In June, Taiwanese YouTuber “Potter King” (陳加晉, Chen Chia-chin) revealed in a video posted to his channel that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP, 中國共產黨) was sponsoring a group of Taiwanese influencers. to travel in China and make videos praising the Chinese government. Following this announcement, it was revealed that several Taiwanese YouTubers had traveled to Xinjiang in August, including one popular vlogger called “Ariel” with an audience of 1.1 million subscribers. Ariel once expressed her support of Hong Kong in a video during the 2019 Anti-Extradition Protests, but the footage was removed from her YouTube channel without any explanation. Although Ariel denied the trip was funded by any Chinese organization and that she didn’t make any money off of the content she posted about her trip to Xinjiang, her decision still garnered serious criticism fromTaiwanese netizens.
