When China's prodigious tech influencer, Naomi Wu, found herself silenced, it wasn't just the machinery of a surveillance state at play. Instead, it was...
Apparently, the Chinese government brought the hammer down on Naomi for pointing out how they spy on Signal used via a third-party keyboard on phones
WTF, that’s your takeaway? She was one of the few voices warning us about security risks from the inside. Her point is that social media has one weapon: the streisand effect… But when instead there is silence then it is known there will be no accountability. The government will be emboldened by this. It wasn’t a metaphor, she thinks they will really kill her now if she tweets more, and less people like her will be willing to post in the future.
I already know China sucks, listening to an attention seeker doesn’t change that.
She’ll complain about the people already on her side but not the oppressive government causing her issue? She was an attention seeker back on reddit, she hasn’t changed now and I don’t care.
At some point in the past she said not to trust anything she says because she would flip and say whatever she had to to protect her family. So yeah, grain of salt with anything like that.
Whatever mistake they make, I think people living with constant fear of the threat posed by a totalitarian regime known for its violence against its own people deserve our sympathy.
All of the sudden, articles like this one are all over the place showing a woman with red hair in provocative outfits claiming to be a tech activist being silenced.
Would anyone care to give me a two line summary of who she is and what her deal is?
They mean “makers,” the kind of people into making using a variety of technologies including but not limited to woodworking, 3D printing, metalworking, leatherworking. Not usually all at once, but sometimes all at once. Incidentally you can rent a “maker space” which is just a physical space with tools to make things. Also, I think they meant CCP (Chinese Communist party).
hardware / software hacker living in china (shenzen) has a great youtube channel and lots of other socials that advocate for open source hardware, builds cool shit, breaks shit in cool ways. just as willing to hack at her own body for fun and personal interest. uses her look to both be disarming / educate folks; her motto is “if I can do it, anyone can do it”
some extras: from being a subscriber to her youtube channel and a fan for many years now, she is indeed hyper capable / knowledgable, has some views that wouldnt be considered conventional by various western queer types but come from an honest experience living as a queer person in non western systems. she has also been more bitter about treatment by western media and other folks who assume their preconceptions are more valid than her lived experience, something I am personally familiar with being from a slightly controvercial country myself.
I’ll try but dont trust me, feel free to read up herr very well written views on twitter (unless they’ve been wiped from the internet) I feel like she bucked at the expectation to be constantly fighting the chinese system on behalf of a lot of people who saw her as their revolutionary on the inside while those same people refused to listen to anything positive she would say about the more recent and relevant life experience of those living under the same system.
I felt some parallels being someone who’se living a very lefty life in the US but is FROM Israel and each and every mention became an opportunity for someone to ask me to affirm all their various badly held beliefs coming from which ever side they chose to take in the telenovela version of the country they knew about.
there are more specific cases like how queer culture over there is practiced VERY differently (which honestly was interesting) and wasnt really acknoledged by people
I think it’s the corollary to “Everyone is the hero of their own story” which is “everyone mistakenly treats others as merely side characters in their own story” and it happens at all levels of society.
She’s a techie just like a lot of folks. Likes to indulge in 3D printing, hardware modding, things like that. Just happens to also be a woman who likes to dress provocatively. Each to their own, of course. Been a while since I watched anything of hers, but what stuck with me is her emphasis on the fact that women can be engineers just as well as men can.
She’s decently well-known in the modding community, I’d say.
I can think that both are bad places to different degrees for different reasons. Particularly when some would like for the US to become more like that.
After 8 years of daily tweeting one of the loudest, most candid voices coming out of China has been deplatformed- absolutely no one gives a shit. I could be dead in a ditch- but we aren’t actually people, we’re just signs for people like you in the West to wave at each other in their ideological war. –Naomi Wu
She has a large social media presence. Her followers should be the one raising the flag, making noise. And that echo chamber should magnify so the media can’t ignore it. Expecting the media to pick it up without her fans doing so first is weird. We should be able to point to the discussion forums the Twitter storms the Reddit threads etc where people are getting up in arms over their favorite creator disappearing. But we’re not. This this news article doesn’t cite it.
Yup, I only posted it on the off chance that there is some truth here or someone knowns more
I’ve wondered why the Chinese Government didn’t shut her down long ago It would be hard for them to not know she’s getting around their measures and what she’s posting or if she is/was an agent of government propaganda promoting Chinese tech
Also ties in with the LMG drama as she has accused Linus of sexual harassment and propositioning her on a trip to China
That’s what she’s criticizing her western followers and the western media for not doing.
We don’t actually know what’s happening. She has always been concerned about Winnie the Pooh’s minions shutting her down, like they silence so many others in their country.
We have to assume that’s what happened, and if it has, we really don’t know what is the course of action likely to be helpful and not make the situation even worse for Naomi.
Trying to embarrass the Chinese government generally doesn’t make them apologize and back down.
What is there to talk about? We only know what’s being shared outside of China. Which is not a lot. I watch the China show, which seems one of the few sources that doesn’t just regurgitate the government propaganda but we can only do so much.
The best course of action for her is to leave China. Maybe not an option for her due to personal reasons, but staying in Shenzhen is her choice.
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“The Chinese government cracked down on me but it’s the big bad westerners who aren’t listening to me that’s the problem”
Sympathy lost for this attention seeker.
WTF, that’s your takeaway? She was one of the few voices warning us about security risks from the inside. Her point is that social media has one weapon: the streisand effect… But when instead there is silence then it is known there will be no accountability. The government will be emboldened by this. It wasn’t a metaphor, she thinks they will really kill her now if she tweets more, and less people like her will be willing to post in the future.
But you don’t understand, she’s an attractive woman and therefore must be an attention seeker and nothing more.
/S
Sounds like you’re just proving her point.
Her point is that I should care about abuse against citizens number 200,000,000 by China because she personally is affected?
I already know China sucks, listening to an attention seeker doesn’t change that.
Not warning users about risks affects users in the entire world not just China.
I already know China sucks, listening to an attention seeker doesn’t change that.
She’ll complain about the people already on her side but not the oppressive government causing her issue? She was an attention seeker back on reddit, she hasn’t changed now and I don’t care.
“But not the oppressive government willing to imprison and kill her” FTFY
Not to mention her ethnic minority romantic partner
So you never had any sympathy to begin with, because aTtEnShUn SeEkEr, which is the lamest cop-out ever. Just say you hate women and get it over with.
At some point in the past she said not to trust anything she says because she would flip and say whatever she had to to protect her family. So yeah, grain of salt with anything like that.
I’m not sure what the importance is of her being an Attention Seeker. Could you explain how that matters?
Well, I find that really sad.
Whatever mistake they make, I think people living with constant fear of the threat posed by a totalitarian regime known for its violence against its own people deserve our sympathy.
Imagine being this fucking arrogant and blinded by privilege
Doing the CCPs work for them, I see
“Naomi Wu and the Silence That Speaks Volumes” sounds like a harry potter book title. More seriously, this is a damn shame. Always been a big fan.
I never heard of Naomi Wu before.
All of the sudden, articles like this one are all over the place showing a woman with red hair in provocative outfits claiming to be a tech activist being silenced.
Would anyone care to give me a two line summary of who she is and what her deal is?
Big celebrity of the “maker” space. Often showed signs of protest against the CPP, while living in China. Often controversial due to appearance.
What is “maker space”? What is the CPP besides a C++ file? A Chinese agency?
deleted by creator
They mean “makers,” the kind of people into making using a variety of technologies including but not limited to woodworking, 3D printing, metalworking, leatherworking. Not usually all at once, but sometimes all at once. Incidentally you can rent a “maker space” which is just a physical space with tools to make things. Also, I think they meant CCP (Chinese Communist party).
Maker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_culture
Cpp is a misspelling of the acronym Chinese Communist party aka CCP.
hardware / software hacker living in china (shenzen) has a great youtube channel and lots of other socials that advocate for open source hardware, builds cool shit, breaks shit in cool ways. just as willing to hack at her own body for fun and personal interest. uses her look to both be disarming / educate folks; her motto is “if I can do it, anyone can do it”
some extras: from being a subscriber to her youtube channel and a fan for many years now, she is indeed hyper capable / knowledgable, has some views that wouldnt be considered conventional by various western queer types but come from an honest experience living as a queer person in non western systems. she has also been more bitter about treatment by western media and other folks who assume their preconceptions are more valid than her lived experience, something I am personally familiar with being from a slightly controvercial country myself.
I’m curious what queer Eastern values are unconventional to queer Western values? I assume her views are common to queer Chinese.
I’ll try but dont trust me, feel free to read up herr very well written views on twitter (unless they’ve been wiped from the internet) I feel like she bucked at the expectation to be constantly fighting the chinese system on behalf of a lot of people who saw her as their revolutionary on the inside while those same people refused to listen to anything positive she would say about the more recent and relevant life experience of those living under the same system.
I felt some parallels being someone who’se living a very lefty life in the US but is FROM Israel and each and every mention became an opportunity for someone to ask me to affirm all their various badly held beliefs coming from which ever side they chose to take in the telenovela version of the country they knew about.
there are more specific cases like how queer culture over there is practiced VERY differently (which honestly was interesting) and wasnt really acknoledged by people
I think it’s the corollary to “Everyone is the hero of their own story” which is “everyone mistakenly treats others as merely side characters in their own story” and it happens at all levels of society.
She’s a techie just like a lot of folks. Likes to indulge in 3D printing, hardware modding, things like that. Just happens to also be a woman who likes to dress provocatively. Each to their own, of course. Been a while since I watched anything of hers, but what stuck with me is her emphasis on the fact that women can be engineers just as well as men can. She’s decently well-known in the modding community, I’d say.
She’s a tech activist who’s being silenced, just like you said
Sounds like that “bug” was actually a feature and Naomi just pissed off some government surveillance spooks by breaking their toys. God help her.
By the way, her girlfriend is part of an ethnic group that the Chinese government is currently genociding.
And you thought the USA was a bad place to live…
I can think that both are bad places to different degrees for different reasons. Particularly when some would like for the US to become more like that.
Indeed, and as a citizen of the US, that terrifies me.
Sadly this is what I’ve been feeling nowadays.
It’s not like we don’t have our own problems over here that take up our time.
Also one of the increasingly problematic issues is getting news out of China
She’s absolutely right.
deleted by creator
She has a large social media presence. Her followers should be the one raising the flag, making noise. And that echo chamber should magnify so the media can’t ignore it. Expecting the media to pick it up without her fans doing so first is weird. We should be able to point to the discussion forums the Twitter storms the Reddit threads etc where people are getting up in arms over their favorite creator disappearing. But we’re not. This this news article doesn’t cite it.
So something’s missing.
Yup, I only posted it on the off chance that there is some truth here or someone knowns more I’ve wondered why the Chinese Government didn’t shut her down long ago It would be hard for them to not know she’s getting around their measures and what she’s posting or if she is/was an agent of government propaganda promoting Chinese tech Also ties in with the LMG drama as she has accused Linus of sexual harassment and propositioning her on a trip to China
Ohh… that sounds very dramatic. do you have links? I’d love to read more
You can read the Reddit thread with Naomi commenting on the matter here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/wn6qx0/what_is_going_on_with_linustechtips_and_naomi_wu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
So what? Chinese government is cracking down on her and what is the West supposed to do? Declare war? Send Seal team 6?
At least talk about.
That’s what she’s criticizing her western followers and the western media for not doing.
The thought that all the western world can do is to either declare war or sit on our hands is plain wrong.
We don’t actually know what’s happening. She has always been concerned about Winnie the Pooh’s minions shutting her down, like they silence so many others in their country.
We have to assume that’s what happened, and if it has, we really don’t know what is the course of action likely to be helpful and not make the situation even worse for Naomi.
Trying to embarrass the Chinese government generally doesn’t make them apologize and back down.
What is there to talk about? We only know what’s being shared outside of China. Which is not a lot. I watch the China show, which seems one of the few sources that doesn’t just regurgitate the government propaganda but we can only do so much.
The best course of action for her is to leave China. Maybe not an option for her due to personal reasons, but staying in Shenzhen is her choice.