CNN wrote that China has an employment problem because the jobless rate for 16 to 24 year olds in urban areas hit 21.3% last month, a record high.

When read uncritically this sounds pretty bad, and CNN relies on the fact that the readers will not analyze this statement further. Let’s take a look at how absurd the argument in the article actually is.

First, why are they counting from 16 years old. I realize that child labour is being normalized in US right now, but in civilized countries kids don’t work and they go to school. A serious unemployment statistic wouldn’t include children.

Second, the article presents this as an abnormal situation, but is it actually.What is the situation like in Europe for example?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/613670/youth-unemployment-rates-in-europe/

Turns out that it’s pretty comparable, yet we don’t see CNN writing sensational articles about a youth unemployment crisis in Europe.

To sum up, CNN created a story out of whole cloth that relies on the readers not being curious enough to read it critically.

This is what much of reporting in western media looks like. Yet, a lot of people genuinely think that the media they consume is factual and unbiased allowing it to shape their views of the world.

  • zigguroth
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    1 year ago

    "Mentally and psychologically, people in mainland China are still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Fang Xu, a continuing lecturer at the University of California Berkeley.

    “I believe the desire to spend quality [time] with your loved ones, the contemplation about the meaning of life or what is the most important things in life still lingers,” she said.

    I’m sorry are we so traumatized that we think spending time with loved ones is bad now?

    • DamarcusArt
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      1 year ago

      I hope all the propaganda money is worth it for Fang Xu, I wonder if he’ll regret his actions when his American friends string him up and lynch him for being a “Chinese spy” despite decades of anti-China work.

      • Eat_Yo_Vegetables69
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        1 year ago

        When liberal tolerance runs out and “I’m one of the good ones” doesn’t work anymore, it depends on the level of derangement they have.

        There was a Chinese liberal living in the US who was infected with Covid, but even til his deathbed he was still exclaiming shit like “where are the mass deaths? These hospital rooms are nice, clean and empty”. The room was empty because they literally threw him into a room there to die, they were already at capacity with all the other patients.

        Other diaspora may be a bit more apathetic but in the back of their minds they must know that if anything does ever kick off, we will be shipped off to camps or killed in the streets much like they did to the Japanese back then.

        • Shrike502
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          1 year ago

          When liberal tolerance runs out and “I’m one of the good ones” doesn’t work anymore

          This always makes me wonder about people from USSR who emigrated to the west. Especially those who emigrated from modern Russian federation not for economic, but for political reasons. What do they think will happen? Do they think they’ll be exempt from the lynch mobs and purges, because of some magical “liberal democracy”? Do they honestly believe repressions “only happen in barbaric countries”?

          I used to know this guy, went to the same school, one year my senior. Emigrated to USA awhile ago, got a coding job. Supposedly well paid too. When SMO hit, he was out there on the streets of Seattle with a “I’m ashamed to be Russian” banner. Doubly amusing (in a sad way) since the guy is of Jewish ancestry and was likely not even considered “Russian” while he lived here. Wonder if he’ll get a lightbulb moment when the mob comes

          • Eat_Yo_Vegetables69
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            1 year ago

            Most likely when the mobs come many might blame their ancestry, “if only I was born as as one of the civilised” or something like that

            • besbin
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              1 year ago

              that’s pretty much the script of a bunch of colonist collaborators. They internalized the racism to the point of self hated and will rather go down lamenting that they are not born the “right” race.