{"id":1789197,"date":"2020-08-31T12:59:55","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T16:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1789197"},"modified":"2020-08-31T12:59:55","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T16:59:55","slug":"blank-map-tiles-point-to-locations-of-xinjiang-detention-centres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2020\/08\/blank-map-tiles-point-to-locations-of-xinjiang-detention-centres\/","title":{"rendered":"Blank Map Tiles Point to Locations of Xinjiang Detention Centres"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of their investigation<\/a> into China\u2019s practice of detaining Uighur and other Muslim minorities<\/a> in Xinjiang, Buzzfeed News<\/em> journalists compared blanked-out areas in Baidu Maps<\/a> with uncensored imagery from Google Earth and satellite data providers, and, after sorting through some 50,000 possible locations using custom web tools, built a database of some \u201c428 locations in Xinjiang bearing the hallmarks of prisons and detention centers.\u201d This article<\/a> explains the methodology.<\/p>\n

Blurring or removing map data to prevent people from seeing something important or sensitive is a pretty loud signal that there\u2019s something important or sensitive to see there. Some five million Baidu Maps tiles were masked in Xinjiang alone\u2014there\u2019s a lot the Chinese government considers sensitive\u2014which made the unmasking considerably harder. But not impossible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As part of their investigation into China\u2019s practice of detaining Uighur and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, Buzzfeed News journalists compared blanked-out areas in Baidu Maps with uncensored imagery from Google Earth and satellite data… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[490],"tags":[1468,1469,182,638,177,1467],"class_list":["post-1789197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-censorship","tag-baidu-maps","tag-buzzfeed","tag-china","tag-prisons","tag-satellite-imagery","tag-xinjiang","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1832201,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/06\/china-accused-of-erasing-uyghur-names-from-villages-in-xinjiang\/","url_meta":{"origin":1789197,"position":0},"title":"China Accused of Erasing Uyghur Names from Villages in Xinjiang","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"19 June 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"Human Rights Watch accuses Chinese authorities of systematically renaming Uyghur villages in Xinjiang in a way that erases references to Uyghur religion, history or culture. According to their research, about 3,600 of 25,000 villages in Xinjiang were renamed between 2009 and 2023. \u201cAbout four-fifths of these changes appear\u00a0mundane, such as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toponyms"","block_context":{"text":"Toponyms","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/toponyms\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1834237,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/09\/chinas-gps-shift-and-online-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1789197,"position":1},"title":"China\u2019s GPS Shift and Online Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"24 September 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"If the road grid in online maps of China doesn\u2019t line up with the aerial\/satellite imagery layer, Anastasia Bizyayeva explains in a Medium post earlier this year, it\u2019s because China\u2019s map data uses a different geodetic datum, GCJ-02, rather than WGS-84. \u201cGCJ-02 is based on WGS-84, but with a\u00a0deliberate obfuscation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Censorship"","block_context":{"text":"Censorship","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/censorship\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1827680,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/02\/deep-learning-applied-to-satellite-imagery-reveals-untracked-ships\/","url_meta":{"origin":1789197,"position":2},"title":"Deep Learning Applied to Satellite Imagery Reveals Untracked Ships","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"15 February 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"Speaking of AI-assisted global monitoring: researchers affiliated with Global Fishing Watch have revealed that the global fishing, transport and energy fleets are a lot bigger than expected. They were able to compare the locations of ships carrying AIS transponders with satellite imagery, to which deep learning was applied to classify\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Oceans"","block_context":{"text":"Oceans","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/oceans\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Maps showing registered and unregistered fishing vessels near Spain, Morocco, Sicily and Tunisia.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/nature-global-fishing-watch-figure-excerpt-1024x471.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/nature-global-fishing-watch-figure-excerpt-1024x471.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/nature-global-fishing-watch-figure-excerpt-1024x471.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/nature-global-fishing-watch-figure-excerpt-1024x471.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":479,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/01\/online-map-updates\/","url_meta":{"origin":1789197,"position":3},"title":"Online Map Updates","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"22 January 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Yesterday's\u00a0updates to Apple Maps include four new Flyover cities, traffic data for Hong Kong and Mexico, public transit data for Los Angeles, and Nearby search for the Netherlands. Google Earth Blog reports on the mid-January imagery update for Google Earth. Google Earth Blog also reports that\u00a0version 1.0 of ArcGIS Earth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "GIS"","block_context":{"text":"GIS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gis\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5222,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/10\/mapping-the-northern-california-wildfires\/","url_meta":{"origin":1789197,"position":4},"title":"Mapping the Northern California Wildfires","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"17 October 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"Maps and satellite imagery of the wildfires in Northern California include the San Francisco Chronicle\u2019s interactive map; Robin Kraft's interactive map \u00a0showing satellite imagery from before and after the fire; this New York Times page mapping building damage in Santa Rosa; the\u00a0Washington Post\u2019s coverage of the devastation; and NASA Earth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disasters"","block_context":{"text":"Disasters","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/disasters\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"NASA Earth Observatory","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/nasa-norcal-wildfires-1024x546.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/nasa-norcal-wildfires-1024x546.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/nasa-norcal-wildfires-1024x546.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/nasa-norcal-wildfires-1024x546.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1806114,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2022\/02\/a-crowdsourced-map-of-the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine\/","url_meta":{"origin":1789197,"position":5},"title":"A Crowdsourced Map of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"24 February 2022","format":"link","excerpt":"The Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map \u201cis a crowdsourced effort to map, document and verify information in order to provide reliable information for policymakers and journalists of the on-the-ground and online situation in and around Ukraine. [...] The pins on this map represents open source material such as videos, photos and imagery\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conflicts"","block_context":{"text":"Conflicts","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/conflicts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1789197"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1789201,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789197\/revisions\/1789201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1789197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1789197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1789197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}