Thread by @TankMan737

Hi Wenhao (@ThisIsWenhao),
I debunked your baseless conspiracy theory against Fang Zhouzi (@fangshimin) tweet by tweet. Please respond!
@FCC @VOANews @factcheckdotorg @ReutersFacts @APFactCheck @AFPFactCheck @nytimes @BBCRealityCheck #FactCheck #conspiracy /1

An anonymous twr account coming out from nowhere suddenly gained unbelievable trust from majority of Chinese protesters who put their lives at stake, and became main source of protest videos. How’s this happening? It was a question you, a j’nlist, should ask and get an answer. 2/

Looks like Teacher Li was and is living happily tweeting his cats after the police’s visit, and was able to continue tweeting anti-China Gov’t videos. We haven’t heard his parents got any troubles. Interesting! Why Chinese police became so nice to Li’s family? 3/

Fang initially questioned whether the account was a personal account based on observations of abnormal activities as a personal account. That was not an attack. Instead, after the question Fang’s account was attacked by flooding rubbish replies. Why? Who did that? /4a

Example attacks Fang got /4b

Technically, it’s impossible just to tweet 399 times, mostly videos within a day. Considering most videos were raw, he had to download, view, select and edit to fit Twr’s rules, then upload. All took time. We can safely conclude that was impossible. Strong or scant evidence? 5/

So far I don’t see anyone who challenged Fang on this issue with substantial facts and logics. If you saw, pls share! Fang found Li’s info based on public information. It’s nothing wrong. Everyone can search public information, don’t you agree? Li volunteered to serve for /6a

public interest, and asked for donations from the public. It had to be transparent. Agree? The Chinese govt already knew who he is. Publicizing his identity helps he win more trust, and better protect his family, and also follows the rule of transparency for public services./6b

This was a normal questioning, not an attack. Teacher Li twitted 399 times mostly of videos within a day. That was technically impossible for an individual given he didn’t sleep or break. You were intentionally misleading the audience by choosing the word ATTACK. /7

In addition to rude comments (some illegal eg. death threats to Fang’s family which you should have called it out ethically as a journalist) from Li’s supporters, right after his first question Fang was attacked by flooding rubbish replies. Obvi’sly coordinated. By whom? /8a

One of the attacks against Fang was obviously conducted by advanced bots disguised themselves as English users flooding Chinglish comments. This type of attack requires huge amounts of resources to build the attacking infrastructure. Who has the resources? /8b

Who has the ability to coordinate such a big scale of attacks at Fang’s account? Please give me an answer. I don’t see any problems for Fang to guess and narrow down who might have attacked him! Tell me pls: will you guess who did it, if you’re attacked like Fang were? /9

Everyone has right to maintain their own Twtr account. Fang doesn’t have the authority to block any voices. In fact, his tweets are publicly available to everyone without a twitter login. He cannot block anyone’s voice if they post tweets against him on their own account.. /10a

.. as you did here. It’s you that distorted information, and took screenshots out of context to mislead the audience, and lied. /10b

True. /11

You distorted information here to discredit Fang. You took the tweet out of big context, which was 'Superman' Li was capable to post 399 tweets mostly videos by himself without assistants within a day. Strong evidence he got a team. Under such context, it was reasonable.. /12a

..to assume he was capable of such high volume of messages. The source Fang got was not directly from RFA but from TVBS which didn’t mention the latter part. This volume thing was just secondary evidence for Fang to make his conclusion. You tried hard to hide the key one. /12b

Your post of the RFA report would have definitely embarrassed Fang if RFA is a trustworthy medium. The issue was that RFA is not, neither is yr VOA! So I believe Fang didn’t even want to read the report from an untrustworthy medium, and wasted his time to respond on that. /13

Fang is often attacked by his opponents, trolls and bad media. RFA and VOA are considered as bad media by him. You guys invited tons of Trumpers to guide China’s democracy. Big joke! How can you build your credit! VOA journalist? You discredited yourself. And got Blocked! LOL /14

You hid key info again. Fang had validated Li deleted his historical YouTube videos that can be found on Archive. Li was hiding something. This tweet was just secondary evidence. Again, you hide the key evidence! Li’d have lied. Why you so trusted him? Most people made../15

..first tweet on the day they created the account. Some might be silent ever since. But Li’s account is a big outlier. No first tweet for 2 years! Plausible explanation is that he deleted historical tweets including his truly First Tweet. /16

Unusual growing speed of followers of Li’s anonymous account was suspicious. Fang’s question was reasonable, and his suspect was plausible. /17

Your conclusion based on 10-sec view was sloppy! There's a timing difference between you saw it and Fang did. You've to analyze at the time point Fang raised the question. After Fang’s question, Li’s team fixed that and easily misled you and alike who lack of Cr. Th. skills. /18

Questioning suspicions or anything out of common sense is a part of critical thinking obviously you lack of. You don't know how to question any suspicious behaviors of Li from this event. He was an unquestionable anti-CCP hero for you and alike journalist in VOA/RFA!!! /19

That’s really a good question Fang asked as many others did too. Thank you for mentioning that. I also want to get an answer for that. Can you try to give a plausible answer, pls? /20

Li volunteered to serve for public interest, and asked for donations from the public. It had to be transparent. Agree? He has to be identifiable and accept the oversight from the public, correct? If he refuses, does the public has rights to oversee him? If anonymous, how? /21a

The Chinese govt already knew who he is. Publicizing his identity helps him win more trust, and better protect his family, and also follows the rule of transparency for public services. No harm, but all good for him. Can you explain why he did the opposite? /21b

Doxing should be of malicious intent, But Fang’s intent is for public good. So it’s not doxing. Fang gave Li some time to reconsidering of publicizing himself. So considerable. /22

Fang’s response was perfect. If Li is a phishing agent of Chinese Gov, the lives of protesters who gave him videos are endangered. Fang reminded people to be cautious of an anonymous & suspicious account. Was it wrong? malicious intent? /23

Fang made great contributions to Chinese society and communities. Admit that and shout it out to your English audience, please. /24

For Han’s case, why don’t mention the fact that he was once a genius and productive writer, and suddenly stopped writing ever since after Fangs’ questioning. How do you explain this fact, please? Fang wasn’t an official and.. /25

.. didn’t have authority to ask Han to do anything. Fang’s claims against Han were so substantial that no one can turn them down with fact and logic. It's a consensus that NO ONE still believes Han is a genius writer, agree? Confirm if you do, or Name them if you don't. /26

Please mention that Fang already responded on those accusations properly. Anyone can be accused. The response matters. Fang did great job on that. /27

This is obviously a baseless conspiracy theory you are promoting. If Chinese Gov wanted to silence Li, they didn’t have to work with Fang. They can just arrest his parents and force them to let Li shut up. That’s how CCP worked and works. They have such effective approach,../28a

..why didn't they used it against Li? Publicizing identity won’t stop Li tweeting, will it? What’s your logic here? Fang asked Li to release his identity that Chinese gov't already had. If Li released his identity, he is silenced! Help me understand your logic, please!!! /28b

You were making or at least passing a rumor here. QZone allows users to set privacy rule. Li set everyone in QZone can view his space. That was how Fang visited his space legitimately. After Fang’s visit, Li immediately changed his privacy setting to hide it from the public. /29

You hid Li’s original message of his lunar new year wish in 2018. Why don’t you post it alongside with his clarification. Let your audience judge if he was sarcastic or sincere. Don’t fool your audience, OK? /30

In all, you are promoting a baseless conspiracy theory against Fang with tactics of distorting/hiding information to intentionally mislead your audience. Shame on you as a journalist. You have no critical thinking skills, and basic logics and ethics. Put your time on those! /31