I think the clickbait is more in the headlines and they feel chintzy for using Ai text to speech instead of owning their irl Chinese accents.
But for example, the epoch times is Falun Gong, and they’re a decent quality outlet.
Unless you can filter the pro CCP bias from major networks, those channels’ having bias is counterweight. I mean I agree that when claims seem sensational, you should look for evidence that backs them up.
The problem that I see is that the majority of Americans UNDERestimate how bad the CCP is because the people who want to continue the current trade balance are the big money corporations that pay for legacy news to continue being broadcast while it most likely loses money. So they don’t mention shit like tofu dreg construction, or how China, who exports fentanyl precursors to Mexican cartels, has the death penalty for domestic drug dealers.
But when you watch those channels and something is stated as a fact, and you check and find out that yeah, it’s a fact, then it’s ok that it’s a fact
I don't disagree with some of what you're saying, but it must be emphasised that Falun Gong propaganda does
not make it any less bad than the CPC's propaganda is. In fact, I'd argue that CPC propaganda is generally quite easy to detect to an average English-speaking audience. Unless you're a complete and total smooth-brained retard, you'll always pick up on the fact that CGTN, Xinhua, China Daily, and so on are operated by the Communist Party. There are far too many tells: bad production quality (i.e. shitty audio mixing, colour balance being way off, obvious usage of green screen, obvious redubbing, etc), a white monkey host (usually an older American, Briton, or Aussie, sometimes from a non-English European country), extremely verbose phrases that the host
must say verbatim that don't flow well in English at all, constant glowing mentions to the latest thoughts or deeds of Xi Jinping, the list goes on and on.
Falun Gong media like China Observer, China Insights, China Deep Dive, and the litany of other anti-CPC channels I get recommended on a daily basis via the omniscient algorthims, are far more insidious. Most Americans, even some Europeans, are distrustful of Western mass media and for good reason. What is often the case is that when they get first exposure to a Falun Gong outlet, they're introduced to a
ton of information that they otherwise weren't privy to beforehand. Unless you're into pseudo-intellectual/semi-informational content like Wendover Productions or Polymatter or a short-form geopolitical podcast like The History of Everything, most of average Westerners wouldn't know about tofu dreg construction, the proliferation of debt to fuel real estate and infrastructure developments, Han Chinese boomers acting like complete jerks overseas, human trafficking being omnipresent, etc.
Given that "taste" of seemingly forbidden or otherwise silenced news coverage with what happens in China, combined with a seemingly polished veneer of legitimacy, many people who flock to outlets like China Observer, China Insights, China Deep Dive, China Uncensored, and so on will generally develop a sort of "halo effect" to the Falun Gong media. It's not always easy to discern what is true and what's merely conjecture from those videos. Have you ever noticed how those outlets will rip videos taken from Douyin, Weibo, or other such Chinese platforms without necessarily crediting people? If there's a natural disaster that they're covering, have you ever noticed how there's dramatised music playing over the disaster footage they air half the time? What about the
exclusively positive coverage they give Falun Gong and their leader Li Hongzhi? Most people who consume content from these outlets will only ever know about Falun Gong as that new religious movement where they preach Truth, Compassion, and Forebearance and that Li Hongzhi left the country after his movement got banned. They don't know a single iota about the
very real controversies that Falun Gong has surrounding them.
They're more than just a kooky new religious movement with odd beliefs that plaster Shen Yun posters everywhere they go; they're an outright cult. Shen Yun relies heavily on coercive volunteer labour from their adherents, as do most of their media outlets. Li Hongzhi developed a cult of personality around himself, and lives a lavish lifestyle in a private villa in Upstate New York. Their beliefs centre around basic Qigong exercises that supposedly cultivate a powerful life energy that makes their organs healthier than others. That's why they reject Western medicines and surgeries altogether, often dying of preventable ailments in a vein not too dissimilar to Christian Scientists. Falun Gong-sponsored protests will constantly discuss the Communist Party harvesting the organs of Falun Gong practitioners. Granted, the Communist Party
did admit to harvesting organs of death row inmates and there are NGOs like Amnesty International who corrobrate as much. There is a
precedent for CPC-sponsored organ harvesting, but Falun Gong will harp about organ harvesting happening to
them specifically like there's no tomorrow. Oh, and last but not least, Li Hongzhi views his followers as expendable considering how 4 Falun Gong practitioners immolated themselves in Tiananmen Square back in 2001. When they got caught and the mainland Chinese press attributed it to Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi disavowed them.
Hatred of the communists does not always mean that the most prolific voices against them should be our allies. The Unification Church in Korea did something similar before they got outed as a cult run by charlatans. Further backing up this comparison is how the Unification Church runs the Washington Times, a broadly conservative-aligned Western media outlet not too divorced from The Epoch Times. Obviously, the Moonies and Falun Gong are different entities from different contexts (i.e. one is Korean the other is Chinese), but they're eerily parallel in terms of the ideological capture they've cultivated among audiences that enjoy alternative media.
