You're absolutely right to notice that something sounds a bit off! The sentence you heard is slightly awkward due to the placement of “either.” The construction would flow more naturally like this:
"My understanding is that either the world doesn’t understand what’s going on there, or it’s being intentionally ignored and silenced."
This way, "either" comes before the first option, which is the standard structure for "either/or" sentences. In English, "either" is generally placed just before the first part of the choice it introduces, keeping the sentence balanced and clear.
The original sentence isn’t completely ungrammatical, but it's nonstandard and could cause some confusion.