The Pattern...

Recently there are a lot of unrest around the world, from Iran, Honduras and now Xinjiang. All these recent events in Tibet, Iran and Xinjiang showed a general pattern however:

1. Protest occurs.
2. Paramilitary police went in and starts the killing.
3. Foreign media access, Internet access and other access including cell phones are cut. The area is locked down.
4. Official media becomes the primary source of the news, and starts releasing footage and photos etc.
5. There are accounts of police going around arresting people from their house etc. However, as the media is not there it's not clear how many got arrested etc.

I think, if one takes a look at what people say on the Internet forum discussion etc, one can realize this is actually a clever strategy of the despots. They have taken great advantages of the modern technology:

1. By blocking out information sources, most people, including the main stream media and the government officials, do not know what exactly is going on. They can only get a fuzzy pictures from the occasional leak of information from YouTube and twitter. It is like looking at the computer screen one pixel at a time: you only see the trees, but not the forest.
2. By blocking out foreign media, the official despot media is the only one that can pump out information in great quantity. Using the good old communist propaganda trick, mixing 80% truth with 20% lies, and by not showing everything, the despots have the power of interpretation. As the propaganda contains 80% truth, and there are no other major source of information, it is hard to tell what are facts and what are bullshits. They can damp down the opinions against them and create general confusion regarding the events. Thus, cooling off the sympathy towards the protesters and oppositions etc.
3. Internet becomes another battle field in which the despots supporters have the advantages. Because the lack of true information, sympathy expressed toward the victims are not as strong as it could be, while the despots supporters can use the partially information to further support the despots action and further harming the victims.

Thus, the victim becomes less of a victim, the murders become less of a murder, and the world becomes even greyer.

UPDATE: LINK

Looks like things are getting worse. In some ways similar to Iran, now there are another pro-government mob going around beating people up. But this one is worse because it's ethnically based. I wonder if those Han Chinese realized they are just pawns of the Chinese government, or perhaps they are willing to be the pawns. Look carefully at this, Taiwanese. This is what could happen. First, conquer and suppression. Second, force immigration. Third, ethnic culture destruction. If the situation reaches this point it's already too late.