Well, well what’s this

theatlantic.com/science/archiv… Think I’ll just drop this instant classic right here

For 2 years pundits have dominated the Discourse with lab leak theory, while most experts point to natural origin. And pundits keep saying “no one was allowed to say lab leak”—for years now! That’s misleading and exaggerated but it’s “intuitively pretty legible” so people buy it The idea that the Discourse has been biased toward convincing people that there wasn't a lab leak is detached from reality. FB for a brief time in 2021 removed claims that covid-19 was man-made (not that it leaked from a lab). Lab leak theory spread widely on Twitter & YouTube

I wrote about why China wants more military bases far from home, and why the US worries enough about it that it sent the deputy national security advisor to Equatorial Guinea, a tiny country with a family-run dictatorship economist.com/china/2021/12/… Near the end of this thread I’ll include a fun little factoid I found about the US’ dealings with Equatorial Guinea as I was looking into the WSJ’s report of Jon Finer’s visit there. Also will share the EG vice-president’s interesting response to the WSJ story

It's extremely odious on Fox News right now Tucker's show tonight is mostly about casting doubt on the fairness of the verdict, but he also had this to say in light of Chauvin's conviction: "Why should the rest of us put up with a single day more of rioting, looting, burning, killing?"

[THREAD] This is a fascinating read from Jessica Batke and Marieke Ohlberg on the biz of public opinion monitoring in China. I wrote about this industry and CCP's internet strategy at a much earlier stage, in 2013, so I'll add a few historical nuggets chinafile.com/reporting-opin… By 2013 there were already more than 100 Chinese companies officially hawking systems for monitoring and filtering public opinion online to ministries and local governments. Beijing municipality's internet-propaganda office had bought one for $4.3m

[THREAD] I wrote about China's machinations to block Fiji from the presidency of the UN Human Rights Council. Fiji still seems likely to get it, but it's the latest case of China throwing its weight around at the UN. A Biden-led US looms as adversary economist.com/china/2020/12/… China sees the Human Rights Council as a beachhead in its campaign to redefine global norms. It has secured resolutions weakening the language of human rights, stressing development over individual rights, and “dialogue” between states over holding countries to account for abuses

(THREAD) Exporting Xi Jinping thought: I wrote about the little-understood International Department of the CCP, which cultivates relationships with high-ranking and up-and-coming stars in political parties around the world economist.com/china/2020/12/… The International Dept was a hugely important force in foreign affairs in the 50s and 60s, when the CCP was actively supporting revolutionary parties and trying to stoke insurrections around the world. It retreated into obscurity after Mao's death, but it didn't go away

THREAD: Following our cover this week on Uyghurs, I wanted to highlight scholars, journalists, activists and exiles who have helped expose and explain what is happening in Xinjiang, from the camps to population control to the diminishing of Uyghur identity economist.com/leaders/2020/1… Early work exposing the camps in 2017 was done by Uyghur exile journalists at Radio Free Asia rfa.org/english/news/u… and by @SophieHRW & @wang_maya at Human Rights Watch. HRW made this call to free detainees in Sept 2017, with receipts from state media hrw.org/news/2017/09/1…

THREAD: Our cover this week is about the persecution of China's Uyghurs. In our editorial, we urge governments and others to do more about this crime against humanity economist.com/leaders/2020/1… Systematic efforts to suppress Uyghurs go far beyond the camps. Local documents (shared with us by @adrianzenz) in 1 county show nearly 10% of children in grades 1-6 lost at least one parent to detention. Many children are put in boarding schools. My story economist.com/china/2020/10/…

The Harvard Crimson identifies the official who in 2015 pushed to call off a campus event with a prominent Chinese dissident because then-President Drew Faust was in Beijing having just met Xi Jinping: William Alford, vice dean at the law school thecrimson.com/article/2020/4… This is part of an in-depth look by @thecrimson at Harvard’s history of engagement with China, which carries such risks of self-censorship. I mentioned this episode, and the pressure universities can feel, in this story on Chinese students in the US google.com/amp/s/amp.econ…

I don’t know about you but I am looking forward to Br*t St*phens’ next piece: “What if Covid-19 is right?” “Universities are now barring the virus from their campuses — and even calling off events altogether just so the virus can’t show up uninvited — another dispiriting sign of cancel culture on the left”

YouTube's global head of content policy, Chris Libertelli, was working on their new hate speech policy when I interviewed him in April. We talked about where to draw the line and I think it's worth sharing his comments [THREAD] 1/ nytimes.com/2019/06/05/bus… "From Susan [Wojcicki] to Neal [Mohan] to everyone on down...it is an active area of discussion about where that line should be... The balance of free expression versus community protection is something that is talked about multiple times a day, every day in my job." 2/