With all due respect if we judged people by their appearances we'd have discredited Paul Graham long ago for eschewing the traditional VC outfit.

The OP's comments about the appearance of the video is completely irrelevant and merely serving to throw speculative shade. For what it's worth, something probably did happen but his choice of webcam + background probably has nothing to do with it, but rampant speculation and false information is how we lead to the capital riots.

While the idea of gulags and "re-education camps" pervade Western perceptions of Chinese life, the reality is that conformity and centralized government is probably more dull than you think.