Apparently this Li Zheng guy responsible for the network of "schools" has already been arrested, as have several of his associates.
I remember when various daytime talk shows back in the day would do these "bad kids" segments, bring on various "troubled teens" who would tell their story, mouth off at the crowd a bit, and then get screamed at by so-called "bootcamp instructors" who were allegedly going to fix their behavioural issues - these guys all had companies and brands and ran various "rehabilitation centers" for juvenile delinquents, and the whole thing was very popular for a while in the states/canada during the 90's (and in fact, still exists today)...and every one of them eventually got outed years later for systematic abuse, to no-one's surprise - basically inevitable when you turn a bunch of violent/maladjusted teens over to former military/fake military drill-instructor-types and let them come up with their own curriculum of discipline that is supposed to magically sort these shitty kids out and turn them into model citizens. It's a pipe dream that already doesn't make any sense on its face, and most of them were just sadists in it for the profit; As any common schoolyard bully can tell you, beating up kids for money is easy work.
This isn’t a Chinese phenomenon, and anyone who thinks it is is just a fool. I watched a documentary on literally the same thing in the U.S. recently. The teens were now in their twenties talking about it, which is a similar timeline for this Chinese camp.
Yeah it’s pretty rampant. Even Paris Hilton got sent to one, and even thought it was for rich girls it was brutal. That shit breaks children. I briefly dated a woman who went to the same one Paris went to, and guess what she did for a living? She stripped and was pretty fucking insane, nice girl though I don’t mean to talk shit more of a factual statement
basically inevitable when you turn a bunch of violent/maladjusted teens over to former military/fake military drill-instructor-types and let them come up with their own curriculum of discipline that is supposed to magically sort these shitty kids out and turn them into model citizens
I personally have no horse in this race, but it's such a common trope I'm not sure how you can dismiss it without citing some evidence.
While I definitely know that "curing the gay" is a pipe dream, fixing defects of character is not.
When I was a kid, there was an infamous psychiatrist known for illegally 'treating' teenagers addicted to video games — especially World of Warcraft — with electric shocks. It even became a running joke that if you played too much, you'd get sent to be shocked.
Among them were adults. One of the "girls" featured in his publication was a female college student studying psychology. She was sent there by her parents primarily because they disapproved of her boyfriend.
More than a decade has passed, and apart from investigative journalists occasionally bringing these issues back into the public eye, the situation has not improved at all. Yang was never criminally charged. In fact, he has only recently retired (around 2024), effectively escaping justice. Later, newer camps used more physical punishment (such as confinement in "black rooms" and beatings) to "correct" teenagers.
This happened this year. One victim is already 28 years old, yet his parents still sent him to camp. This was simply because he had resigned from a state-owned enterprise and was working for a private company, which his parents disapproved of.
This stems from a prevalent societal belief that denies the existence of mental illness, that all mental illnesses are simply a matter of poor character, and that militarized collective management can solve all personal problems.
Growing up, I heard many relatives talk about how someone's son was "not like a normal person" and therefore should be sent to the army for training.
For many of the previous generation, they believed that conformity equals sanity, and individuality is a defect. In school, "you have too much individuality" is literally a criticism from a teacher.
It also stems from the fact that parents have authority over their children, and disobedience is a situation that needs to be corrected by beatings, while the law and others hardly intervene.
Then, organizations like this emerged that take money to help parents beat their children, promising to train a child who meets their expectations. This is just outsourcing violence.
I think the darkest part of China's troubled teen industry is that when investigative journalists try to report on those, the parents involved are actually the ones who fight back the hardest.
Yang Yongxin established a parent committee. He had parents stay at the hospital, gave them lectures, and encouraged them to supervise each other. These parents would even participate in managing and apprehending their children.
Therefore, in the documentary, you will see scenes like this: dozens of parents shouting, cursing, and even attempting to physically assault the journalists, protecting Yang as if he were the leader of a cult, screaming, 'He saved my life! He saved my child's life!'.
————————
I have a college roommate whose parents are self-made small business owners; the family is actually quite well-off. And the job market, especially in our industry, has been terrible lately. She was on the verge of a mental breakdown due to work stress and even attempted suicide.
Getting off 9 PM is early for this job — she sometimes pulls all-nighters and keeps a sleeping bag by her desk just to catch a nap during breaks. Yet, if you break it down, her hourly wage is basically the same as working at McDonald's — she obtained her bachelor's from one of the best uni in this field in China, and then master's from the University of Sheffield.
Her parents bought her an apartment near her office and are essentially subsidizing her salary just to force her to keep the job. They admitted the only reason is that they can't handle the gossip from people around them if she were unemployed. She told me she wished she hadn't gone to college after high school, and that just staying home would have been much better than her current life.
Her cousin used to work in R&D, but a few days after he quit, his mom was hospitalized from anxiety. He had no choice but to take a factory job, and now he works 12-hour shifts.
The child is an Avatar in an RPG to these parents. If the Avatar tries to log off, the player gets sick because their game is being ruined.
Not surprised lol, corporal punishment may technically be banned on some bill somewhere but in practice it is incredibly wide spread and very socially acceptable for older and more conservative Chinese and it’s not even a government or politics thing tbh, they think it’s an effective way to correct kids behaviors and get them to act like those hard-working kid prodigies you see online before they become old enough to desire success themselves.
This just seems like another case of “problems caused by a whole society doing one thing to excess”, much like the degree inflation and burnout problems one problem is that at some point you get old and they get too damn tough and beating is not effective anymore or they get old enough to have the autonomy to just leave instead of standing there and taking it or complying with your punishment. Couple that with a very conservative older generation who lived through a supermassive boom period and a youth who is more liberal and unable to repeat the economic miracles of their forefathers which causes the parents an ungodly amount of frustration and disappointment and you can see how they end up trying to reach for something that lets them reuse old tricks.
Just as heinous but one can at least take a grim solace in the fact that the parents will be worse off for their choice as they obliterate their relationship with their kids and getting a traumatized, damaged individual back will show them exactly how pedestrian their original concerns were and haunt them even if the bastards are too proud to ever show it.
I always hated how casual they were with it though, I remember being told about how an elementary to middle school classmate was ‘disciplined’ by her mother, she’d beat her with a belt and force her to kneel on uncooked rice or stand on a stool outside their locked apartment door in the dark where it could be very very cold.
You might ask what she did to deserve it considering she was learning the basics of calculus in middle school and played two instruments and was amazing at memorizing poems and went to many hours of study classes every week?
The answer was she wasn’t that great at English, and why would she be. The English teacher was a cunt who favored exactly 1 girl in class and graded everyone else harder than the high school 4th year AP english lit exam and she didn’t even have a foreign parent or YouTube to passively learn English. Boils my blood to think about even now
Unless there is visible, life-threatening blood being spilled in that moment, police and others generally view this as a domestic matter. Kidnapping for human trafficking can even happen like this: the kidnappers tell onlookers, "She's our daughter, and we're taking her home to discipline her"; the victim then needs to scream, "I don't know them, they're not my parents."
On the other hand, these camps operate in a legal gray area. Some of these facilities are registered as hospitals, and Chinese law regarding mental illness states that if a person is deemed a "danger to themselves or others," they can be forcibly committed. Corrupt doctors and parents can manipulate this explanation.
Some are registered as schools and claim to be for educational purposes. Because they are "schools" and not "prisons," they fall under education regulations, not criminal law. If a student is beaten, the school claims it is "corporal punishment" (which is technically illegal but rarely prosecuted as assault) or "military discipline."
Some victims were arrested by the police while trying to escape and then sent back to the camp. Because of "domestic matter" and the local government profiting from the taxes levied on these institutions, they lacked the motivation to crack down on them effectively.
Doesn't the US have literal agencies who will kidnap your children in the middle of the night and send them to a re-education ranch or some shit if they're problematic?
...i'm not sure I understand this comment, in context as a response to the other guy - are you suggesting that gay conversion therapy of various flavours ISN'T pseudoscience? because it most certainly is.
Or, are you suggesting that gay kids in america HAVEN'T been thrown into "troubled teen" bootcamps just for being gay? Because I assure you, it was a favourite approach of southern baptist and evangelical parents in the southern states for decades, and given how long it's been going on in the US, it's fair to say that a far greater number of gay kids to date have likely been abused in such centers in north america than in china.
The centres are part of a booming industry promising anxious parents that military-style discipline will resolve concerns over young people's disobedience, internet addiction, teenage dating and depression, as well as gender and sexual identity. Some parents even send over-18s, who are legally adults.*
That's talking about these centers in China. Not the US.
The US ones operate by staying just within the law. Kids in the US have few legal rights until they're 18 and these places take full advantage of that. But if you're still at one of these places when you turn 18 then you can just sign yourself out (according to someone I knew who was sent to one of these places).
Can't speak for how the situation in China is different, it sounds like these places are operating in much more of a grey area/"it's illegal but there's a lack of enforcement" situation over there so they might be more inclined to accept legal adults.
Yep, basically the most extreme form of scared straight programs to a point of absurdity. Like https://elan.school/ was an interesting read on how fucked such a longstanding place can be and the AMA's on that place are equally depressing
There's a great web comic written by a guy who claims to be a survivor of one of the more notorious wilderness schools. It's a pretty horrific story https://elan.school/
The centres are part of a booming industry promising anxious parents that military-style discipline will resolve concerns over young people's disobedience, internet addiction, teenage dating and depression, as well as gender and sexual identity. Some parents even send over-18s, who are legally adults.
There are literally dozens of articles from the BBC about these places in America, that are being scrutinized and closed down, unlike China where it’s a growing industry.
The article you share here on the US is an interesting contrast to the one written about China.
When the BBC writes about the issue in the US, the focus is on personal trauma and civil actions. If the federal government is mentioned it is to highlight a gap, perhaps unnoticed, that the state should move into.
When the BBC writes about the same issue in China it is heavily implied that there is state awareness and tolerance, and incompetence when the issue is tackled. The headline refers to "China's schools", which is the most egregious difference, giving state ownership to the issue. Scrollers will absorb this loaded phrasing in the most obvious way. The article itself is somewhat more balanced than the headline suggests, but the article on America does not try to suggest that there is sociocultural pressure for such schooling, as the Chinese article does.
Overall the article on America is personal, experiential. The article on China feels more institutional and systemic. Taken as part of the BBC's overall reporting, this feeds into a propagandistic trend of portraying China as a sinister place. America is just a place where things go wrong sometimes.
The man responsible for this network of schools and several of his associates had already been arrested before this article even went to print, and his schools are now being scrutinized and closed down; Any other claims by the BBC about this issue or anything else related to china (among other things) should, as with all mainstream and legacy media, be taken with multiple large bags of rocksalt.
...that is a documentary about a jamaican discipline bootcamp aimed at american teens, not china? Yes, as I already said, this has been going on in america for many decades, at least since the 90's, arguably earlier.
This is a dying industry in America. In China it is not.
Do you have any sources for either of these claims other than western legacy media articles, especially the BBC, which has been caught printing lies and propaganda innumerable times?
In china, it appears that this industry is being recognized and prosecuted, as evidenced by the fact that the guy organizing and running the very ring of schools this BBC article is about has already been arrested, and his schools are being shut down. It also appears to be fairly new, whereas in america, "dying" or not, it has been going on for quite some time. The only claim I've seen that this is a "booming" industry is from this BBC article.
This isn't "whataboutism", these are facts. Your insistence on taking unverified western media claims as unvarnished truth only makes you look credulous and naive.
Yeah I do actually, they’re literally advertised on Chinese social media
Ads for "discipline schools" in China frequently appear on major social media platforms like Douyin (China's version of TikTok), targeting parents concerned about "rebellious" behavior, internet addiction, or academic failure. These schools, often referred to as "rehabilitation" or "special education" centers, use aggressive marketing tactics to promise rapid behavioral changes.
There’s a shitton of articles about “Chinese disciplinary schools (here’s one from the South China post).
Ads for "discipline schools" in China frequently appear on major social media platforms like Douyin (China's version of TikTok), targeting parents concerned about "rebellious" behavior, internet addiction, or academic failure. These schools, often referred to as "rehabilitation" or "special education" centers, use aggressive marketing tactics to promise rapid behavioral changes.
What is the source of this quote? It reads like you copy-pasted an AI blurb from the top of a search results page.
That there are ads on chinese social media for these schools is concerning, but the presence of ads themselves don't indicate anything concrete about whether or not this industry is growing substantially or in any way. American discipline bootcamps advertise as well, in particular on facebook among other social media - does this mean they are growing as well? You claimed they were dying, but you've provided no evidence of this. Even the BBC admits that the chinese network/business they are reporting on is "teetering on the brink of collapse", as quoted from one of the people involved that they interviewed while undercover:
He appeared to distance himself from the network, however, telling the undercover researchers: "There were some incidents. The parents lodged a complaint. The group... though not formally dissolved yet, it's teetering on the brink of collapse. That's why I stepped out."
....
There’s a shitton of articles about “Chinese disciplinary schools (here’s one from the South China post).
...Did you post the wrong link or something? That article links to a story about a teacher at a regular middle school in china who made students who violated the "no mobile rule" dump their phones in water - the teacher was disciplined by local authorities and told to stop damaging people's property...and that was the end of it? What does this have to do with the subject of troubled teen bootcamps? Surely you're not suggesting that a teacher who got in trouble for dumping kids phones in a bucket of water is somehow equivalent (or even comparable) to kids getting physically or even sexually abused by grifter thugs in fake schools?
It seems like you're just reaching now, and are unable to actually provide a source on either of your claims.
Dr Rao says that with no centralised regulation over the disciplinary schools, the responsibility tends to fall to local government.
He describes it as a "shadowy industry that the state just tolerates", adding that the state may not wish to give it legitimacy by providing regulation or guidelines.
...
Dr Yichen Rao, an anthropologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
Lmfao talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Well except that China seems to have come down hard on the school owners, where the US politicians just take a little bribe donation and suddenly start defending the torture camps “programs”.
Hell the current admin is even taking a stand in defense of conversion therapy camps and shit.
That's absolutely horrifying but not surprising given how authoritarian regimes handle anything they deem "problematic behavior" - these places sound like straight up torture facilities masquerading as schools
Saying a made up noun does not negate hypocrisy when pointed out. Since you are now informed about your fallacy, maybe you want to explain: What about the troubled teen industry in the US?
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Apparently this Li Zheng guy responsible for the network of "schools" has already been arrested, as have several of his associates.
I remember when various daytime talk shows back in the day would do these "bad kids" segments, bring on various "troubled teens" who would tell their story, mouth off at the crowd a bit, and then get screamed at by so-called "bootcamp instructors" who were allegedly going to fix their behavioural issues - these guys all had companies and brands and ran various "rehabilitation centers" for juvenile delinquents, and the whole thing was very popular for a while in the states/canada during the 90's (and in fact, still exists today)...and every one of them eventually got outed years later for systematic abuse, to no-one's surprise - basically inevitable when you turn a bunch of violent/maladjusted teens over to former military/fake military drill-instructor-types and let them come up with their own curriculum of discipline that is supposed to magically sort these shitty kids out and turn them into model citizens. It's a pipe dream that already doesn't make any sense on its face, and most of them were just sadists in it for the profit; As any common schoolyard bully can tell you, beating up kids for money is easy work.
This isn’t a Chinese phenomenon, and anyone who thinks it is is just a fool. I watched a documentary on literally the same thing in the U.S. recently. The teens were now in their twenties talking about it, which is a similar timeline for this Chinese camp.
Yeah it’s pretty rampant. Even Paris Hilton got sent to one, and even thought it was for rich girls it was brutal. That shit breaks children. I briefly dated a woman who went to the same one Paris went to, and guess what she did for a living? She stripped and was pretty fucking insane, nice girl though I don’t mean to talk shit more of a factual statement
Were these the ones that got caught using sensory deprivation rooms as punishments?
I personally have no horse in this race, but it's such a common trope I'm not sure how you can dismiss it without citing some evidence.
While I definitely know that "curing the gay" is a pipe dream, fixing defects of character is not.
When I was a kid, there was an infamous psychiatrist known for illegally 'treating' teenagers addicted to video games — especially World of Warcraft — with electric shocks. It even became a running joke that if you played too much, you'd get sent to be shocked.
Among them were adults. One of the "girls" featured in his publication was a female college student studying psychology. She was sent there by her parents primarily because they disapproved of her boyfriend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Yongxin
https://zqb.cyol.com/content/2009-05/07/content_2655346.htm
More than a decade has passed, and apart from investigative journalists occasionally bringing these issues back into the public eye, the situation has not improved at all. Yang was never criminally charged. In fact, he has only recently retired (around 2024), effectively escaping justice. Later, newer camps used more physical punishment (such as confinement in "black rooms" and beatings) to "correct" teenagers.
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1WuCyBTETX/
This happened this year. One victim is already 28 years old, yet his parents still sent him to camp. This was simply because he had resigned from a state-owned enterprise and was working for a private company, which his parents disapproved of.
This stems from a prevalent societal belief that denies the existence of mental illness, that all mental illnesses are simply a matter of poor character, and that militarized collective management can solve all personal problems.
Growing up, I heard many relatives talk about how someone's son was "not like a normal person" and therefore should be sent to the army for training.
For many of the previous generation, they believed that conformity equals sanity, and individuality is a defect. In school, "you have too much individuality" is literally a criticism from a teacher.
It also stems from the fact that parents have authority over their children, and disobedience is a situation that needs to be corrected by beatings, while the law and others hardly intervene.
Then, organizations like this emerged that take money to help parents beat their children, promising to train a child who meets their expectations. This is just outsourcing violence.
continue this:
I think the darkest part of China's troubled teen industry is that when investigative journalists try to report on those, the parents involved are actually the ones who fight back the hardest.
Yang Yongxin established a parent committee. He had parents stay at the hospital, gave them lectures, and encouraged them to supervise each other. These parents would even participate in managing and apprehending their children.
Therefore, in the documentary, you will see scenes like this: dozens of parents shouting, cursing, and even attempting to physically assault the journalists, protecting Yang as if he were the leader of a cult, screaming, 'He saved my life! He saved my child's life!'.
————————
I have a college roommate whose parents are self-made small business owners; the family is actually quite well-off. And the job market, especially in our industry, has been terrible lately. She was on the verge of a mental breakdown due to work stress and even attempted suicide.
Getting off 9 PM is early for this job — she sometimes pulls all-nighters and keeps a sleeping bag by her desk just to catch a nap during breaks. Yet, if you break it down, her hourly wage is basically the same as working at McDonald's — she obtained her bachelor's from one of the best uni in this field in China, and then master's from the University of Sheffield.
Her parents bought her an apartment near her office and are essentially subsidizing her salary just to force her to keep the job. They admitted the only reason is that they can't handle the gossip from people around them if she were unemployed. She told me she wished she hadn't gone to college after high school, and that just staying home would have been much better than her current life.
Her cousin used to work in R&D, but a few days after he quit, his mom was hospitalized from anxiety. He had no choice but to take a factory job, and now he works 12-hour shifts.
The child is an Avatar in an RPG to these parents. If the Avatar tries to log off, the player gets sick because their game is being ruined.
Up to the line about state-owned enterprises I did not realize you did not talk about the US.
Absolute banger of a wiki article.
Not surprised lol, corporal punishment may technically be banned on some bill somewhere but in practice it is incredibly wide spread and very socially acceptable for older and more conservative Chinese and it’s not even a government or politics thing tbh, they think it’s an effective way to correct kids behaviors and get them to act like those hard-working kid prodigies you see online before they become old enough to desire success themselves.
This just seems like another case of “problems caused by a whole society doing one thing to excess”, much like the degree inflation and burnout problems one problem is that at some point you get old and they get too damn tough and beating is not effective anymore or they get old enough to have the autonomy to just leave instead of standing there and taking it or complying with your punishment. Couple that with a very conservative older generation who lived through a supermassive boom period and a youth who is more liberal and unable to repeat the economic miracles of their forefathers which causes the parents an ungodly amount of frustration and disappointment and you can see how they end up trying to reach for something that lets them reuse old tricks.
Just as heinous but one can at least take a grim solace in the fact that the parents will be worse off for their choice as they obliterate their relationship with their kids and getting a traumatized, damaged individual back will show them exactly how pedestrian their original concerns were and haunt them even if the bastards are too proud to ever show it.
I always hated how casual they were with it though, I remember being told about how an elementary to middle school classmate was ‘disciplined’ by her mother, she’d beat her with a belt and force her to kneel on uncooked rice or stand on a stool outside their locked apartment door in the dark where it could be very very cold.
You might ask what she did to deserve it considering she was learning the basics of calculus in middle school and played two instruments and was amazing at memorizing poems and went to many hours of study classes every week?
The answer was she wasn’t that great at English, and why would she be. The English teacher was a cunt who favored exactly 1 girl in class and graded everyone else harder than the high school 4th year AP english lit exam and she didn’t even have a foreign parent or YouTube to passively learn English. Boils my blood to think about even now
How does someone even have a legal leg to stand on to send their adult offspring to a detention camp over something that is not a crime?
Unless there is visible, life-threatening blood being spilled in that moment, police and others generally view this as a domestic matter. Kidnapping for human trafficking can even happen like this: the kidnappers tell onlookers, "She's our daughter, and we're taking her home to discipline her"; the victim then needs to scream, "I don't know them, they're not my parents."
On the other hand, these camps operate in a legal gray area. Some of these facilities are registered as hospitals, and Chinese law regarding mental illness states that if a person is deemed a "danger to themselves or others," they can be forcibly committed. Corrupt doctors and parents can manipulate this explanation.
Some are registered as schools and claim to be for educational purposes. Because they are "schools" and not "prisons," they fall under education regulations, not criminal law. If a student is beaten, the school claims it is "corporal punishment" (which is technically illegal but rarely prosecuted as assault) or "military discipline."
Some victims were arrested by the police while trying to escape and then sent back to the camp. Because of "domestic matter" and the local government profiting from the taxes levied on these institutions, they lacked the motivation to crack down on them effectively.
Ay, I know this guy. He's the dude that Herman Carter/The Doctor from dead by daylight is based on.
https://deadbydaylight.com/static/bbd34baa0cf63a35a5ebed91e69c6d85/a4a52/dbd_chap4_sparkofmadness_keyart_febb658de7.jpg
Doesn't the US have literal agencies who will kidnap your children in the middle of the night and send them to a re-education ranch or some shit if they're problematic?
Yes. It's called the troubled teen industry.
An empire built on pseudoscience and abuse...
Pseudoscience like throwing people who are over 18 in these “centers” for being gay?
...i'm not sure I understand this comment, in context as a response to the other guy - are you suggesting that gay conversion therapy of various flavours ISN'T pseudoscience? because it most certainly is.
Or, are you suggesting that gay kids in america HAVEN'T been thrown into "troubled teen" bootcamps just for being gay? Because I assure you, it was a favourite approach of southern baptist and evangelical parents in the southern states for decades, and given how long it's been going on in the US, it's fair to say that a far greater number of gay kids to date have likely been abused in such centers in north america than in china.
Wtf are you talking about?
Maybe try reading the article?
I don't get it. Are you suggesting that throwing legal adults into boot camps for being gay is, in fact, supported by science?
That's talking about these centers in China. Not the US.
The US ones operate by staying just within the law. Kids in the US have few legal rights until they're 18 and these places take full advantage of that. But if you're still at one of these places when you turn 18 then you can just sign yourself out (according to someone I knew who was sent to one of these places).
Can't speak for how the situation in China is different, it sounds like these places are operating in much more of a grey area/"it's illegal but there's a lack of enforcement" situation over there so they might be more inclined to accept legal adults.
Yep, basically the most extreme form of scared straight programs to a point of absurdity. Like https://elan.school/ was an interesting read on how fucked such a longstanding place can be and the AMA's on that place are equally depressing
I was about to post that. A lot of details in that comic have been corroborated by other sources.
There's a great web comic written by a guy who claims to be a survivor of one of the more notorious wilderness schools. It's a pretty horrific story https://elan.school/
Yes yes, that totally makes this OK
The centres are part of a booming industry promising anxious parents that military-style discipline will resolve concerns over young people's disobedience, internet addiction, teenage dating and depression, as well as gender and sexual identity. Some parents even send over-18s, who are legally adults.
Both are horrible, I'm just pointing out which one the BBC chose to focus on for obvious reasons
There are literally dozens of articles from the BBC about these places in America, that are being scrutinized and closed down, unlike China where it’s a growing industry.
The article you share here on the US is an interesting contrast to the one written about China.
When the BBC writes about the issue in the US, the focus is on personal trauma and civil actions. If the federal government is mentioned it is to highlight a gap, perhaps unnoticed, that the state should move into.
When the BBC writes about the same issue in China it is heavily implied that there is state awareness and tolerance, and incompetence when the issue is tackled. The headline refers to "China's schools", which is the most egregious difference, giving state ownership to the issue. Scrollers will absorb this loaded phrasing in the most obvious way. The article itself is somewhat more balanced than the headline suggests, but the article on America does not try to suggest that there is sociocultural pressure for such schooling, as the Chinese article does.
Overall the article on America is personal, experiential. The article on China feels more institutional and systemic. Taken as part of the BBC's overall reporting, this feeds into a propagandistic trend of portraying China as a sinister place. America is just a place where things go wrong sometimes.
The man responsible for this network of schools and several of his associates had already been arrested before this article even went to print, and his schools are now being scrutinized and closed down; Any other claims by the BBC about this issue or anything else related to china (among other things) should, as with all mainstream and legacy media, be taken with multiple large bags of rocksalt.
A documentary from 2004
Your whataboutism is retarded. This is a dying industry in America. In China it is not.
...that is a documentary about a jamaican discipline bootcamp aimed at american teens, not china? Yes, as I already said, this has been going on in america for many decades, at least since the 90's, arguably earlier.
Do you have any sources for either of these claims other than western legacy media articles, especially the BBC, which has been caught printing lies and propaganda innumerable times?
In china, it appears that this industry is being recognized and prosecuted, as evidenced by the fact that the guy organizing and running the very ring of schools this BBC article is about has already been arrested, and his schools are being shut down. It also appears to be fairly new, whereas in america, "dying" or not, it has been going on for quite some time. The only claim I've seen that this is a "booming" industry is from this BBC article.
This isn't "whataboutism", these are facts. Your insistence on taking unverified western media claims as unvarnished truth only makes you look credulous and naive.
Yeah I do actually, they’re literally advertised on Chinese social media
Ads for "discipline schools" in China frequently appear on major social media platforms like Douyin (China's version of TikTok), targeting parents concerned about "rebellious" behavior, internet addiction, or academic failure. These schools, often referred to as "rehabilitation" or "special education" centers, use aggressive marketing tactics to promise rapid behavioral changes.
There’s a shitton of articles about “Chinese disciplinary schools (here’s one from the South China post).
What is the source of this quote? It reads like you copy-pasted an AI blurb from the top of a search results page.
That there are ads on chinese social media for these schools is concerning, but the presence of ads themselves don't indicate anything concrete about whether or not this industry is growing substantially or in any way. American discipline bootcamps advertise as well, in particular on facebook among other social media - does this mean they are growing as well? You claimed they were dying, but you've provided no evidence of this. Even the BBC admits that the chinese network/business they are reporting on is "teetering on the brink of collapse", as quoted from one of the people involved that they interviewed while undercover:
....
...Did you post the wrong link or something? That article links to a story about a teacher at a regular middle school in china who made students who violated the "no mobile rule" dump their phones in water - the teacher was disciplined by local authorities and told to stop damaging people's property...and that was the end of it? What does this have to do with the subject of troubled teen bootcamps? Surely you're not suggesting that a teacher who got in trouble for dumping kids phones in a bucket of water is somehow equivalent (or even comparable) to kids getting physically or even sexually abused by grifter thugs in fake schools?
It seems like you're just reaching now, and are unable to actually provide a source on either of your claims.
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Maybe check out the canonical page instead: https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3220315/punishment-call-online-anger-chinese-teacher-scolds-students-who-break-no-mobile-school-rule
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These were gushingly featured on doctor Phil like 20 years ago
Fuck Dr. Pedo-Phil
Yes, I have been very sad to see advertisements for these abuse camps when I’ve been on Rednote.
Lmfao talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Well except that China seems to have come down hard on the school owners, where the US politicians just take a little
bribedonation and suddenly start defending thetorture camps“programs”.Hell the current admin is even taking a stand in defense of conversion therapy camps and shit.
That's absolutely horrifying but not surprising given how authoritarian regimes handle anything they deem "problematic behavior" - these places sound like straight up torture facilities masquerading as schools
Ugh, was USA an authoritarian regime since 1967? Neighbouring thread mentioned this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_teen_industry
Your actual point notwithstanding, unironically yes.
Whataboutism
Saying a made up noun does not negate hypocrisy when pointed out. Since you are now informed about your fallacy, maybe you want to explain: What about the troubled teen industry in the US?
Do they have internet in retirement homes now?
you cannot be serious lol
These extreme discipline schools are all over the world.
Are you such a brainlet that you think China is the only place with these? What about all those crazy Christian schools or anti gay schools in the US?