About 48 hours prior to the candidate chat on 28 July 2023, on 26 July 2023 there was an anonymous leak about a "malevolent question" targeted to Zixin.

Note: While most of the questions asked during the candidate Q&A are by anyone active in the chat, questions for specific candidates that they received during the general Q&A period (18 June - 25 June) get asked first, as they are unable to answer them in their official Q&A responses.

So, are we going to talk about the malevolent questions directed at Zixin obviously to throw her under the bus and her great response to the questions? She definitely has my vote, now.

...

I'm not sure if I should (or should be the one to) share those responses. They will become public soon I think. Or if someone wants to share them.

I think it would be better to wait, tbh. Either the question and Zixin's answer will be made public soon, or they'll decide to withdraw the other questions in the face of volunteer pushback like they did for the worst one (in which case there's no need to drag Zixin into public drama if she doesn't want to do it herself).

(current vol) it was bad. REALLY fucking bad. And downright xenophobic in tone. And from Zixin's statement, half of the question was already redacted for controversy. It was THAT bad. Straight up targeted, by someone with a personal grudge, attempting to incite people against Zixin. You'll see during the chats.

Zixin has said she would not be too upset if some of what she said today is shared externally. I'm just going to share this part, because I agree with the nonny above that the inappropriate questions should only be made public if/when Elections officially asks them. I hope other nonnies also agree that anything else shouldn't be published at this time.

Other volunteers have pointed out the problem inherent in Alex Tischer’s message better than I could, so I am forgoing that effort. I also want to echo that the treatment towards volunteers of colour is not an exceptional case by a certain individual.

Having sought permission from Elections Committee Chairs, I want to share a question submitted during the Q&A collection period that was addressed to me specifically, which will be asked in the beginning of the first live chat session this year. It was shared with me in advance because the content is so controversial that it was considered appropriate that I be able to prepare in advance, and I think it’s obvious why. I don’t know who submitted the questions (the original question is longer than 50 words so it had to have been submitted as more than one question), and I don’t want to speculate, because focusing on one single person or a group of people does not solve the systemic problems we have been facing. My apologies if my answer seems redundant to OTW volunteers, as I wrote this response intending for it to be posted in the public Elections discord chat, but I really don’t have the spoons to rewrite a new version for volunteer distribution tonight. I guess it’s not totally irrelevant to this channel, since the question may have been raised by a previous/current Board member. To the question asker(s): I hope I can address your concerns.

And for clarity, as to not attribute potentially false accusations:

From what I have heard from Chinese volunteers, Alex is not the only Board member that had been racist/condescending to Zixin in the past.

On 28 July, during the candidate chat, the question was evident, asked, and addressed early on:

For Zixin, in the past you’ve quit work channels mid-discussion because you disagreed with people. You have shared screenshots of Weibo user conversations in the Chinese chat for advice. Do you believe you would engage in this type of behavior again in the future?

Thank you for your question! I think there may be some misunderstandings regarding the events you described in your question, and I hope my explanation can alleviate your concerns:

You’ve quit work channels mid-discussion because you disagreed with people.

I don’t remember quitting more than one work channel mid-discussion, and the only occasion I recall took place in a locked channel consisting of only Board Directors, Committee Chairs, Weibo moderators, and a few other relevant volunteers, so I assumed that any proceedings in that channel would be confidential and therefore not shared with other volunteers or the general public according to the Code of Conduct. But since the question is likely raised by a Board Director/Committee Chair who does not feel asking this in public violates OTW’s confidentiality policy, I can try to briefly explain it from my perspective without getting into details of the event. My apologies in advance if my answer causes any volunteers to feel uncomfortable about internal information being shared with the public! This is most certainly not my intention.

At the time of the incident in question, the other Weibo moderator and I had been working under great pressure for almost a week, while facing discriminatory comments in the channel. When yet another request of mine was turned down, I felt that the prejudice and hostility in that channel made it impossible for me to keep working with dignity, so I apologised to the person who turned down my request and left the channel. To be honest, remembering that hostility and discrimination still upsets me even now as I compose this answer and share it here. In the years since the incident, I have had to force myself to gather the courage to open that channel every time I need to discuss relevant OTW business with org leadership. My experience during that week is also the very incentive that prompted me to run for Board election: if the Board fails to respect minority volunteers and protect them against internal racist attacks, then I will stand up as a Board member when this happens again. I don’t want any other volunteer to feel the pain and humiliation that I went through.

A few days after the incident, another chair very kindly added me back to the work channel, and upon returning I also communicated with the first volunteer in private and expressed my regrets to them again personally. I am very sorry if it’s still negatively affecting you or anyone else emotionally. Please feel free to reach me via DM at any time.

You have shared screenshots of Weibo user conversations in the Chinese chat for advice.

Before I clarify my past behaviour, to provide context for non-OTW volunteers, there are various social channels for volunteers to interact outside work channels on our communication software. One of these channels is created by Chinese-speaking volunteers to chat in our mother language, hence it’s being referred to in the question as the Chinese chat. I have double checked with Elections Committee volunteers to ensure that this piece of information can be shared with the public.

Yes, I have shared screenshots I took of the Weibo app with the Chinese chat channel in the past, but from what I recall, the screenshots I shared with the Chinese chat relevant to the OTW Weibo account were comments and reposts under OTW News updates that we posted to the account. While there are no individual links to Weibo comments or reposts (which is why I usually share them by screenshots since it’s more convenient than pointing to a post and describing the comment), these comments can be viewed by anyone visiting the link to the post, with or without a Weibo account. I still don’t think sharing those public comments infringed on the privacy of the Weibo users who made those comments, if that is what your concern is about. I don’t know (and don’t want to assume) if you are the same person who brought this matter to the former Communications Committee Chairs a few years ago, but our ex-Chairs did seriously talk to my co-mod and me about the importance of not sharing private information about users in social channels after it was brought up to them by another volunteer. I have since deleted all files that contained public comments or reposts related to the OTW Weibo account in the Chinese chat, and I have not shared similar screenshots of comments since then. If you still have any concerns about the way I discuss my work in Communications or other committees with other volunteers in Chinese chat or other channels, you are more than welcome to contact me or my Committee Chair(s) at any time!

Having explained the incidents in the question, I’m coming back to the initial question: whether I believe I would engage in this type of behaviour in the future. If I were given the chance to time travel back to the conversation again, I think I would temporarily mute the channel or the chat software in order to disengage and cool down, rather than leaving a locked channel that I could not re-enter on my own. I would also be more cautious about sharing information about users with other volunteers, even if that information is publicly available. I’m sorry for the long response, but I hope this answers your question.

azarias (link) and comments on FFA noted the hypocrisy of Zixin receiving this question, citing a private incident for a public chat, while dhobikikutti had received a CCAP for something considerably less private for sharing the contents of an all-hands email.

This question is included in the Q&A transcript.

The redacted question

Zixin has changed her mind and decided to publicize the redacted part of the question and her response to it, in the internal OTW chat, and has given permission for it to be shared. dhobikikutti has shared it on her entry here. (Italics are dhobikikutti; bold is the redacted anonymous question; unformatted are Zixin's words).

Zixin shared her answers to the questions, including the redacted one, to the Board channel, in an attempt to point to the magnitude of harassment she was facing from Board and Chairs, including Alex Tischer. (I can only speculate as to who I think sent her those questions, but my suspicions fall on a Chair, rather than a Board member.)

Today she edited her post to say:

"I have changed my mind and will be comfortable should my words here be publicly shared outside the org, if that is what it takes for others to better understand the situation mainland Chinese volunteers (and any Chinese person) face."

I am posting the racist, malicious question below, and letting Zixin's complete answer stand on its own, as proof of the stakes that we are talking about when we support Chinese speaking volunteers.

And, you asked fellow volunteers about their feelings on using the OTW account to join a digital protest in China, without getting input from your chairs.

Elections Committee decided to remove this sentence from the question when they ask it in the public chat, for which I am very grateful. To clarify, I personally have no memory of using the OTW account to join any forms of protest in China or having the intention to do so. I have asked a few other Chinese-speaking volunteers who have been volunteering here since 2020 (when I started modding Weibo) in private after I received this question whether they remember me bringing up any conversation like this in the past, and they don’t remember anything remotely similar to this either.

I am grateful that Elections decided not to bring this sentence to the public, because I don’t want there to be open discussions about me organising or joining a protest in China, an accusation that has actually resulted in imprisonment for other people (and in worse cases, led to people being directly disappeared without going through any formal legal procedure, which has happened to more than one of my friends). One reason I ran for Board is because I believe that volunteers here who have interacted with me would not intentionally put me in a politically dangerous position, not because I am naive enough to believe the Chinese government cannot spot me when they notice my activities in the OTW (which a politically contentious discussion may lead to). It only takes one Chinese person (maybe a couple to speed up the process) working in bad faith to notice the wank in English media, trace down my personal Weibo account (where I have been outed in my volunteer identity), and click on a few links for me to potentially get invited for a talk in my local police station.

I want to take this opportunity to say that for me, I not only feel the discrimination for my skin colour, nationality, and ethnicity, but also for the political environment I am in. Alex, if you still don’t understand why asking Chinese volunteers to leave the org when we feel unsafe is dismissive, let me explain it here. I’m sorry I thought it was self-explanatory before. This feeling of lack of safety – that we might get persecuted for groundless rumours, for a false accusation towards the org, for using a VPN to access AO3 and Google – didn’t suddenly grow out of nowhere after AO3 was banned in China, or after we added a controversial language tag. It infiltrates our life, every second we breathe, study in school, interact with friends, go to work, comment on social media, etc.

I guess it’s hard to understand for people who have never lived under an authoritarian government before, but if you let this feeling control you and prevent you from participating in any activities that make you feel anxious, you don’t get to do ANYTHING in your life. You don’t get to write fanfiction (fic writers have been sentenced to 10 years in jail), you don’t get to post on social media (my mom is a civil servant and her workplace forbids her from having a Weibo account), you don’t get to discuss matters with your friends privately (WeChat has a vibrant censorship system that automatically blocks sensitive words and sends reports to public security), you don’t get to tell jokes in public (standup comedians and their companies have been banned because someone interpreted their jokes as mocking the authorities), you don’t get to use a VPN (people have been detained for using VPN services), you don’t get to volunteer for this organisation (foreign NGOs cannot operate in China without permissions from the Public Security Bureau, and it’s up to them to interpret what their definition of “in China” is). It is literally impossible to live a life without fear under this regime.

What you have suggested in the past, and have repeated again today – that we should leave the org if we felt unsafe or unwell because of volunteering – is dismissive of the fact that we cannot avoid it, and you are framing it as if leaving the org would solve the problem: It would not. If you were ever not clear about this before, allow me to make it clear to you now: it’s not that difficult for the National Security Bureau to trace down the identities of volunteers accessing org tools in the mainland, even if they have already left the org. We have made the choice of taking the risk of volunteering for the OTW when we joined, and I hoped org leadership could respect our decision and not dramatically increase the risk for the past, current, and future volunteers living in the mainland without consulting us.

Note: As of 29 July 2023 9:29AM UTC, I have elected to attempt to block outside search engines from indexing my journal.