Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nautil.us

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 306 posts

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

#231

Post by evidencepi »

evidencepi wrote: post #226

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…

I think it will take a long time for the west to really stand up against china, because of the economy interest, the lack of transparency and culture / language barrier. Until china hits the pearl harbor, it will get worse and worse.

Disclaimer: I am from china, living in the US now.

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

#232

Post by yorwba »

sirmike_ wrote: post #213
zachguo wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

I think you misunderstand. China is not a heavy-handed police state not because everyone is perfectly free, but because not everyone is unfree. The police simply isn't equipped to oppress everyone, so it only hits an unlucky minority. It's just that in China minorities can comprise millions of people. So while in the worst case you might be executed and have your organs harvested, in the average case you'll not even be paid attention to.

For example, when I lived in China my landlord violated several regulations on minimum unit size and fire safety, forged documents to hide this and probably also didn't pay any taxes on the rent I paid in cash. One day there was a notice by the police posted to the door, announcing that they'd come investigate. Some time later I got a message from my landlord warning me and the other tenants not to open the door. The police never came. I assume he either paid them off with a bribe or they were simply too lazy to follow up on their threat.

If China is a police state, then it's one where the police doesn't take their job very seriously.

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

#233

Post by danShumway »

ssnistfajen wrote: post #203
RandomGuyDTB wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By that line of reasoning, I have a choice of whether or not to hand over my wallet when someone mugs me -- I've just decided that the tradeoff of getting a knife in my stomach is not worth whatever money is being stolen from me.

What you're proposing is an interesting philosophical argument, but not a particularly useful way to think when building a society. We're trying to limit Hobson's Choices, even if we can't completely eliminate them all the time.

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

#234

Post by incompatible »

loceng wrote: post #12
spectramax wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And how long, if not already - likely once their people are acclimatized to the idea of 'social rating' system - before they start subtly or aggressively warning people, swaying their behaviour, of potential for their rating to go down if associating with X who isn't using apps. A digitized version of Nazi Germany with mass censorship capabilities really is terrifying.

I was curious about what happens to people who can't get WeChat accounts. Perhaps due to committing crimes (in the way that sex offenders may be banned from using social media) or maybe they offended WeChat in some way (in the way that people lose their Google accounts if Google so decides).

Perhaps you could even be kicked off WeChat for having a social rating that was too low.

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

#235

Post by tepidandroid »

sirmike_ wrote: post #213
zachguo wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

> Defending China, Fuck the Chinese govt.

> I hope the Chinese people rise up one day and figure out a better form of governance for themselves.

Besides the immature, flippant impulse to challenge authority that seems quite prevalent in the West, why should the Chinese feel compelled to pursue the path of destruction you're advocating for? The CCP, for all its imperfections, has lifted 850 million illiterate peasants out of extreme poverty in a mere few decades [1].

Their upward mobility, health and education outcomes have arguably not been better in over 150 years. It's an economic miracle never before seen in history. The trade-off was made between an authoritarian but stable and prosperous society vs balkanization and endless wars that pre-mature democracies tend to produce. Hopefully you’ll excuse them if they don’t join in your shallow diatribe.

You can insult Xi all day and say "fuck the Chinese govt" all you want but at the end of the day, it's not your opinion that matters. In general, the people of China are very happy with the progress that's being made (particularly true of the rural population who have witnessed in real-time, continuous improvements to their standard of living).

One more thing. It would be convenient if the Chinese government were some monolithic, dark and evil entity that you could shake your pitchfork at, but it’s not [2]. It is an extremely complex, dynamic, and heterogenous entity full of internal power struggles, much like every other non-trivial human organization in history. There is evidence hinting at the existence of reformist and hardline members, factions and sub-factions at every part of the ideological spectrum [3][4]. The GP’s assertion that “China's system is so complicated and so far from a heavy-handed police state.” is factually correct.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China

[2] http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/ftrebbi/research/ftx.pdf

[3] https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/clm...

[4] https://www.mironline.ca/factionalism-china-eve-19th-party-c...

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

#236

Post by adinobro »

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?

There is a metal strip in the real 100 RMB notes that most of the copies don't have.

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

#237

Post by lvturner »

H1Supreme wrote: post #113
kolla wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what coffee shops you have near you but the ones where I live have better coffee than most people have at home.

That's not a particularly hard problem to solve. Buy good roasted beans, a grinder, and basically any coffee pot. Grinding your own beans before brewing makes a big difference vs. brewing a pot of Folgers.

That does of course assume the ability to buy good roasted beans somewhere relatively near you.

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

#238

Post by tepidandroid »

danShumway wrote: post #230
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…

You wouldn’t satirize the Nanjing massacre in China in the same way you wouldn’t satirize the Holocaust in Germany.

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

#239

Post by tfha »

danShumway wrote: post #230
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…

The point was that the arrest happened after the messages got exposed on social media, and not just after the words were uttered in private

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

#240

Post by tfha »

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've been to multiple events in China and the chilling effect is very apparent and very strong in China's cities.
Post reply on HN