China paid Facebook and Twitter to help spread anti-Muslim propaganda
In China’s internment camps, Muslims are reportedly subjected to forced indoctrination, torture, and even death. Yet some paid ads on Facebook and Twitter would have you believe they’re wonderful places. The US-based social media giants have been enabling Chinese state-owned media to spread misinformation about the camps, investigations by the Intercept and BuzzFeed News revealed this week. The paid ads aim to convince Westerners that the camps in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region are not sites of human rights abuses, contrary to the findings of several governments, China experts, and international bodies like the UN. An estimated 1 million Uighurs, the country’s predominantly Muslim minority, have been detained in the camps since 2017. On Facebook, the state-controlled tabloid Global Times posted a sponsored video on Monday titled, “Xinjiang center trainees graduate with hope for future.” It purports to show former detainees baking bread, as an example