Thread by @RianThum

China’s propaganda push on its mass internment program for Uyghurs and other minorities has been remarkably successful. Thread 1/x

Western media have been widely reproducing Chinese propaganda images from staged, dressed-up internment camps: ordinary classrooms, fence-free spaces, dancing inmates -- often without alternative images for context. But this is what internal Chinese propaganda portrayed before:

Is it feasible for reporters to explain to their photo/graphics people that if they insist on using propaganda images of dressed-up internment camps, they should pair them with more realistic images? 3/x

In my view, the fact that we don’t have real images of life in the internment camps doesn’t mean we should illustrate our articles with staged images of altered camps. In fact, it makes it imperative, for the sake of accuracy, NOT to use those images. 4/x

Would anyone publish an article about Nazi concentration camps relying heavily on these images, taken from a propaganda film about the staged Theresienstadt camp/ghetto?

In the absence of other photos, the staged images have real power. I feel it myself. I sometimes give into hope, thinking, “maybe my friend so-and-so’s life in the camps is something like that; maybe it’s not so bad.” Then I remember the mountains of evidence to the contrary. 5/x

And I have had one of these staged images pinned to my work. It was unfortunate that the New York Times used a still from a staged propaganda film to illustrate an op-ed I published in October. nytimes.com/2018/10/25/opi…

Compare the impression left by that staged propaganda image of a Xinjiang camp with this image, from @BitterWinterMag, of a camp under construction, which shows a wire barrier to separate the internees from the indoctrination instructor.

Or compare to this earlier propaganda image, aimed at internal rather than foreign audiences, of interned men listening to lectures.

Beijing has had some language victories, too.

Despite overwhelming evidence, incl. from the Xinjiang governor himself, that the camps are involuntary, the Wall Street Journal @WSJ lets Beijing’s terminology slip into its story: “At the vocational centers, several trainees told diplomats…” -shouldn't pass the fact checkers

In other places WSJ refers to internees as “residents,” again recalling the Nazi Theresienstadt propaganda, in which inmates "are euphemistically called residents ["Bewohner"] instead of inmates,” as the @HolocaustMuseum describes it. collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog…

So here are a few options if you're looking for images. Aside from the famous men-in-blue-uniforms images that I shared above, there is the video from inside an empty camp that @BitterWinterMag acquired.

There are satellite images. @shawnwzhang has a great list here: medium.com/@shawnwzhang, incl. analysis of how authorities changed the camps for propaganda films. Sat pics don't convey a lot of emotional impact, b/c they express the truth: we don't fully know what goes on inside.

And there are images of the exterior of camps. Here's a good one from the Wall Street Journal @WSJ. (Caution is necessary when choosing: some photos show walls of detention centers, 看守所 , rather than interment camps).

A related problem is reliance on older file photos to illustrate Xinjiang stories. They very often - most of the time,in fact - show people doing things that aren't possible in today's Xinjiang: especially wearing headscarves, & praying in public. The mosques are empty these days

This is forced upon media by police harassment of journos in Xinjiang. Downside for China is images of harassment. Upside is that when it comes to pics of camps and daily life, it's propaganda pics vs. not much else. But there are choices & I hope the photo editors are informed.