DCH: Thanks for joining us for another bonus letter. We need to talk about how Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple & other companies use forced labour to make their products in China. Meanwhile at the same time lives hang in the balance as Facebook executives pander to Nationalist politicians in India.
Content warning for descriptions of torture and genocide and other atrocities.
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Big Tech’s supply chain keeps Uyghurs in chains
Recently the CEOs of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple each patently lied to Congress.
Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) pointedly asked Pichai, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Cook about their awareness of forced Uyghur and other ethnic Muslim labour in their supply chains. Each denied awareness of such atrocity. Each called it “abhorrent” and said they’d terminate contracts with suppliers if they were made aware of such allegations.
We know they’re lying thanks to this report from March—Uyghurs for sale—from The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has identified 27 factories in nine Chinese provinces that are using Uyghur labour transferred from Xinjiang since 2017. Those factories claim to be part of the supply chain of 82 well-known global brands.Between 2017 and 2019, we estimate that at least 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang and assigned to factories through labour transfer programs under a central government policy known as ‘Xinjiang Aid’ (援疆).
Of those 80+ global brands many fashion and automotive brands like Nike and Volkswagen tend to be the most often cited in the media. Tech companies make a strong showing on the list as well. Amongst the named and shamed are:
Asian device makers like Acer, ASUS, Founder Group, Hisense, Hitachi, HTC, Huawei, iFlyTek, Lenovo, LG, Nintendo, Oppo, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK, Toshiba, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE.
and Silicon Valley (and related) companies like Amazon, Apple, Cisco, Dell, Google, HP, Microsoft, Nokia, and Oculus which is owned by Facebook.
Look around your home. If you have a new Android, iPhone, Xbox, Playstation, smart TV, or pretty much any tech gadget there’s a chance it was made with forced labour in one of these 27 factories. These CEOs have made us all complicit in their shameful support of enslaved workers and cultural erasure.
Isolation, indoctrination, and intimidation
The International Labor Organization (ILO) lists 11 indicators of forced labour. Isolation, indoctrination, and intimidation are commonplace. Multiple sources in the ASPI report cite the following working conditions for Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslim minorities:
being subjected to intimidation and threats, such as the threat of arbitrary detention, and being monitored by security personnel and digital surveillance tools
being placed in a position of dependency and vulnerability, such as by threats to family members back in Xinjiang
having freedom of movement restricted, such as by fenced-in factories and high-tech surveillance
isolation, such as living in segregated dormitories and being transported in dedicated trains
abusive working conditions, such as political indoctrination, police guard posts in factories, ‘military-style’ management, and a ban on religious practices
excessive hours, such as after-work Mandarin language classes and political indoctrination sessions that are part of job assignments.
Chinese authorities like Xinjiang’s Human Resources and Social Affairs Department and factory bosses track workers physically and digitally. Central databases monitor medical and ideological details for each worker in the Xinjiang Aid scheme. Personal data, chat transcripts and location data are extracted from WeChat and purpose-built apps workers are forced to use.
Sources say police routinely search worker dormitories for religious content. If it’s discovered a worker risks being sent back to the re-education camps in Xinjiang for another 3 to 5 years. Disobeying work orders risks further detention.
And as bad as the forced labour is, things are much worse in the re-education camps where torture is the norm. Kayrat Samarkand, an ethnic Kazakh, recounted his monstrous experience for NPR:
"They made me wear what they called 'iron clothes,' a suit made of metal that weighed over 50 pounds," says Samarkand, drawing a picture of the device on a piece of paper. "It forced my arms and legs into an outstretched position. I couldn't move at all, and my back was in terrible pain."
Samarkand says after half a day of standing like this, he did whatever they told him.
"They made people wear this thing to break their spirits. After 12 hours, I became so soft, quiet and lawful."
He says he chanted "Long live Xi Jinping" when ordered to, sang patriotic songs and never questioned a guard again.
Samarkand was finally allowed to leave the camp, he says, after he attempted to kill himself by banging his head as hard as he could against a wall, which only managed to knock him out. He woke up in a hospital.
The unconscionable hypocrisy of Tim Cook
No other CEO in Wednesday’s hearing has Tim Cook’s expertise and insight into global supply chains. Creating Apple’s supply chain was Cook’s role before succeeding Jobs as CEO. The ASPI report identifies at least 3 factories in Apple’s supply chain that use thousands of forced labourers:
O-Film, which makes the iPhone’s selfie camera, has over a thousand Uyghur workers
Hubei Yihong, which makes backlights and battery covers, has over a hundred Uyghur workers
Foxconn’s Zhengzhou facility, which assembles half of the world’s iPhones, has over 500 hundred Uyghur workers
The report outlines other factories allegedly a part of Apple’s supply chain like Highbroad, which makes displays and has an multi-year contract with the Government for 1,000 Uyghur workers per year
Tim Cook has personally toured the O-Film facilities. On the 6th of Dec 2017 he posted the following to Weibo, the leading Chinese social media platform:
An Apple spokesperson told Nikkei. "When we learned of the allegations from ASPI earlier this year, we immediately took additional actions and began a detailed investigation with our suppliers. We have found no evidence of any forced labor on Apple production lines and we plan to continue monitoring."
O-Film remains a part of Apple’s global supply chain. Despite Washington adding it to their blacklist of Chinese tech companies. It’s unclear if Apple has investigated the other factories in ASPI’s report.
Facebook is fanning the flames of genocide. Again.
In 2016 there were more FB users in Myanmar than any other South Asian country. It became the default news source for a nation riddled with religious and ethnic animosity. By Aug-Sept 2017 hate speech on the platform reached critical levels.
In that same span of time more than 6,700 Rohingya Muslims were killed by Buddhist citizenry and military. More deaths followed as did looting, gang rapes, and other forms of sexual violence. At least 730 young children were among the people shot, burned or beaten to death. 650,000 Rohingya refugees escaped to Bangladesh, India and other nearby countries to avoid this genocide.
During this period, Facebook outsourced content moderation for the region. Only 2 reviewers could even speak Burmese. As a result they counted on users to report problematic posts but the interface for doing so was only available in English.
They also counted on Facebook’s translation services. In Burmese, one post said: “Kill all the kalars that you see in Myanmar; none of them should be left alive.” Facebook’s translation into English read as: “I shouldn’t have a rainbow in Myanmar.”
The United Nations slammed Facebook for their failure in Myanmar. Olivia Solon said “Facebook's failure in Myanmar is the work of a blundering toddler.” As I said then, it brings to mind Grey’s Law: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
It’s happening again.
In 2020 there are more Facebook users in India than any other country in the world. Facebook—and also Facebook-owned Whatsapp—is the default news source for this nation also riddled with religious and ethnic animosity. And in February hate speech on the platform took the lives of dozens and injured hundreds.
As was the case in Myanmar, the ruling political party in India—The BJP—is using Facebook to broadcast hate. Current and former lawmakers from the party like T. Raja Singh, Anantkumar Hegde, Kapil Mishra, and others have called for citizens to shoot Rohingya Muslim immigrants and raze mosques to the ground. They’ve also put forth the conspiracy theory that the Rohingya are “waging a Corona jihad.”
These politicians have hundreds of thousands of followers amongst them. Singh alone has over 400,000. Prime Minister Modi’s page—which has more likes than any other politician in the world—often signal boosts this rhetoric.
Unlike Myanmar, Facebook can’t feign ignorance or incompetence. The company has invested billions in the region and has dedicated permanent employees—who can speak the language this time thank you very much—responsible for content moderation. According to that liberal pinko-commie rag, The Wall Street Journal:
Facebook Inc. employees charged with policing the platform were watching. By March of this year, they concluded Mr. Singh not only had violated the company’s hate-speech rules but qualified as dangerous, a designation that takes into account a person’s off-platform activities, according to current and former Facebook employees familiar with the matter.
Given India’s history of communal violence and recent religious tensions, they argued, his rhetoric could lead to real-world violence, and he should be permanently banned from the company’s platforms world-wide, according to the current and former employees, a punishment that in the U.S. has been doled out to radio host Alex Jones, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and numerous white supremacist organizations.
It should not surprise you in the slightest that the employees recommendation fell on deaf ears. Singh is still active on Facebook, Instagram, et. al. Once again this is down to conservative favoritism from top-level executives within the company.
Ankhi Das is the highest ranking public policy executive for India at Facebook. She not only shielded Singh but also three other Hindu Nationalist individuals and groups deemed “dangerous” by her team. Her stated rationale? Profit.
Ms. Das, whose job also includes lobbying India’s government on Facebook’s behalf, told staff members that punishing violations by politicians from Mr. Modi’s party would damage the company’s business prospects in the country, Facebook’s biggest global market by number of users, the current and former employees said.
A Facebook spokesman, Andy Stone, acknowledged that Ms. Das had raised concerns about the political fallout that would result from designating Mr. Singh a dangerous individual, but said her opposition wasn’t the sole factor in the company’s decision to let Mr. Singh remain on the platform.
That other factor is, of course, TikTok which was recently banned in India by The BJP. Quid pro quo. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Party might be another factor. Is Das a member of the BJP?:
In April of last year, days before voting began in India’s general election, Facebook announced it had taken down inauthentic pages tied to Pakistan’s military and the Congress party, the BJP’s main rival party. But it didn’t disclose it also removed pages with false news tied to the BJP, because Ms. Das intervened, according to former Facebook employees.
In 2017, Ms. Das wrote an essay, illustrated with Facebook’s thumbs-up logo, praising Mr. Modi. It was posted to his website and featured in his mobile app.
But there may be even more at work here. A more insidious motivation. Prejudice.
On her own Facebook page, Ms. Das shared a post from a former police official, who said he is Muslim, in which he called India’s Muslims traditionally a “degenerate community” for whom “Nothing except purity of religion and implementation of Shariah matter.”
The post “spoke to me last night,” Ms. Das wrote. “As it should to [the] rest of India.”
Whatever the full-story is, it’s clear once more that Facebook’s only principle is profit. Profit generated by hate and outrage. Remember Harvey's Law: Any sufficiently advanced greed is indistinguishable from malice.
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Originally published at 20 Minutes into the Future in two-parts: