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zeyiyang.bsky.social
🖊 Writing about China and Technology for WIRED. Reporting on everything because everything is computer. ✉️ zeyi_yang[AT]wired.com 💬 signal: zeyiyang.06
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《长津湖》终于输出到国外了 www.reddit.com/r/translator...

Meta trying to bury a book before they even read it is so funny www.wired.com/story/plaint...

A few words on journalism, risk and what I actually said.

Other countries are fully targeting US academics with social media ads now, basically of the form "we still have inclusive liberal democracy and academic freedom here"

Even though we've already spoken to >150 sources for this story and others, I would still love to connect with any federal workers or folks with insight into DOGE. You can be anonymous. Signal: makenakelly.32

several countries' governments nodded in agreement

My colleagues covered the revocation of OCI as a form of mobility controls in this recent report freedomhouse.org/report/trans...

My @wired.com colleagues spoke to 150+ current and former federal employees, experts, and Musk supporters to document DOGE's digital takeover of the US government. Here's the big story that really has it all, including details on how they recruited the DOGE employees:

FBI telling Citibank to freeze accounts of Habitat for Humanity, the United Way, and the State of NY Dept of Taxation, among a few dozen others.

Japanese Genshin Impact voice actor thought to have been fired for speaking up for Uyghurs

ah yeah, totally efficient, nothing to be DOGEd here

Moving a detainee around to evade judicial review is classic authoritarian behavior.

Very laugh-til-you-cry: WaPo Opinions declined a chagrined column by American icon and reader fave @annelamott.bsky.social—in fairness, it is NOT an ode to the free market—so she took it to the LAT. There, of course, it was auto-countered by AI…calling for REVOLUTION www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

New from @jakelahut.writes.news @leahfeiger.bsky.social and me: Elon Musk has been advocating for a government shutdown, even as Trump himself has opposed one. Why? In part to make it easier to remove thousands of federal workers. @wired.com www.wired.com/story/elon-m...

Mayor Adams to @katiehonan.bsky.social who asked his thoughts on Trump admin detaining green card holder and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil. Adams responds, "If he has a gun, he has to go." Honan: He hasn't done anything— Adams ignores this & moves on.

Faculty, he's joking about killing your students.

Compelling graphic design on this 'small yard high fence' chart from Beacon Global Strategies

Nearly three years in prison, and a $6,200 fine, for "insulting" Jesus on TikTok.

New email from Columbia Public Safety: The campus is locking back down. Only a pair of gates will be open to university ID holders & registered alumni/guests.

UPDATE—Mahmoud's attorney says they do NOT know where he is. They were first told he was sent to an ICE facility in Elizabeth, NJ. But when his 8-month-pregnant wife tried to visit him, she was told he's not there. They've received reports he may be sent as far away as Louisiana.

Trump administration has identified words to be banned on government websites or at least be wary of using. Among them: women, race, injustice, climate science, pollution, victim, historically. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Last night State Department sent Freedom House notification of termination of a multi-year, multimillion dollar grant for work on transnational repression that I spent most of the last year developing and setting up.

I chatted with Illia Ponomarenko, a Ukrainian war reporter, about why Zelenskyy doesn't wear a suit. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

NEW The Pentagon’s DEI purge has led to photos of the B-29 bomber the Enola Gay to be marked for deletion. Photos of soldiers who happen to have the last name “Gay” are also marked for deletion. Full Story: bit.ly/3F4FOKK

New from me: The US embassy air quality monitoring program was an example of smart diplomacy: low-cost, automated, yet pressured the Chinese government to get serious about cleaning up its air and led to US-China collaborations on climate. The State Department ended it yesterday for budget reasons.

European Parliament removes curbs on lawmaker meetings with Chinese officials – SCMP: ‘The recommendations were introduced in April 2023 as follow up to a sanctioning blitz in 2021’

The university that supposedly has the best journalism school in the country continues to embarrass itself. (Not CJS's fault, to be clear.)

Columbia University senior Maryam Alwan was visiting family in Jordan over winter break when she received an email from the school accusing her of harassment. Her supposed top offense: writing an op-ed in the student newspaper calling for divestment from Israel.

The US Attorney in Washington DC is investigating Georgetown Law School, demanding that "if DEI is found in your courses or teaching in anyway [sic]," the law school should "move swiftly to remove it" Federal prosecutors don’t control the classroom. This is a dark abdication of the First Amendment.

Thai PM: 'The government is delighted that #TikTok has chosen #Thailand as a strategic investment partner for digital infrastructure, including a 300 billion baht (US$8.8 billion) Data Hosting project'

OOPS

wait, the born-in-English-brought-up-in-Chinese concept of "thucydides' trap" has broken through to mainstream american thinkers like ezra klein? I missed that development lol

lots of good journalists losing their jobs these days. hard to fathom the wsj's decision to axe the bulk of its san francisco-based tech team. talkingbiznews.com/media-news/h...

New from me: The US embassy air quality monitoring program was an example of smart diplomacy: low-cost, automated, yet pressured the Chinese government to get serious about cleaning up its air and led to US-China collaborations on climate. The State Department ended it yesterday for budget reasons.

Can’t help feeling that the democrats became so terribly incompetent at being an opposition party because they went down the centrist/establishment route rather than the leftist/populist route

BREAKING: The US has charged 12 individuals from China for allegedly carrying out a far-reaching hacking campaign that included breaching the US Treasury, US media outlets, Chinese dissidents, and more. @agreenberg.bsky.social reports: www.wired.com/story/us-cha...

lol www.reddit.com/r/civ/s/OJKK...

“If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said after the latest exchange of retaliatory tariffs. www.wsj.com/world/china/...

This quarter is going to be BRUTAL for Tesla: "Tesla's sales of its China-made electric vehicles dropped 49.2% in February from a year earlier... the lowest since August 2022, as the US automaker faces pressure from Chinese rivals in a relentless EV price war." www.reuters.com/business/aut... 🔌💡 🔌🚗

New from me: The Trump admin is still considering putting tariffs on Taiwanese chips, but the tariffs won't work well because of how chip supply chains work today. Instead, American chip buyers, Taiwanese companies other than TSMC, and consumers could lose more. www.wired.com/story/tsmc-t...

incredible reporting from my colleague

NEW from @leahfeiger.bsky.social, @lmatsakis.bsky.social, and @jakelahut.writes.news www.wired.com/story/people...

I've often not-quite-joked that the @beijingair Twitter account, which was plausibly a key contributor to higher Chinese citizen consciousness of PM2.5 and demands for better Chinese data, was the best piece of US public diplomacy ever in China.

My latest, for your doomscrolling detox: You've probably seen her on TikTok/Insta. Every day, Candise Lin scours the Chinese internet looking for new memes to translate. Hundreds of videos later, there's a clear insatiable appetite in the West to know what Chinese "netizens" are up to lately.

Welcome!!