[upfrog]

First off - we don't know why pressure against her increased recently. We just don't. We can make up stories about it, and try to assess their plausibility, but we don't know what really happened.

That said, I think that the evidence we have is against this being notably related to GPL and her defense of it. She published her complaint against MediaTek almost two years before she "got her wings clipped" - the timelines don't really support the GPL issue as being a notable part the matter. Also, the situation for IP protection in China is on an upwards trend (https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/10/16/china-s-record-on-i...), and part of that is government led. I have a difficult time seeing police give her so much trouble for this.

My preferred theory is that the straw which broke the camel's back was her minimally filtered commentary on the response to the June 2023 Plaza Hollywood Hotel stabbing. Naomi Wu feels strongly - and I believe, reasonably - that this was an anti-lesbian hate crime, and was furious that nobody in media was willing to acknowledge it as such. Male chauvinism and gendered violence, LGBT rights, public questioning of the results of a police investigation, and all in a venue which is easily accessible to foreigners - these are all things which are far more politically sensitive in China than IP compliance.

For some examples of what she was saying, scroll through her comments here: https://twitter.com/search?q=(from%3ARealSexyCyborg)%20until..., especially this thread: https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/166501414504826880... (Twitter account required for both).