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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

#201

Post by powerapple »

RandomGuyDTB wrote: post #198
ssnistfajen wrote: post #187

Facebook, Google, and Apple would all do the same thing WeChat/AliPay did if regulations in the West moved faster and were more accommodating. Nobody mandated the author to order delivery, follow social media, buy movie tickets, do online shopping, pay rent, use bikeshare, call cabs, etc, etc, etc. through WeChat. They are, for the most part, services owned by companies other than Tencent. WeChat just compiles a gian…

If every one of my friends and even my employer used an app to conduct business and I refused to get it no matter how much they tried to tell me to because I was concerned about my privacy I'd be ostracized. This did happen to me with Facebook to an extent, and Facebook isn't nearly as much of a mammoth as WeChat. Stop pretending it's a choice.

Just choose to use wechat for messaging, and use apps for everything else. And stop complaining about why wechat is getting popular for other people. If your friends are on Facebook, it is not your problem to worry about. It is like if your friend is dating a girl you don’t like, get over it. People made their choices already.

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

#202

Post by NotPaidToPost »

rcao wrote: post #179
NotPaidToPost wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with FaceID, which isn't mentioned in the article. WeChat has its own face recognition system.

No, WeChat and Alipay do use FaceID to do payment verification on iPhone.

Maybe they do but at least WeChat have their own face recognition technology, in which case they do hold people's biometric data.

This is not that big a deal in China considering that people have photo ID card, which means that the government already had everyone's biometric data.

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

#203

Post by ssnistfajen »

RandomGuyDTB wrote: post #198
ssnistfajen wrote: post #187

Facebook, Google, and Apple would all do the same thing WeChat/AliPay did if regulations in the West moved faster and were more accommodating. Nobody mandated the author to order delivery, follow social media, buy movie tickets, do online shopping, pay rent, use bikeshare, call cabs, etc, etc, etc. through WeChat. They are, for the most part, services owned by companies other than Tencent. WeChat just compiles a gian…

If every one of my friends and even my employer used an app to conduct business and I refused to get it no matter how much they tried to tell me to because I was concerned about my privacy I'd be ostracized. This did happen to me with Facebook to an extent, and Facebook isn't nearly as much of a mammoth as WeChat. Stop pretending it's a choice.

Why did you assume I "pretended" it's a choice? It IS a choice and it has always been. Most people just decided the trade-off of being denied employment and other opportunities is not worth preserving whatever privacy these tech giants are trying to "steal" from you. Market economies rarely cater to the few. That has always been the exception and not the norm.

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

#204

Post by chenster »

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…

I stopped reading after "Alibaba does not own WeChat but rather's it's competition Alipay"...

What are you talking about??

Alipay and Alibaba are under the same AliGroup umbrella, not its competitor. 30% of Alibaba stake is actually owned by Japanese conglomerate holding company SoftBank

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

#205

Post by jagrsw »

There's a great Polish sci-fi novel - Paradyzja (~/Paradise/) (wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradyzja) which describes ever-eavesdropped society. In the end, the society develops a metalanguage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koalang) to evade automatic systems which record and analyze all written and spoken communications (even at peoples' homes).

I wonder if WeChat users already developed something similar.

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

#206

Post by zachguo »

scilro wrote: post #166

I find WeChat and its aggressively centralized model fascinating, and something to keep eyes on, but this article falls into the familiar trap of playing a bit loose with the facts when it comes to how the Chinese government surveils its citizens. For example, this is from article: >People are regularly arrested for messages they send in supposedly “private” group chats. In 2017, two people were arrested in Nanjing f…

I'm fed up with those people who think they understand China simply because they have read a sci-fi novel written by an Englishman before modern China has been founded. China's system is so complicated and so far from a heavy-handed police state.

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

#207

Post by kwizzt »

chenster wrote: post #204
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…

I stopped reading after "Alibaba does not own WeChat but rather's it's competition Alipay"... What are you talking about?? Alipay and Alibaba are under the same AliGroup umbrella, not its competitor. 30% of Alibaba stake is actually owned by Japanese conglomerate holding company SoftBank

I think he meant Alibaba owns Alipay, which is a competitor to WeChat's payment system.

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

#208

Post by kwizzt »

envolt wrote: post #184
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…

> Also, everyone in China still accepts cash but you generally need correct change. They do. But fake currency is very common in China. I was advised not to use cash. But since I'm not from China, I wasn't able to setup wechat pay account which is very common . Most of the restaurants I had been to had currency checker machines.

Of all the time I've lived in China, I probably have only seen counterfeit money once in my life. Do you have any evidence to back up your claim?

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

#209

Post by Causality1 »

scilro wrote: post #166

I find WeChat and its aggressively centralized model fascinating, and something to keep eyes on, but this article falls into the familiar trap of playing a bit loose with the facts when it comes to how the Chinese government surveils its citizens. For example, this is from article: >People are regularly arrested for messages they send in supposedly “private” group chats. In 2017, two people were arrested in Nanjing f…

You realize Americans joke about 9/11 on the internet all the time, right? You can go to YouTube right now and find 9/11 meme compilations. Point aside, "we should come let them do it again" is a radically different statement than "I'm going to do what they did". The former is a complaint; the latter is a threat.

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

#210

Post by dlivingston »

ssnistfajen wrote: post #187

Facebook, Google, and Apple would all do the same thing WeChat/AliPay did if regulations in the West moved faster and were more accommodating. Nobody mandated the author to order delivery, follow social media, buy movie tickets, do online shopping, pay rent, use bikeshare, call cabs, etc, etc, etc. through WeChat. They are, for the most part, services owned by companies other than Tencent. WeChat just compiles a gian…

Is this fear-mongering?

"Despite WeChat’s somewhat more private design, Amnesty International, in a 2016 report on user privacy, gave WeChat zero out of a 100 for its lack of freedom of speech protection and lack of end-to-end encryption. By comparison, Facebook scored 73. People are regularly arrested for messages they send in supposedly “private” group chats. In 2017, two people were arrested in Nanjing for separate instances of making satirical comments referring the massacre in the city by the Japanese in 1937.5 One person, seeking a job in the city and down on his luck, wrote in a group for job-seekers that “Nanjing is a pit. We should let the Japanese come slaughter again.” He was detained two days later. A similar case that same year saw a 31-year-old man jailed for joking about joining the Islamic State in a group-chat. He was arrested under China’s anti-terrorism laws and given a 9-month prison sentence."

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