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Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

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Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#161

Post by pmiller2 »

rwmj wrote: post #46
mc32 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven’t read up on this, but looks like if they’re looking for graphs they would include linked in profiles too...

Yeah I guess they have a watchlist of social media accounts and look for anyone who applies with one of those accounts or is N steps away (where hopefully N <= 1, because anything else leads to madness).

That’s my guess as well. They’re probably only looking at “bigger” sites: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, WeChat, and maybe YouTube.

But, it’s the broadness of the definition that’s of concern. That forum you registered at a year ago to ask a random question, never to return? Covered. Dating sites? Yep. Stack Overflow, Quora, etc. definitely. Yelp? For sure.

Then there are sites you can probably twist the definition to cover. Amazon might make this list, since you have the ability to post a public “wish list.” Things like Rover would count, because you have a “pet profile” and can post reviews of sitters, even though nobody says Rover is a social networking app.

Then there’s the class of “sites an adversary with unlimited resources for lawyers” might press to include. You posted a comment on a random blog? We consider your comment history to be your “public profile,” etc. The potential for overreach is huge, even if we don’t get to absurd levels such as this.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#162

Post by [deleted] »

godelski wrote: post #132
panarky wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US ... This style of argument is deflection, and it gets us nowhere. It's very effective in redirecting the focus away from one bad actor and onto another bad actor, though.

To add to your comment: We should be critical of our own government. Panarky clearly agrees with this (me too). The difference is that the conversation is about China. We can also have a conversation about the US or and how they are not respecting people's freedom. But this conversation is about China. It's also a conversation that needs to be had. Plus this redirection is similar to "Bob shot a guy 30 times." "Oh ye…

[deleted]

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#163

Post by HyperTalk2 »

murbard2 wrote: post #6

The US is forcing its tourists to give away a list of all their social media accounts and all their email accounts. If you're a foreign journalist writing pseudonymously for your safety, you must now share that information with the US government to enter the country. This isn't quite on the level of forcing people to install malware on their phone yet, but give it a couple years.

A wild whataboutism appears.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#164

Post by aasasd »

rwmj wrote: post #22
lixtra wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the last ESTA form I saw, they were asking not for all, but specific accounts. Apart from fb and Twitter there was also github, but I don’t remember seeing mastedon for example. Did I miss something?

The ESTA will be a bit different, but the exact question from the US visa application is: 7. Public-facing social media platforms and identifiers/handles used during the last five years. This includes any websites or applications the applicant has used to create or share content (photos, videos, status updates, etc.) as part of a public profile. I was advised by my lawyer that this covers Reddit and HN, and Facebook/…

I don't see how I can exclude anything but banking, hosting and PIM from this (and some PIM apps and hosting platforms have their own discussion or support forums). So the only compliant answer to that would be an export from the password database with almost all of the 800 accounts in the ‘web’ category.

And I ain't gonna research when I last used each of those accounts.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#165

Post by seanmcdirmid »

dirtyid wrote: post #159
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is weird because there are no travel restrictions for foreigners going to Xinjiang (mostly, some places are off limits), you just buy a plane or train ticket. Going to Tibet is a lot harder for foreigners.

I think Tibet still very much has Western imagination captured whereas Uyghar Muslims... do not. Even more cynical analysis, Xinjiang is fundamentally an exercise in reducing the real problem of Islamic radicalization and the non response from many countries (including Muslim ones) is that they are quietly observing to see if the experiment pays off. The danger of Xinjiang is that surveillance state + "vocational" re…

Xinjiang is also much larger population (21 million+) wise than Tibet (3 million+), along with the former having a much larger Han population, making restrictions much harder (and less appealing) to implement logistically.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#167

Post by baybal2 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #160
baybal2 wrote: post #29

Urumqi is a quite big transit hub, but I opt to never buy flights through it for the chance of winning a free cavity search. That's another reason to keep away from that place.

I don’t think you would have much problems in Urumqi these days, the problems only start when you leave the big city. Is Urumqi really an international hub? I can’t imagine anyone flying through that city for any trip that didn’t originate or terminate in China. Chengdu is much more of the hub these days.

Well, it is. The airport is past gigantic for the city of its size, and landing fees are said to be quite low. I think nearly all companies flying narrowbodies from Europe to China do stopover here, except for Central Asian airlines who have a natural option of doing stopover in home countries.

I flew through it once, and now I will never do it ever again...

I do feel that bigger name European airlines opting to reroute flights to China through Chengdu had all of above in mind

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#168

Post by adventured »

fao_ wrote: post #89
saagarjha wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. If you're not a citizen, they can also probably hold you for a while too. But I don't think they can compel you to unlock the device.

> for a while Not just a while. The US Patriot Act gave powers to allow border controls to hold people indefinitely without cause.

Please produce at least several prominent examples of that actually happening to tourists over the last decade.

The US is a massive country that ~75 million foreigners visit each year. In 2018 that figure hit an all-time record high near 78 million, which is in curious contrast to your setup premise.

With so many people visiting the US every year, you surely can produce a very large number of examples of toursts being held indefinitely - for many years even, one imagines - without cause.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#169

Post by cltsang »

panarky wrote: post #106
murbard2 wrote: post #6

The US is forcing its tourists to give away a list of all their social media accounts and all their email accounts. If you're a foreign journalist writing pseudonymously for your safety, you must now share that information with the US government to enter the country. This isn't quite on the level of forcing people to install malware on their phone yet, but give it a couple years.

> The US ... This style of argument is deflection, and it gets us nowhere. It's very effective in redirecting the focus away from one bad actor and onto another bad actor, though.

To clarify, in China, one could get "disappeared" for the rest of his/her life, just because of befriending CCP's "enemies", or speaking up against the official rhetoric.

I don't think the two countries are even remotely comparable on this front.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#170

Post by homonculus1 »

r3bl wrote: post #138
homonculus1 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stopping noncitizens at the border for processing is a far cry from dragging millions of people out of their homes.

Would you classify the US treatment of Japanese citizens during WW2 as inhumane? Back then, they were called war relocation centers. Right now, we call them concentration camps. Same thing will happen with the current camps, both in the US and China. In both cases, it's only the citizens of those countries that object to the usage of the term "concentration camps", while everyone else classifies them properly. Nobody…

Those Japanese-American detainees had legal residential status when they were illegally rounded up without due process.

The detainees in the current border camps have no such status. Some of them are eventually admitted as refugees but there is no obligation to allow any of them to simply enter the country.

Presumably they would be permitted to leave the camps if they decided to go to a different country. If not, then the camps are in fact concentration camps. If so, then the comparison is hysterical political outrage that spits in the face of actual political detention.

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