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WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

nautil.us

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Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#51

Post by markplindsay »

catherd wrote: post #4
_sveq wrote: post #2

I go to China often but it's been two years now. I don't look forward to the next visit for this very reason—I'll need this to pay for any and everything. I'm not going back.

Cash still works exactly the way it always has, (almost) nobody is going to turn down your business because you don't pay by an app.

I was in China (Beijing and Wenzhou) in April. I had NO success finding a taxi in Beijing—the only way to get a ride was to use an app like Didi Chuxing.

I was able to install and use it just fine. The problem was that it is impossible to link a non-PRC payment method to it. The same is true for WeChat Pay or Alipay—you've got to use a Chinese bank account or card as a source. I was not able to find a way around this despite over an hour of experimenting with the apps.

In contrast, it was easy to get taxis in Wenzhou. The drivers all initially asked for electronic payment, though, so it's probably only a matter of regulation that is preventing them from going cashless.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#52

Post by adinobro »

rtpg wrote: post #33
adinobro wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WeChat is a private company owned by Tencent.

I mean.... the govt can check whatever they want on the WeChat logs. And the populace is pretty accepting of this for security reasons (if you aren’t going off the “government can be corrupt and abuse it’s powers” principle its actually kinda hard to make the privacy argument!)

I didn't say anything about privacy just that it is a private company.

It doesn't seem that different to the US government with AT&T.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130901/23253224379/att-h...

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#53

Post by _ropu »

foozed wrote: post #45

> It knows my biometric information; it knows the very contours of my face. I was under the impression that Face ID does not leak such information to whatever app is using it?

No, FaceID doesn't leak informations about your face. Just like TouchID doesn't leak your fingerprint.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#54

Post by powerapple »

spectramax wrote: post #7
catherd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cash still works exactly the way it always has, (almost) nobody is going to turn down your business because you don't pay by an app.

Besides payments, WeChat is inextricably tied to everything you do in China from chatting with your friends to buying a movie ticket to visa renewals. I've spent over 400 nights in Chinese cities and I depend on WeChat like I depend on water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat#Features

There are other apps. And you can still buy tickets from counter in cinema use Cash or WeChat or Alipay. People use it more often because of its convenience. But you can live without it. The main problem is that you will find it difficult to live without its convenience.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#55

Post by ohithereyou »

yesforwhat wrote: post #18
dintech wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are loads of coffee shops and cafes in the UK that don't take cash any more.

They still take Visa, and don't insist on an authoritarian government's surveillance app.

What do you call the CCTV cameras everywhere other than "an authoritarian government's surveillance"?

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#56

Post by adinobro »

markplindsay wrote: post #51
catherd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cash still works exactly the way it always has, (almost) nobody is going to turn down your business because you don't pay by an app.

I was in China (Beijing and Wenzhou) in April. I had NO success finding a taxi in Beijing—the only way to get a ride was to use an app like Didi Chuxing. I was able to install and use it just fine. The problem was that it is impossible to link a non-PRC payment method to it. The same is true for WeChat Pay or Alipay—you've got to use a Chinese bank account or card as a source. I was not able to find a way around this…

If you want to get a real taxi use Baidu maps. It is in Chinese but you can just drop a pin where you want to go and ask for a real taxi instead of a Didi.

A Chinese person can show you the buttons to press then you can pay with cash.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#57

Post by powerapple »

adinobro wrote: post #17

A few things worth being aware of Alibaba does not own WeChat but rather's it's competition Alipay. It does not have any access to WeChat data. So far the "social credit" on seems to be mostly based on how much you buy and it only seems to give you discounts to massively overpriced products (similar to a credit card reward system). You don't really download apps in Wechat but rather add a link more like a Facebook Ap…

Sesame credit score is used when you use to book a hotel online, if you score is higher you don't need a deposit. It linked to how much money you can borrow from some services. It is basically a credit score similar to what you get from credit agency.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#58

Post by duxup »

adinobro wrote: post #24
teknologist wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are shops in the big cities that are starting to refuse cash now (apparently, this is not illegal in China) and only accept the two big payment apps.

It is illegal to refuse cash in China but it takes a while for the shops to be found and fined.

Is it enforced much?

My understanding from folks who do business in China is that the laws on the books are one thing.... what you can count on legally is often entirety different.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#59

Post by Proven »

jcbrand wrote: post #19

> At 9:27, once I’ve brushed my teeth, answered a few messages, and wiped the sleep from my eyes, I order a coffee through WeChat. There’s a payments window on the app, and when you click on it you see various options, some proprietary to WeChat and some which are independent apps that run on WeChat’s platform. I open the Meituan delivery app and scroll through all the coffee options around me. I order an Americano.…

It's not to save effort or increase convenience, it's the slave's pleasure of doing what they're told. The party must like that feature.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#60

Post by NotPaidToPost »

foozed wrote: post #45

> It knows my biometric information; it knows the very contours of my face. I was under the impression that Face ID does not leak such information to whatever app is using it?

This has nothing to do with FaceID, which isn't mentioned in the article.

WeChat has its own face recognition system.

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