It Turns Out to Be Manipulation by China... Thousands of Uyghur Videos Saying "I Am Happy" Proven Fake

A video of Uyghurs claiming that they are living happily and freely.

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Seoyoung] Many videos of Uyghurs uploaded on YouTube and various social networking services (SNS) have sparked controversy after being revealed as manipulated by Chinese authorities.

On the 26th (local time), The New York Times (NYT) reported that the presence of Chinese authorities was confirmed behind the videos of Uyghurs that began spreading online since January. In January, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement accusing China of committing genocide against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang. Since then, numerous videos featuring Uyghurs have been uploaded on various online communities and SNS platforms.

Although thousands of different individuals appeared in the videos, the content was all similar. The videos showed them introducing themselves as "Uyghurs born and raised in Xinjiang" and stating that they are "currently living happily and freely." They also criticized former Secretary Pompeo. The videos were presented as if each individual had filmed and uploaded them, but the Chinese and English subtitles appeared consecutively as if produced by the same source.

In response, NYT, together with the U.S. investigative media outlet ProPublica, analyzed about 3,000 of these "Uyghur videos." The analysis revealed that these videos were first publicly released through a news application linked to the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, and then spread by being shared on YouTube and SNS. Furthermore, many of the accounts sharing the videos were found to be accounts that only introduced Chinese propaganda videos.

Additionally, checking the upload times of the videos on each account showed that over 75% of the accounts shared the videos within similar time frames of less than 30 minutes. NYT evaluated these findings by stating, "From the Chinese government's perspective, YouTube and Twitter are tools for ultra-fast propaganda and agitation."

Meanwhile, Twitter had recognized the suspicious consecutive uploads of Uyghur videos earlier than media reports and had suspended many accounts in March and April. YouTube also explained that after NYT's investigation began, it suspended some accounts suspected of involvement in manipulating public opinion.