After the last post publicly by Naomi Wu being
“Ok for those of you that haven’t figured it out I got my wings clipped and they weren’t gentle about it- so there’s not going to be much posting on social media anymore and only on very specific subjects. I can leave but Kaidi can’t so we’re just going to follow the new rules and that’s that. Nothing personal if I don’t like and reply like I used to. I’ll be focusing on the store and the occasional video. Thanks for understanding, it was fun while it lasted”
Naomi Wu mentions briefly on her silencing and how she is not nearly as safe as she was before now that it’s obvious to the Chinese government her disappearance won’t cause an uproar of bad press making China look bad.
Where’s the tankies to explain how the Uyghur concentration camps are not a big deal?
I’m honestly surprised I don’t see any comments from Lemmygrad and Hexbear accounts yet saying some tankie shit.
Especially Hexbear
Hexbear’s been swarming lately in anything even vaguely political turning those threads into trash fires.
Maybe they’re just focusing on the meme communities right now.
Hell, some claim they don’t exist.
I’ve been following Naomi for several years, and I’m convinced that she’s the kind of functional genius that the world needs more of. I really don’t understand why she hasn’t had better reception and support from the US maker community and tech press. I think the way she’s been treated is a combination of envy, sexism and racism/jingoism.
I think the 3D printing community should be more aware of her situation, so I’ve cross-posted this to !3dprinting@lemmy.ml and !3DPrinting@lemmy.world
I really don’t understand why she hasn’t had better reception and support from the US maker community and tech press.
She’s hot, hyperfeminine, and has spicy political opinions.
The algorithm seemed to have turned against her a few years back.
Actually there was an incident a few years back where she was demonetized and nearly lost her Channel on YouTube. Only coming back after a large outcry from the youtube/maker community. I don’t remember the exact details. But I do remember it happening.
She’s fiesty af, didn’t Vice just get into trouble for leaving stuff out of articles or something too?
In 2018, a reporter from Vice spent three days with Wu in Shenzhen, exploring the city, meeting Wu’s friends, photographing Wu’s home, and describing in depth the local creative history and Wu’s recent creation, the Sino:Bit,[27] a single-board microcontroller for computer education in China, and the first Chinese open-source hardware product to be certified by the Open Source Hardware Association.[26]
The article which revealed details of her personal life drew criticism from Wu and from others when according to her agreement with Vice, such details should have been left out of the article, out of fear of retaliation by the Chinese government and also to protect her own private life. Vice refused to comply with the agreement and published the details regardless.[28]
After Vice refused to retract the story, Wu created a video in which she made boots with tiny video screens, which displayed Vice’s editor-in-chief’s home address. Wu’s Patreon account was suspended for doxxing. Wu says this temporarily stalled her independent maker career, and she returned to freelance coding for a brief period of time.[29]
She understands very well the fragility of her situation in regards to the CCP, and the Vice reporters going against her wishes was downright dangerous.
Her response was harsh and arguably too far, but giving the editor in cheif of vice a tiny taste of the fear and discomfort she and her partner would have felt after they refused to remove sensitive details from the article and video was in many ways justified.
I don’t think it was too far, I think she’s brave af.
Honestly it doesn’t feel too far to me, and I generally detest doxxing as a tactic.
We trust and depend on journalists to expose and spread the truth and tell the stories people should see, but it’s never supposed to be at the expense or exploitation of vulnerable people. It’s one thing to expose the personal details of say, a hypocritical politician, but putting an individual’s life at risk just to spice up a story seems to violate most journalistic ethics I’m familiar with.
That’s why I say arguably… I don’t support doxxing, but this was an eye-for-an-eye situation as they must have known the damage they could potentially cause.
Her response was unable to do nearly as much damage as the article. The stakes were much lower for the vice editor and her platform had much lower reach.
She’s an amazing engineer and inventor and was one of the best Chinese voices in the global tech community, consistently brining her own perspectives without holding back or letting herself be bullied. What a massive loss.
She’s a fucking baller, I wish her the best and hope she and her partner can stay safe and maintain their sadly increasingly tenuous freedom.
I love Naomi wu / sexy cyborg. I’ve been watching her for years and she helped encourage me to setup my own 3d printer. It hurts to see someone who’s been so inspirational to me be silenced like this. I hope she can stay safe and have a productive makerspace still
I didn’t know she was pointing out security vulnerabilities. Great to see Citizen Lab doing God’s work as usual.
Wu herself had previously sent various public tweets obliquely warning about similar, privacy harming issues associated with the Sogou software in 2019, citing a 2015 report describing similar vulnerabilities. A particular concern she shared was that users of Sogou may decide to install Signal App to communicate, believing the app’s safety profile to be broadly appropriate for many people. However, the eavesdropping and network fingerprinting risks associated with the use of a third party keyboard such as Sogou take precedence over Signal’s security profile It is possible that Wu’s tweets about the issues in the Sogou software of which she was aware may have caught the attention of Chinese authorities who were searching for related information on Western networks.
Bloody hate the CCP. Also the concept of face, really hate it.
