
There's a rideshare app here that has just had extra regulations added after a young woman was murdered by her driver and now you need to use facial recognition on your phone to sign in as either driver or passenger.
 
On a higher level, the ability to filter nominated people out of the mass transport system without physical intervention is like a Philip K Dick premise. It is horrifying how this process can be expanded into every facet of life in the PRC- and I have no doubt it will be. Electronic Apartheid
not to mention classist as the lower strata of society will be the most heavily surveilled.
 
I suppose China will be willing to share all that technology with HMG under a free trade deal. Brexit law and order bonus! Better yet, China will agree to host all the data nice and safe like.
 
Technology. What China does with it, the rest of the world is watching.

Yep, technology has enabled to them to up their repression a few notches.

I tried for a while to avoid buying anything made in China, but it proved almost impossible. I bought a new camera the other day, a Panasonic, a Japanese company. On looking at the bottom of the camera, what do I find? Made in China.
 
So what's new? China has been a repressive regime for decades, with little sign of change.

Actually quite a lot is new. It is significantly worse than even 3 years ago, and far far worse than 10 years ago. Dear Leader as the headline news every day, minorities being sent to concentration camps and girls getting sent to mental asylums for spilling ink on dear leaders' portrait was not the vibe under Hu Jintao. It is a dictatorship of one man, not of one party now.
 
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