The managed Chinese Corona narrative: Links 1, December 202020

1. If any of our readers are able to understand this, please let us know if the translation/titles are correct in the comments.

2. The Chinese narrative on Covid in the early days of the outbreak. Click to go to thread.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1340238064795303938.html

NYT writes on this general subject:

In the early hours of Feb. 7, China’s powerful internet censors experienced an unfamiliar and deeply unsettling sensation. They felt they were losing control.

The news was spreading quickly that Li Wenliang, a doctor who had warned about a strange new viral outbreak only to be threatened by the police and accused of peddling rumors, had died of Covid-19. Grief and fury coursed through social media. To people at home and abroad, Dr. Li’s death showed the terrible cost of the Chinese government’s instinct to suppress inconvenient information.

Yet China’s censors decided to double down. Warning of the “unprecedented challenge” Dr. Li’s passing had posed and the “butterfly effect” it may have set off, officials got to work suppressing the inconvenient news and reclaiming the narrative, according to confidential directives sent to local propaganda workers and news outlets.

They ordered news websites not to issue push notifications alerting readers to his death. They told social platforms to gradually remove his name from trending topics pages. And they activated legions of fake online commenters to flood social sites with distracting chatter, stressing the need for discretion: “As commenters fight to guide public opinion, they must conceal their identity, avoid crude patriotism and sarcastic praise, and be sleek and silent in achieving results.”

3. Pompeo on what the CIA does

4. Spain is transferring illegal immigrants from the Canary Islands to mainland Europe

Since mid-November, the government of Pedro Sánchez has been silently transferring hundreds of young illegal immigrants to bring some relief to the Canary Islands, which has witnessed a 900 percent increase in arrivals this year, which has seen arrivals increase to 21,452 arrivals between Jan. 1 to Dec. 15 this year compared to only 2,168 all of last year.

On Nov. 20, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska was on an official visit to Morocco to discuss the issue of rising numbers of illegal crossings from Africa to the Spanish archipelago, many of whom depart from coasts controlled by Rabat in Morocco and Western Sahara. In spite of reception facilities being overcrowded in the Canary Islands, Grande-Marlaska insisted Spain would not transfer migrants to mainland Spain, as this would risk converting those islands in the Atlantic Ocean into a new entry point to mainland Europe.

According to the Spanish authorities, most illegal immigrants arriving on small boats to the Canary Islands do not qualify for asylum and should be deported back to their country of origin.

5. Austrian Special Forces Capture 2 Suspects Linked to November Vienna Attack, Report Says

MOSCOW, (Sputnik) – Austria’s Cobra counter-terrorism unit has detained two people suspected of involvement in last month’s deadly attack in the capital city of Vienna, the Kronen Zeitung newspaper reported on Sunday.

According to the Austrian media outlet, one of the suspects, an Austrian national of Afghan origin, was apprehended on Friday evening. His DNA was reportedly found on the rifle and cartridges used by the Vienna shooter.

The Austrian prosecutor’s office confirmed on Sunday that there was one more captured suspect, the newspaper added, noting that he was of Chechen descent.

Thank you Wrath of Khan, M., Johnny U., John, C., PePo, EB., Yucki, and MANY more who sent in a lot of worthy materials and thoughts to the Reader’s Links for today.