Cate Cadell Profile picture
Nov 29 20 tweets 7 min read
A thread here for those who don't understand why the China protests over the weekend protests are so shockingly rare.

Surveillance. In. China. Is. Extreme. Think you could evade Chinese police? Let's walk through it:
"There's tons of people protesting, they'll never catch me," nope - Chinese police stations use huge networks of facial recognition cameras that can retroactively trace people for days or even months.
For example, this 2018 police document describing a network of thousands of cameras in a single Tianjin district that saves faces within the last 90 days, traces people over time and generates alarms for "high risk behavior" like *checks notes* being out after midnight.
"But I'll just wear a mask or sunglasses then," nope - I've seen 1000s of procurements describing Chinese police surveillance systems over the years - most recognise people despite face coverings (and whether you have a "yellow, white, black or brown race face" - Guangxi 2019)
It's tough to know for sure how effective they truly are, but COVID gave us hints - like when officials in Tianjin used surveillance cameras to ID thousands near a supermarket and conduct home visits. reuters.com/article/us-hea…
“But I’m at a university, kids protest, surely it’s more relaxed?” nope – University surveillance is high, and heightened by Covid – last year I spoke to students about what it’s like to be put to bed by surveillance cameras : reuters.com/article/us-hea…
“But I only protested online” – nope, China since 2014 has steadily enforced real name registration that links your national ID via your phone number to any online service – social media companies are bound by law to comply, and police enforce it.
Example, when Wuhan residents in early 2020 went online to say that relatives were falling ill from a disease the govt had so far denied was contageous, some told me they were visited within hrs by police. In one case, police came to the hospital to order a family to remove posts
“But there’s so many people posting, they can’t see everything,” nope – virtually every city police bureau has embraced big data 舆情分析 (public opinion analysis) technology – designed to monitor dissent and filter through millions of data points to find instigators.
I wrote a bit about this system here earlier this year, and how it's increasingly covering overseas social media: washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
“But I'll just alternate apps to communicate then” nope – here a 2022 proc doc describes a standard Chinese police phone forensics kit & the apps they pull data from: over 1000 local + foreign apps from Twitter to Telgegram, Airbnb, Fitbit and Uber, which isn't even in China.
More and more frequently, police are employing mobile smartphone forensic systems on the streets, procurements show. I wrote about people’s experiences with them here: reuters.com/article/us-chi…
And as China reporters have noted - people are reportedly being stopped by police who are checking phones fore apps like Signal and Instagram, and deleting photos (an experience most China reporters in the field have also gone through at least once)
“But after all that, at least people will remember my protest” – not likely, a search on Weibo (China’s Twitter) today shows nothing is happening at all. Why? Each company has 1000s of censors. I wrote about one of these incredible censorship factories: reuters.com/article/us-chi…
“Ok, no protest then – I’ll just use the legal, government sanctioned complaints system, aka ‘petitioning’ where you can submit official grievances online and in dedicated offices across the country” – nope, not really a good idea.
Beijing champions this system as a legal way of raising grievances but using it can quickly land you on blacklists. Procurements for police surveillance systems list petitioners alongside fugitives, drug addicts, mental patients, and Uyghurs as “key personnel” that trigger alarms
For example, a Liaoning government procurement from last week outlines a new services database for military veterans – sounds great, except a major function of it is to track petitioners – including surveilling veterans so any protest won’t interfere in "major" political events.
"Ok so I'm caught holding a white piece of paper, can I even be charged for that?" yes - China has vaguely defined laws against "picking quarrels and provokling trouble” or "gathering a crowd to disrupt order", which set a low bar for charges or legal threats
A quick scan of available Chinese court records show these charges are no joke, some with long jail terms, like these people who protested the demolition of their village, inc going to Beijing to petition, and in 2020 were sentenced to 3.5 years in jail for 'gathering crowds'
A good story today from @martinpollard21 & @ParkSuAm1996 on how police are beginning to track down people involved over the weekend reuters.com/world/china/ch…

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More from @catecadell

Jan 12, 2021
There's actually a very good analogy in here. I know no one wants unsolicited comparisons between China and the U.S. right now, but hear me out. I've covered censorship in China for the better part of the last decade. >>thread
Chinese censorship happens within companies - at the behest of the government, for sure, but day-to-day censorship occurs in an opaque black hole within Chinese companies. It often leads to over-censorship. I've written about it>> reuters.com/article/us-chi…
Today, social media companies in the U.S. are making similar opaque decisions from within their own back rooms, based off guidelines vague enough to be comparable to Chinese laws. Banning Trump seems like a win, but it's come on the tail of many, many failures.
Read 11 tweets
Sep 3, 2020
小 thread: Yesterday, a police bureau in Inner Mongolia released over 90 hi-def wanted photos of people gathering to protest : archive.is/cUlbM
“solemnly urge the following personnel to surrender.”
Protests in China (which administers Inner Mongolia) are rare because surveillance is total, the crackdown is swift, and participation can be life-altering. These wanted pics linked by rights group SMHRIC to this protest:
The images are clear, some look like headshots. Why such great pictures? A very good surveillance system, made by #Hikvision . This 视侦通 software is commonly purchased as part of packages by Chinese police.
Read 7 tweets
Mar 26, 2020
There are over 470,000 cases of #COVID2019 and more than 21,000 deaths

To me, ~15K cases reported by the U.S. in the 24hrs is not the biggest news - it's the fact that 90+ countries & territories are poised for similar outbreaks in the coming week/s.
There are now 200+ countries and territories reporting infections, and 90 of them have reported 100+ cases, mostly over the past week. So many of these places have ill-equipped healthcare systems. Ecuador, Chile, Brazil, Malaysia & others with 1000+ cases.
The epicenter has shifted from China --> Southern Europe --> the U.S., and data suggests that Africa & South America could be next, with countries like Venezuela and Egypt breaking out - Algeria, Indonesia and Bangladesh reporting disturbing fatality rates.
Read 5 tweets
Feb 26, 2020
I'm back looking at #coronavirus numbers today and a few things really stick out
New cases globally down 15.5%, new deaths down 27% - and deaths outside Hubei dwindling to nothing.

But - countries outside China now accounting for a growing number of new deaths (17.5%) and cases (39.3%)
So many countries now it's tough to post in one image. Japan and Korea still accounting for most cases, but middle eastern countries are seriously concerning, as well as new European additions.
Read 8 tweets
Feb 5, 2020
What's the fatality rate of #coronavirus ?

Inside Wuhan: 1 in 23 cases
Outside Wuhan, but inside Hubei: 1 in 71
Outside Hubei but inside China: 1 in 640
Outside the China mainland: 1 in 113

None reflect an accurate fatality rate - but they do reflect the known data.
Wuhan dropped to a third of total cases as of yesterday, but still has a whopping 73% of total deaths. I asked experts why.
One major factor is it's likely there are many more cases in Wuhan than are being reported, a crunch on resources means people with milder cases aren't getting tested and counted in the # s

More cases = bad, but it also points to a much lower fatality rate than what we see above
Read 6 tweets
Jan 27, 2020
This story is the result of many late-night calls with despairing people in Wuhan over the past week. @ywchen1 and I spoke to well over a dozen patients, experts, govt & hospital sources to pull together this story on the early days of #WuhanCoronavirus. reuters.com/article/us-chi…
It focuses on a crucial gap early in the outbreak when no new cases were tested or reported in China, even as countries abroad began confirming cases. Wuhan hospitals didn’t have testing kits until the 16th. Many early patients weren’t tested until the 20th or later.
Relatives of patients and healthcare workers said a slow, multi-level bureaucracy made quick reporting impossible, and noted that deaths in #Wuhan have very likely been under-reported
Read 6 tweets

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