fredag 13. mars 2020

In 'People's War' on coronavirus, Chinese propaganda faces pushback

As Xi Jinping toured the coronavirus-stricken city of Wuhan this week, setting the tone for an official narrative that China will win a “People’s War”, numerous social media users went to extraordinary lengths to make an alternative voice heard.The effort to get around China’s censors and publish the words of Wuhan doctor Ai Fen, the first to sound the alarm over the virus, was among the most elaborate in an outpouring of dissent against the government narrative as the outbreak exacts a devastating human and economic toll.

In a bid to fool censors’ AI software, netizens translated an interview with Ai, head of the emergency room at Wuhan Central Hospital, into at least five languages and reformatted it in at least 22 ways. The text was rendered backwards, into emojis, Braille, oracle bone script, Morse code, song sheets and even the Elvish language from Lord of the Rings.