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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

#221

Post by Jedi72 »

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…

Damn, I sure hope nobody screenshots this or I wont be able to fly a plane into the Sydney Opera house like I'm planning to do next week.

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

#222

Post by crimsonalucard »

beenBoutIT wrote: post #190
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…

The Japan that raped Nanjing hasn't existed for decades, the comment is extremely offensive but can't be taken literally. This is the Chinese equivalent of an Israeli telling a Hitler joke, insensitive and offensive but not taken literally because the bad guy is long dead.

Japan has repeatedly refused to apologize or even admit such atrocities occurred. It further fuels the fire. They've even edited their textbooks to gloss over the fact.

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

#224

Post by NicoJuicy »

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.

I'll make it simple for you.

I don't think Taiwan agrees with you

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

#225

Post by NicoJuicy »

powerapple wrote: post #199
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is basically a credit score similar to what you get from credit agency With the salient difference of judging one’s political views and affiliations. Like if FICO took into account the number of times you praised or criticised the President.

Ummm, no. That’s not true.

Based on a documentary. Yes, it is.

I'm also not suprised. A local TV guy did a travel guide for China, it was beautifull and he had gained access to a more secure facility ( a controversial dam that caused people to lose their house).

No room for open questions ( had to ask it up front on paper, written). But when he asked a follow up question, the guide got really scared. You could just see it happen ( he was not allowed to film anymore after the question)

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

#226

Post by evidencepi »

I posted a bunch of pictures from the Hong Kong protests in the past couple days.

It shocked me that all of my posts were blocked immediately, people can see my old posts but not those new posts with the "sensitive" pictures.

I downloaded those pictures from bloomberg, so I am sure the wechat / tencent is running some web crawler and ML to identify the news picture from the online sources and block them automatically. Still there is some way to get around, by assembling a group of pictures together and adding some noise (adding words, etc).

What's more, the regime is not only monitoring wechat or weibo, it's monitoring non-domestic social medias like twitter as well, for example here's a pictures showing a huge screen, where a lot of tweets are being process my some NLP algorithm, and outputs a result showing whether the tweet is positive, neutral or negative towards the regime [1].

This is how a totalitarianism would apply technology, it uses everything it could to control the people in order to survive.

China is now going full throttle to become a nazi + commie country, it's THE CANCER for everyone else who loves freedom and democracy.

There will be only two possibilities in the 21st century, either the Communist China crashed like USSR, or a war will happen between the China and the west. Hong Kong is literally the frontline of the battlefield.

[1] https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/2018/09/%E3%80%90%E7%A...

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

#227

Post by jason_slack »

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?

You can crinkle the paper money in your fingers. Real money makes a unique sound. It is perfectly acceptable to test the money in front of the person you got it from.

I had to use cash instead of WeChat a few times and the vendor also did this as a test.

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

#229

Post by sonnyblarney »

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…

No, you are not going to get arrested in America for making a joke about George Washington.

Enough with the irresponsible moral equivalence arguments.

There are glaringly material differences between 'Google software scanning your mails to target ads' and 'the police having $2/hour folks reading private chats to arrest you for totally arbitrary reasons'.

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

#230

Post by danShumway »

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…

> Clearly, a bit of a different story than what's implied in this article.

Is it?

I would classify both of those as satirical comments (albeit offensive ones). I'm not sure how familiar you are with the US, but it would not be considered socially acceptable here for the police to question you about comments like this made in, say, a private Facebook message.

It definitely would not be acceptable for police in the US to arrest someone over this; that would be a very clear 1st Amendment violation.

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