Shenzhen
Tech Girl Naomi Wu: My experience with Sarah Jeong, Jason Koebler,
and Vice Magazine
Translator and proofreader’s note:
There are large parts of this document that don’t parse well
either from Chinese or from Naomi’s written English into more
fluent English. In trying to do so, some of the emotion that
Naomi is trying to convey would be lost. I’ve left those
passages as originally written in her own English because there
was simply no way to clean them up without losing her intent.
Me
in better times, excited by some new fiber optic cables.
Part
1 : Vice
I’m
Naomi Wu a DIY and tech enthusiast in Shenzhen, China. Nine months
ago Vice Magazine contacted me for an interview. A lot has been
written about that, very little by me.
I’ve
avoided writing about my experience with Sarah Jeong, Jason
Koebler, and Vice Magazine in detail because I can’t explain the
whole story the way I want to. I can’t really blame anyone who is
unfamiliar with China’s issues, who might say “Naomi, I don’t see
what’s the big deal” or think I’m nuts, or who may’ve otherwise
been unable to connect the few dots that I’ve provided. I’m sorry
for being vague about my full side of it, but one day I’ll be able
to write every detail and things will be clearer. In the meantime,
this is what I can write, and again, I’m very sorry it’s so
incomplete.
I
know…😔
I
am a Chinese national, I have never been to the West, I know a few
of your media brands by name but little of their reputation. I
only learned after working with them that Vice Magazine, as part
of their business model goes to developing countries and produces
stories in a way they never could in the US without severe
repercussions-often
putting locals at risk:
Like
Vice has done in many other places, they sent a reporter to China
to interview me. It’s important to understand- I’m a PRC citizen.
Born, educated and raised here, unlike many wealthy Chinese you
may have met, I have a single passport. I also have as far as I
know the largest English language following onYouTubeandTwitterof
any PRC citizen living in China. Both of these platforms are
blocked in China and I maintain my accounts by using an illegal
VPN. I had, prior to my contact with Vice a habit of posting
regularly (and often heatedly) about gender issues in China. If
you know anything about China, you know all this makes for an
extraordinarily delicate position that has to be handled with
great care.
I
am not a blind nationalist, but I actually do love living in
Shenzhen and I have no plans to emigrate. I know it may be hard to
understand, but I feel life here is improving every year, and I
like using my YouTube channel to document my life, local tech, and
personal hobbies. But just like anywhere else, you play by the
local rules if you want to stay- both written and unwritten. China
rules are very different than Western rules- and not all of them
are worse as you might think, although some of these rules may
seem strange to Westerners.
To
their credit, foreign correspondents here in China are incredibly
professional about understanding that locals need to work within
these rules. Before Vice, I’ve never heard of journalist here
endangering a source. It’s one of the reasons Chinese have
historically held foreign media in high regard (although this has
slipped a bit in recent years).
In
negotiating Vice’s visit, I was, of course, hesitant- as anyone in
my position would be. In the pastI’ve
worked with outlets like the Wall Street Journaland
been delighted with their care and professionalism. Publicity in
China carries great risk, but it also helps get me followers so I
can afford to continue shooting for my channel. I exchanged
several emails with Vice magazine making it clear what the scope
of the article would be. The key points being no discussion of
sexual orientation or my relationships. This is a very small
request as Vice Magazine has interviewed countlessmale
DIY YouTube creators without ever asking them to respond to
4Chan/Reddit allegations about who they sleep with(as
they did with me).
Below
is a copy of my agreement with Vice. Please note that they’ve not
disputed this:
The
agreement between Vice Magazine, and Naomi Wu.
When
the Vice reporter came in January 2018, I showed them around
Shenzhen for three days. During this visit, I brought the reporter
to my home, long enough for the reporter to get an in-depth idea
of my circumstances. In my home,I
worked on an automated bartender project I had built for a
friends bar- to address with the best possible evidence the
ongoing Internet smear campaign against me that only a White man
could do work like mine. All this was apparently not juicy enough
for Vice. Frankly, it’s very rare I get accused of not being
click-baity enough just being myself.
The
Vice reporter returned home to NYC and in the following week began
to ask the questions about my personal life it had been agreed
were off limits. I was given the “opportunity” to address
anonymous 4chan/Reddit speculation about my personal life from the
ongoing harassment campaign against me- or look guilty in silence.This
is not professional, this is not journalism:
The
Reuters Handbook of Journalism
Even
the most basic level of professionalism was too much to ask of
Vice- and yet they want to hide behind the title of “journalists”
and claim to be above any accountability, when they are nothing of
the kind.
I
was obviously upset and fearful as Vice made it clear they
intended to break our agreement and include speculation about my
personal life. The worst part was I would not know in what way
they intended to break that agreement until publication, then it
would be too late. Average circulation is one million print
issues. This is not a little blog post, if there was a mistake…
These
exact issues are covered in ethics guides from countless sources:
Society of Professional Journalists
Code of Ethics
The
Ethical Journalism Network
These
are not games you play in China, it doesn’t matter if the sum
total of their experience living a warm sheltered life in America
makes them think it will probably be ok. Things are not the same
here. That is not how agreements with sources works, Vice wasn’t
in a position to understand the exact nature of the risk I face or
what limits have to operate within- and didn’t care to find out.
It doesn’t matter if the story “reads positive” or “seems fine” to
an American reader- they are not who I have to be concerned with.
Vice
would endanger me for a few clicks because in Brooklyn certain
things are no big deal. This is not journalism and does not
deserve to hide behind the protection legitimate use of that title
warrants, this is a savage abuse of privilege knowing full well
that in China I had no possible recourse against a billion dollar
company who thought titillating their readers with my personal
details was worth putting me in jeopardy.
I
begged them through a series or emails not to do this- to consult
with anyone who had ever been a journalist in China and verify
what I was telling them. I was then put in touch with the
editor-in-chiefJason
Koebler. He dismissed it- arrogantly sure he understood the
threat model of a Chinese women with a massive social media
following who had been outspoken on local gender issues, while at
the same time making it absolutely clear he did not understand at
all or frankly even care enough to Google what is a routine
occurrence in China in these circumstances.
It’s
not that a White American can’t understand China- that is
nonsense, there are countless American journalists and scholars
here that are experts in this field that Jason Koebler or Vice
could have contacted to verify what I was telling them, I begged
them to. They simply didn’t care.
What
could I do? When it was clear they would publish no matter what I
said, I took to Twitter. But of course, Vice and Jason were clever
and knew my hands were tied. I can’t very well spell out my risk
without putting myself at risk. I can point out it’s sexist to
discuss my relationships but never discuss the male DIY YouTube
creators they feature relationships? A weak argument. I can point
it out loudly, but it didn’t really explain why I was so scared,
so desperate- I just looked a bit nuts. Which happens a lot when
you have to worry about things that your audience on the other
side of the planet has never had to worry about so think just
aren’t real problems. So Vice just continued to ignore me.
No
one will tell you I am a typical Chinese girl. I have a difficult
background. I have had to fight for everything my whole life. When
I became a tech enthusiast, due to my strange appearance I had to
fight to be allowed to speak at events, and then fight for other
Chinese women to be allowed to speak as well.In
the West powerful men declared there was no way a Chinese girl
could do what I do. I beat them and proved them wrong also.Still,
if needed I will show up with my soldering iron and my kit
anywhere if anyone doubts me. I am no coward to be easily bullied.
My mother taught me that one day a man will beat you, and you
should keep getting up until his hand is broken to teach him the
lesson that it will never be easy. I live by that.
Shenzhen
children know me by my Chinese name: Machinery Enchantress
(机械妖姬)
If
I am not scared to do this in China, I am not going to be scared
of some Brooklyn hipsters who think they can come to China, leave
and throw a Chinese woman under the bus. Things are not perfect in
my country, we struggle very hard to fix our problems and catch up
in many ways, but we have a sense of right- and this was not
right.
Right
now, I have no power. Almost every American journalist I contacted
for help ignored me. I was told “hire a lawyer” as if I have the
means for that. Even when I spoke to American lawyers they said
technically the written agreement was not a legal contract so it
would be easy for Vice to wriggle out of it- since they have an
army of high priced attorneys. I’m just a Chinese girl fighting a
huge media empire that does things like this to people every day
without consequence. Things like right and wrong don’t matter;
they can do anything they like to me. I couldn’t even get a visa
to America to fight them. I’d stand in front of their office and
shout all day if I could. The message everyone gives me is to
simply give up, they are American, they are too big, too rich, too
powerful.
But
I won’t give up because what they did to me was wrong.
I’m
Guangdong born and bred, daughter of the Ten Tigers, my ancestral
home is Foshan- the same soil as Wong Fei-hung and Ip Man- you
can’t come to our place and bully a local girl. Even if I die you
can’t do that.
So
I fight how I can.
Sarah
Jeong wrote an article on the use of “unmasking” to address
abuse on the Internet when you are absolutely without recourse,
in this case this was not the hurtful language and threats I get a
thousand times a day, this was the potential for very real and
personal harm. My attacker would not stop, would not listen to
reason, did not care what harm might come to me. I don’t care if
someone gives himself a pretty title he does not deserve and tries
to hide behind it. If you earn a living hurting people weaker than
you, you are no journalist and do not get to claim the protections
of that honorable profession.
My
emails to Vice and American journalists were ignored, Vice was
refusing to honor the agreement, refusing to even consult an
expert on my risk. So I found some public records on the Internet.
I found an address for Jason Koebler, the Vice guy who thinks it’s
ok to abuse a Chinese girl just because he has some power. I’ve
heard Vice guys like some power over girls so maybe that’s it. But
not this girl.
So
I waited until the day that celebrates the famous American HackerAaron
Swartz. He is a hero of course. I got my tools, my CAD, my
3D printer and I fought the only way a small Chinese girl can- I
build tech.
I
created a pair of boots with tiny video displays in the sides, the
video they play is of me making the boots. And, for a few seconds
they flash the address I found for Jason Koebler. In the final
video less than 5 seconds. Just showing a little bit. So they will
please stop. So they will please listen to me. So they will please
ask someone what will happen to me if they are careless.
I
emailed the video to Jason (but did not post it) asking him to
reply to emails, let me explain the risk. Nothing. He and other
Vice employees are always so arrogant, so typical to think he is
better than anyone else and can do anything he wants just because
someone does not have that magic blue passport that makes him feel
so special everywhere in the world Vice goes to damage local lives
for a stupid story.
But…I
got a little worried. All the Internet info says he lives alone.
I’m not posting anything new that anyone who wished him ill does
not already know- but would not want to concern a parent. What if
he has a relative living in his home? Like all Chinese I love
children very much, since we have had so few under the one-child
system. I am already twenty-four and I have no baby. So of course
I asked- politely to make sure, since this is serious.
Then
I posted the video. Of course, no one but Jason even notices the
address in the video because it is so fast and so tiny. Vice has
expensive lawyers and they convince YouTube to take the video down
which was reasonable, and Patreon to terminate my account. In the
past Patreon wouldn’t terminate accounts of some horrible people
who violated their TOS also, but no one wants to mess with Vice
lawyers. It was petty and vindictive, meant to shut me down and
teach me a lesson. Did the first, never the second.
Vice-
with their usual sense of journalistic ethics, selectively
released parts of our private emails to bolster their narrative as
“Vice Magazine- The Innocent Victim In All This”. Also as a sort
of backhanded threat to me that they could release other private
emails containing more sensitive personal details if I kept
pushing. I have a feeling that or something like it, is what will
happen in response to this article- which is why I’ve been
reluctant to go into more detail until now.
Despite
Vice’s firmly established track record of deception and truly
disgusting behavior, particularly towards women in vulnerable
positions- people actually bought it. That breaking an agreement
with me, that putting me in danger- this was nothing because some
sleazy grown man in Brooklyn who was willing to endanger a young
woman for a few extra clicks had a publicly available address
shown for five seconds on a shoe- he was the real victim. Or at
least the kind of victim Americans actually care about.
At
this point, I don’t care who disagrees. I’d do it again even if it
costs me my life. Wrong is wrong. Powerful media corporations
should not abuse their privilege and platforms to bully and
endanger the same people they profit off.
I
hear “but you fought back wrong” while no one was there to help
when I begged for weeks for help fighting back “right”. No one can
seem to say in my shoes what would have been “right” is other than
lie down and let them do what they want. I am no one’s victim.
“How dare you bite the ankle of the man who put his boot on your
neck- he might have been slightly hurt!”
We
are people too and we can’t always fight back pretty and clean
with expensive lawyers the way you can- it does not mean we
deserve to be abused because we can’t fight the way you think is
ok.
I’d
lost all my monthly income because I had no Patreon. Most
alternatives PayPal, Drip etc. don’t work in China (yes really, no
cryptocurrency and peer-to-peer tech aren’t viable options, yes I
know you don’t believe me, trust me if it were easy there would be
more Chinese YouTubers, ok got it- you don’t believe me. It’s
still true).
I
went back to what I used to do for a living- Web Development,
freelance coding online for overseas clients. I code under a male
pseudonym so my unusual appearance does not cause difficulties. I
couldn’t run my YouTube channel anymore since it’s very time
consuming and without Patreon the revenue from that is quite small
compared to coding, and full time coding was required to support
myself with little time left over. I like to cook at home anyway
and Chinese food is cheap to make.
I
was ok, it was all worth it and I’d do it again. True poverty is
not being able to afford some small principles. I could afford to
stand up to bullies, and one day there will be a way to have
grandchildren and they will know I did. Then I had some other bad
problems I can’t discuss, but they were what I was worried about
from the beginning. I had to find a way to solve those and find
new income before I could get back online.
Then
Sarah Jeong decided to attack me on behalf of her former co-worker
Jason Koebler. I’d followed her but had never spoken to her before
then.
Part
2 : Sarah Jeong
Sarah
did not come to listen, mediate, or learn- she was sent by Jason
Koebler to destroy me and protect a business model that has
endangered voiceless sources in the developing World countless
times.
Sarah
Jeong was educated at Berkeley and Harvard and only an idiot would
deny the woman is quite brilliant in her areas of expertise. This
has given her a large platform and she is considered the final
word in her respective fields by many people. Some of the areas
that people look to her are law, Internet harassment, and
Asian-American issues. As a journalist- this is her beat, and her
word on the subject carries a crushing and near irrefutable
weight.
There
is a bias all Asians fight of a monolithic Asian identity. That
East Asia is all basically the same- Chinese, Japanese, Korean-
“whatever”. Sarah is well aware of this bias and used it to
persuade people who were on the fence whether to support me in my
desperate bid for Vice to honor their agreement. In the multi-page
rant she directed at me,she
said the following:
The
deliberate folksy use of language by a Harvard trained lawyer
disguises an extremely succinct and frankly elegant hit piece
designed to destroy my credibility.
Sarah,
although fully aware of at least one of the more immediate
threats to my wellbeing, cleverly choses to cast it as a simple
issue of an interracial relationship. A mild concern- surely
overblown?
Having
built her strawman of “interracial relationship” being my
complaint, she set two matches to it. The imaginary anonymous
source who corroborates interracial relationships are no big
deal (again, at this point the audience actually believes that’s
the issue). Interestingly enough Sarah has been attacked online
for only dating White men,so
knows it can be a risk for some Asian women- but also
knows from speaking to Vice it’s not my concern. She has zero
problem being intellectually dishonest when it suits her goals.
Then
Sarah drops a veritable atom bomb of an Appeal to Authority, she
is Korean (having lived a full week as an adult in Korea). South
Korea is pretty much the same as Mainland China, therefore I was
never in any danger. She invokes the monolithic Asian culture
myth precisely because she knows her largely White audience
believes this anyway.
Sarah
knew the truth, she also knew I was straight-jacketed and could
not fight back. I was stuck miserably saying “it’s not that”.
Honestly,
it was a thing of beauty- pure willful evil of course, but you
have to respect the costly training and centuries of legacy
knowledge bestowed by highest institutions of learning in the
World applied like a magnifying glass on an ant.
I,
the unfortunate ant smelling something burning, at the time had a
great deal of respect for Sarah andresponded
with that respect:
Yes,
in retrospect I was a bit of a naive idiot for thinking Sarah
didn’t know exactly what she was doing.
No
response from Sarah. Then or any other time I reach out to her via
Twitter DM to discuss the issue privately.
Other
Asian-American women took exception and while they did not have
access to the full backstory that would put the defensive
unmasking of my Aaron Swartz Day Disruptive Tech project into any
sort of reasonable perspective,they
knew something didn’t smell right and tried for a better
explanation:
(See
above underlined link for full comment thread)
I
tried again, walking a careful line barely able to articulate a
fraction of what I needed to.Again,
with absolute respect:
(See
above underlined link for full comment thread)
All
to no effect.
Her
unprovoked attack was devastatingly effective, Western women all
over Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and YouTube comments sections
reposted about her “insightful Twitter thread” (of course those
flocking to these threads had no pre-existing issues with a
whorish looking underweight Asian girl and were not in the least
bit eager to have me taken down a peg.)
The
support I had previously had in getting Vice to limit the story to
what had been agreed on, to treat me the same as the countless DIY
men they cover without mention of their personal lives, and to
having my Patreon account restored- evaporated.
Sarah
had won- and she knew it. She’d been trained by the best
universities in the World to fight exactly this kind of fight, to
win by any means, for right or wrong. She was a trained Special
Forces combatant against child. With the platform that journalism
gave her amplifying that power, sent on behalf of the exact sort
of “privileged White man” she claims to despise, she went out to
destroy another Asian woman. All while knowing full well the issue
was far more complex than she was pretending, the facts completely
different- and simply not caring. Not then, not in the following
months when it became clear to more and more people just how badly
she had abused her power, her education, her profession, and her
privilege.
It
took me two months before I could start up again, and then only
with sponsorship provided by a Chinese tech company and with more
strict limits on what I could post. No more nuanced discussion of
tech issues on social media- Tor in China, VPNs as a wealth and
class filter, gender equality in Chinese tech, MakeEd training for
young women- all off-limits now. My income is half of what it was
with Patreon and I am not well-off to begin with. The effect this
has had on my life, my content, my standard of living- has been
devastating and Sarah played no small part in it that.
Remember
that email agreement with Vice? The one they have not disputed?
Here’s
what Sarah had this to say:
If
you were a source in a vulnerable position, would you talk to her?
But the sources won’t know how Sarah feels about agreements- just
that she works at The New York Times.
A
position at the New York Times will amplify Sarah’s power one
hundred fold, and if I thought she would never again abuse her
power in this manner I’d stay out of it. But since she is
unwilling to address her mistake, to come to terms with what she
did I can only assume she intends to do the same to others.
This
is why I am vocal in my objection to Sarah Jeong having any
position at the New York Times. The position, properly filled
requires someone with both competence and a conscience, Sarah has
the first in excess and but not a shred of the second. I don’t
think anyone should support someone who does not seem to be an
actual believer in the values they espouse, but is instead a
follower of convenience and absolutely comfortable it betraying
those values when it serves her own ends.
Naomi
Wu
In
the meantime- if I’m going to keep my YouTube channel alive
another month I’ve got a workbench full of projects to finish and
videos to shoot.