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by spacehunt 2561 days ago
I also grew up in Australia (Melbourne) in the 90s and whilst we were told at the time we don't know what happened to him -- and it's true, at the time we didn't know -- there were no assumptions made about his fate. In fact we were explicitly told not to make any assumptions without facts, as part of the lessons on how to consume news media.

The videos on him were released only much later on.
1 comments
adinobro 2561 days ago
I found out (as an adult) that the first 10 seconds of this video had been aired: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4woMuFZAx88

My teacher should have known about it.

Now I found out that the media has had this footage the whole time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq8zFLIftGk but didn't air it.

I understand why. It was blatant propaganda from the west. It makes the story more interesting since people wonder if he was run over which was never stated but implied when I was told: "we don't know what happened after this photo was taken".

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cycrutchfield 2561 days ago
I mean, we do not know what happened to him after the photo was taken. He very well could have been rounded up later and executed.

Why are you assuming that it's propaganda? You are the only one in this thread who seems to have associated Tank Man with being run over. Nobody else thought that happened, because there was no footage of it. It's just you.

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adinobro 2560 days ago
Roughly 1,000 people died. The population of Beijing was roughly 10,000,000. Chances are he went home and was ignored since he wasn't a student protestor and was basically a nobody. The most boring answer is most likely to be true but no one ever says that. Everyone always says "maybe he was killed".

The reason why I call it propaganda is because it is. The photos and videos are true. But the media decided to just show a small clip of the footage to make it more dramatic and suppressed the whole clip for years. The whole clip is less dramatic. Basically the same as the 3rd example https://www.boredpanda.com/examples-media-truth-manipulation...

Look at all the videos for the 30-year anniversary. None of them use the full clip. All the ones I've seen either just include the photo or cut out as the 3rd tank roles to a stop.

I've become more disillusioned with the media the more I travel and experience news as it happens and see how biased it is.

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