#3: Kindergarten Abuse Scandal Triggers Reflections on Access to Information
This is issue #3 of the Magpie Digest newsletter, originally sent on 11/30/2017
This week, online conversation in China was dominated by reactions to horrifying child abuse allegations at a private kindergarten in Beijing run by RYB, an educational company that listed on the New York Stock Exchange just a few months ago. If you want the (upsetting) details, there is plenty of reporting from QZ, Sixth Tone, and AFP, as well as a great roundup of cultural responses from Radii. The story struck a deep nerve nationwide, triggering an outpouring of outrage and frustration online over many days as the case unfolded. Today, we will take a closer look at how this story provoked reflection about the state of investigative journalism, pushed people towards privatized surveillance, and led to activist financial advising between internet users.
The Decline of Investigative Reporting
In the first days after the incident, video interviews with affected parents and discussions were repeatedly taken down by censors on major social media platforms like Weibo and Zhihu, a move that further incensed many. But the incident also triggered widespread reflection on why there was so little information to even censor in the first place. In a popular post, one Weibo poster shared a recent study that showed a 57.5% decline in the number of investigative reporters over the last six years, down to a total of 175 for the whole country.
“The ideal process: the media conduct an investigation, the police arrest the perpetrators, the victims receive physical and mental care, the politicians take a stand, there is a public prosecution and a sentencing, a law is passed, the public becomes more aware, a few years later a movie is made about the incident, and it passes into the collective memory. But in our country in 2017, the process does not even make it past the media step.”
Many Chinese posters seemed to think that this decline was not (just) an issue of governmental censorship, but rather the result of market factors that also plague media industries abroad. Several Weibo and Douban posters reflected on how low salaries, the rise of 自媒体 (“self-media”, used to describe bloggers and video creators who seek to make a living by posting content on Weibo, WeChat subscriptions, or video platforms), and lukewarm-to-hostile audiences have driven domestic talent from reporting towards more easy and lucrative jobs in entertainment.
“The rise of self-media and the corresponding fall of serious media has led directly to the situation we see after the RYB kindergarten incident: a shortage of facts; unconfirmed information flying everywhere; irrational, emotional responses spreading like wildfires through our WeChat groups and feeds; marketing departments feasting on blood-soaked bao; prominent accounts seizing any opportunity to get more hits. These challenges have a common root — the disappearance of the class of investigative journalists whose objective coverage we are supposed to be relying on. The truth is simply not the main concern of media outlets that rely on views to survive.”
While the two are clearly intertwined, it is interesting to see the distinctions drawn by these commenters between the familiar opponent of governmental censorship and the market-driven transformation of an industry — in many ways, a more difficult problem to circumvent. Either way, this story felt like the start of a wake up call.
A Push for Distributed Surveillance
“Surveillance hard drive malfunction, surveillance camera lens malfunction, surveillance hard drive malfunction, surveillance footage not found, surveillance was obstructed, all of the cameras on the street malfunctioned. I think the evening of March 15th, we’ll see another ‘demonstration’ of the poor quality of our surveillance equipment.”
On Tuesday night, the Beijing Police announced the results of their investigation: most of the allegations were made up, and no surveillance footage (none of it ever released to the public) showed any wrongdoing, though some of the equipment was damaged or turned off. The final score: a single 22 year-old teacher arrested for poking children with needles, and two women put into detention for “spreading false rumors” about the incident. On social media, people reacted with disbelief and disgust.
Surveillance cameras have become ubiquitous in China over the last decade, starting as a bloom of traffic cameras monitoring intersections and spreading gradually into indoor spaces, sometimes motivated by private rather than governmental interests. The general attitude towards surveillance has been that it is necessary for maintaining societal order and guaranteeing some measure of accountability, even if it causes personal inconvenience. Indeed, in the aftermath of the RYB incident, the government has mandated that kindergartens in Beijing install enough cameras to cover every corner.
However, the incident has also led the public to loudly question: who is the surveillance for, and how can it hold institutions accountable, if the authorities are the only ones who can access the footage?
In October, hot pot chain Hai Di Lao started broadcasting livestreams from their kitchens into the dining area to assure diners after being closed temporarily for sanitation concerns. Many other restaurants have followed suit, adopting facility surveillance as a type of customer service rather than because it is required by law. Following the RYB incident, concerned parents are pushing in this direction for kindergartens as well, demanding surveillance they can monitor directly instead. The CEO of 360, a popular brand of home monitoring cameras whose footage can be accessed via mobile app, stoked this fire by publishing an essay on Weibo titled “I strongly believe parents have the right to know everything that happens in a kindergarten” wherein he offered free 360 cameras to every certified kindergarten or childcare facility in Beijing. Five days later, the post had over 80,000 likes.
A proliferation of decentralized surveillance systems is likely to come with its own host of problems, but to people tired of being kept in the dark, it seems a risk worth taking.
Vigilante Actions; Loss of Faith in Justice
Right: Comments on a post encouraging people to short RYB, reading “Smash them” “If they care about money so much, I hope they watch their money evaporate in front of their eyes from jail.” “We must short this awful company.”
From the outset, people had low expectations for the government’s handling of the case. Some called on fellow citizens to take justice into their own hands. As the story broke online on Thursday and Friday, financially-savvy posters loosely organized on Weibo, Zhihu, and WeChat to post information about shorting RYB’s stock on the NYSE, where it had listed in September.
While RYB’s stock did tumble 42% when trading opened on November 24th, it has been steadily creeping back up ever since, especially after RYB was cleared of the most serious charges. The morning after the pronouncement, our WeChat feeds were filled with oblique references to the incident, ranging in tone from defeated frustration to simmering anger, threaded through with an utter lack of surprise at the outcome.
“The way this has developed, it is like we are all just playing a game of Werewolf. Nobody knows anything for sure. People are picking sides at random. The government has got a history of lying, and their statement is so terrible no one believes them. The only Werewolf hunter who can prove their own identity (the surveillance records) has a malfunctioning gun. Some people think the parents’ story was too outrageous, but I cannot help but ask: what do they stand to gain? But. The very fact that a matter of public concern has turned into a game of Werewolf, whose fault is that? Night has fallen, please close your eyes.”
This post captures the mood even as the story continues to evolve: a frustration not just at the details of the case, but at the larger structures that create an atmosphere of confusion and a lack of accountability, leaving people to fend for themselves at every turn.
Read more:
- Radii China — Tale of Two Tragedies (English)
- What’s On Weibo — WeChat Essay: “The RYB Kindergarten ‘Piston Action’ Child Abuse Case” (English Translation)
- TechNode — RYB Abuse Case: Hongyi Zhou Wants to Install Cameras in Every Kindergarten, But It’s Not So Simple (Chinese)
- QZ — Child-abuse scandals are reminding China’s middle class of its lack of power (English)
- Radii China — Filmmaker Han Xia on the Impact of Angels Wear White (English)
Magpie Digest is a service offered by Magpie Kingdom, a project by Christina Xu, Tricia Wang, and Pheona Chen to help busy people stay attuned to China’s rapidly shifting conversations from abroad.
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