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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

#211

Post by max_im »

jagrsw wrote: post #205

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…

It's definitely getting closer to that point - for example winnie the pooh is a popular meme used to make fun of uncle Xi but it's hard to police given that it's a children's cartoon. It hasn't stopped the aggressive censoring of pictures of winnie the pooh (no joke) but it has definitely presented a challenge. Using vague historical anecdotes and rarely used imagery is a traditional Chinese mode of communication - in modern days you can see it in action via the aggressively close reading people do of CCP mouthpiece newspapers - the use of certain terms signal a greater ideological shift which people will then try to adapt to/guess at. Personally I'm curious about how this mode of communication will evolve given the current development of automated policing algorithms which will undoubtedly take context into account.

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

#212

Post by ssnistfajen »

dlivingston wrote: post #210
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 separat…

If you talk about joining the IS in the West using non-encrypted messaging services, you are more than likely to end up on a watchlist or receive a visit from law enforcement (depending on context and severity) as well. Expressing sentiments akin to Holocaust denial or any other mass tragedy also more than likely invites action from the platform you are on depending on their policy.

People are being persecuted by law enforcement because it is the very entity that mandated WeChat to do this in the first place. I don't see how placing the whole blame on WeChat itself is rational at all.

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

#213

Post by sirmike_ »

zachguo wrote: post #206
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.

> China's system is so complicated and so far from a heavy-handed police state.

No. China is not free. I am sorry you are fed up. But I bet millions of victims of Chinese oppression are in much dire condition and wish they could be fed up and not dead or disappeared. Xi Jinping is a dope. The amount of articulation of control China has over the its citizens is chilling. Defending China, Fuck the Chinese govt.

I can say that and face zero repercussions, publically. You cannot say that in China and expect to be ok. I hope the Chinese people rise up one day and figure out a better form of governance for themselves.

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

#214

Post by sib »

kwizzt wrote: post #208
envolt wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Just out of curiosity, how would you know if you had seen counterfeit money?

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

#215

Post by kwizzt »

sib wrote: post #214
kwizzt wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Just out of curiosity, how would you know if you had seen counterfeit money?

That's a good point. I should say I've only seen the "low quality" counterfeit money once. The one I saw had similar texture as real money, but the paper was either thinner or thicker than the real one. I can't remember the details since it happened years ago.

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

#216

Post by amaccuish »

dewey wrote: post #39
_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.

I was there last month and it was almost impossible to get money on your WeChat account without a Chinese bank account. It was easy to fund my Malaysian WeChat account but the balance isn't transferable or usable in China. There's currently one remaining loop hole I know about which is to pay someone to send money via a red envelope / hóngbāo but it's getting increasingly harder. It's already asking you for a passpor…

What's the point of this though? Surely it hurts tourism to China? Wouldn't it be better if foreigners could easily use wechat pay?

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

#218

Post by taneq »

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!)

> 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!

It's not just "government can be corrupt and abuse its powers", it's also "government will be inept and leak your data".

And since you can't unreveal data, "government" doesn't just mean "current government", it means "current and any possible future government".

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

#219

Post by dlivingston »

ssnistfajen wrote: post #212
dlivingston wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 separat…

If you talk about joining the IS in the West using non-encrypted messaging services, you are more than likely to end up on a watchlist or receive a visit from law enforcement (depending on context and severity) as well. Expressing sentiments akin to Holocaust denial or any other mass tragedy also more than likely invites action from the platform you are on depending on their policy. People are being persecuted by law…

> If you talk about joining the IS in the West using non-encrypted messaging services, you are more than likely to end up on a watchlist or receive a visit from law enforcement (depending on context and severity) as well.

Aye, but if you get sent to prison for merely talking about it - much less joking - the ACLU and Twitter would have a field day.

> Expressing sentiments akin to Holocaust denial or any other mass tragedy also more than likely invites action from the platform you are on depending on their policy.

EDIT: That's a platform-specific problem - one that I happen to disagree with vehemently. If all speech isn't free, then no speech is.

> I don't see how placing the whole blame on WeChat itself is rational at all.

I'm not. I'm placing the blame on the PRC, of which, unfortunately, major Chinese corporations seem to be an operating arm of.

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

#220

Post by teslaberry »

i have a fun game to play ---let's compare superpowers. i mean geopolitical superpowers!

china has a much smaller government than the u.s. in so far as it's yet to become a beauracratically overgrown sovietized system.

on the other hand , they have no rights, the state does as it pleases without legal need to explain itself, and there are no meaningful separations of power through regionalism (known as state soveriegnty in the u.s. ) nor through separation of powers.

the ccp is the executive branch that openly rules all. in the u.s. no one openly rules all, and the shadow government is accountable to know one but most people don't really even acknowledge it's excistence.

frankly, all states have shadow or wanna be shadow governments. only in the u.s. is it so firmly in charge .where as in china, it's out of the shaddows.

i prefer my shaddow government staying int rhe shadows. I prefer my regional governments strong, and i prefer this becasue it empowers the most powerless individuals against the state. that being said, all mature institional systems are partially defined by how well they operate to drain the populace of wealth property and purchasing power. it seems like the u.s. is more mature than china at this point in time.

but that could change in a heart beat. china could be worse and better. u.s. could be worse and better. bottom line is i wish my chinese language skills were better. i'm always impressed by how many chinese speak english but how many white skinned non-chinese don't speak chinese.

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