The Chinese government has stifled media freedoms for decades; imprisoning more journalists than anywhere else in the world; banning social media and non-compliant foreign websites, an resorting to extreme measures to prevent all information about its human rights abuses and unrest getting out, including by routinely locking up anyone who speaks out.
To further efforts to control and censor, the China’s State Media outlets have struck financial deals with numerous highly regarded news outlets, offering large sums of money for them to carry supplements or ‘advertorials’.
These ‘advertorials’ enable the promotion of the Chinese government’s propaganda, which is far from factual reporting, and includes articles hailing the celebration by Tibetans of “democratic reforms” in occupied Tibet; reports whitewashing the arbitrary detention of at least 2 million Uyghurs and other Muslims in ‘re-education camps’; and stories claiming that the repressive and internationally condemned National Security legislation in Hong Kong will only “better protect” freedoms on the island.
By accepting money from the Chinese government to hold this propaganda, these media outlets are performing as a mouthpiece for Beijing and are complicit in the crackdown on the freedom of Tibetans, Uyghurs, Chinese, and all human rights defenders who risk their lives on the frontlines to expose the realities of life under Chinese rule.
