Information Clearing House.info By Caitlin Johnstone Fri., Aug.14, 2020
The odious right-wing influencer Ian Miles Cheong recently posted a video of a man being brutalized by an unseen tormenter which he captioned “Chinese communism”, adding “I don’t know who needs to hear this but this is what real oppression looks like, not cops in Portland pepper spraying rioters for throwing molotovs at them.”
There’s nothing in the video footage that shows that this is happening in China, nor that the person performing the abuse is a government authority figure. But many people credulously shared the video around, because anti-China sentiment has exploded over the last two years with the help of careful narrative management by the western political/media class.
This video footage re-emerges periodically, like last year when it was shared by virulent China critic Arslan Hidayat, who claimed the footage showed the Chinese government’s persecution of a Uyghur Muslim.
“DISCLAIMER: Disturbing Video. Chinese policy when interrogating #Uyghur #Muslims is Beat and Tase first then interview the suspect. #SaveUyghur #CloseTheCamps,” reads Hidayat’s caption.
Except it’s not from China, and the man being tormented is not a Uyghur Muslim.
It turns out it’s very easy to get people to believe they are viewing irrefutable evidence of Chinese abuses. All you have to do is show them video footage of one thing and tell them it’s something else, and as long as they’re already predisposed toward believing anti-China narratives, they’ll believe you.
Over the last few weeks I’ve seen three different verifiably fake videos depicting “Chinese” abuses which people have been frantically spamming around eager to show evidence of Beijing’s malfeasance, just in my own personal meanderings through social media. Like this one:
Only problem? That’s not Xinjiang, and those aren’t Uyghur Muslims.
The above videos are a good illustration of the power of narrative. People believe they’re seeing undeniable video footage of an atrocity being perpetrated by a specific government, solely because the bit of text over the video told them that’s what they’re seeing. They literally see what they’re told to see. The narrative overrides the actual raw data that they are taking in with their own eyes.
Stay skeptical. Stay critical. Demand hard, verifiable proof about any claim about any US-targeted nation, and if it isn’t given to you, don’t swallow it. This is how you keep your head clear of the propaganda.
Full article here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55450.htm
