Western media loves to talk about disappearances because you can say anyone has "disappeared" if they've just been out of the public eye for a bit. The audience is led to believe the implication that they were killed or imprisoned at some black site, but since the source never actually said that they technically didn't say anything false, even if they were perfectly fine the whole time.

Anybody remember that tennis player, Peng Shuai? I had a lib I know irl hit me with it as evidence that China was disappearing dissidents. I mentioned the above to him, and then, sure enough, she got Juche necromancy-ed.