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We Chat, They Watch

citizenlab.ca

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Re: We Chat, They Watch

#251

Post by JCharante »

yumraj wrote: post #90

Honestly curious: knowing what everyone knows, why would any person who is not of Chinese origin, use WeChat? What's the use case?

It's really useful for note taking. I'm logged in on my phone and main computer, and as I watch lectures I can screenshot useful slides and send it to the file transfer contact. I can also send a text message, and later its search feature lets me go to the context where my query appeared. The messages are stored locally on your devices so the query is lightning fast (unlike if I were using slack).

I'll use it to evict stuff from my head so I can concentrate on other things (a "oh yeah I'm running low on tomatoes" thought results in a message for me to go back to later).

Since the UI is in the style of a messaging program then it's really low friction to enter stuff, as opposed to a dedicated note taking application. It's UI is also so clean and of a design not seen anymore.

Its QR code scanner is really good as well.

It should be noted that I'm also using it to message other people on the platform, but half the time I switch to the application I'm not using it to communicate with other people.

Someone may criticize sending so much data to "scary China" but I'm aware of what data I send through the platforms that I use. You wouldn't send your company's private information to a random server, and there's no reason why any other non company sponsored platform should be trusted.

I'm not into discussing controversial topics so the most scandalous message I've ever sent probably revolved around defending an unpopular bubble tea shop. I have alternative contact means so it's not like I'm being restricted in what I talk about. There's a proper time and place for everything. (and in the west there's memes about landing on a list for viewing an edgy meme or source).

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#252

Post by square_usual »

xf1cf wrote: post #242
sacks2k wrote: post #83

It's not just WeChat. They own stakes in many american media companies and movie production houses. They use this influence to also change our Media and push pro-Chinese propaganda to the American public.

You can see the pro-chinese propaganda on this site alone. The number of people supporting Zoom, WHO, WeChat, etc is enough to conclude with near certainty this site as well is owned by the Chinese. Unfortunately this comment and mine will be downvoted to oblivion. But the truth is the Chinese war doctrine is to purchase land and acquire covenants. Look at Africa, Indonesia, and India. They are bought wholesale by Ch…

I haven't seen anybody "support" WeChat on HN, and even Zoom has been catching a lot of flack here. More than that, though, your jump from the users of a site supposedly supporting certain products to the site itself being owned by the Chinese is hilariously absurd. Maybe you should actually think about what you're saying before the next time you yell "Wake up, sheeple!"

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#253

Post by throw37543 »

wolco wrote: post #219
gervu wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, one character from a region that makes up 60% of the world's population? How radical. Next you'll be telling me that I should be worried because they included a black character and a female character. If anything, the fact that anyone considers this at all notable should be a sign of just how racially biased casting is in most Western media. The world isn't nearly as white as it looks on your TV.

The problem is that black female character has been replaced with a female asian character. The diversity of Americans is not being represented anymore. Trying to sell to the Chinese market has unintended costs.

And these characters are typically paired up with the white male hero. Isn’t this more indicative of the director’s or writer’s fantasies?

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#254

Post by bgee »

fiblye wrote: post #150
idra wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Have no choice" is false. Fortunately, email still works. As does any messenger through a VPN. Using Wechat is simply being complicit with censorship out of laziness.

Keep in mind that most major domains outside of China are blocked. Chinese services aren't going to be any more lax with surveillance than WeChat and have the same registration requirements. You could maybe try registering your own server, but do you want to have the possibility of questionable messages being saved on a server that you own when dealing with Chinese authorities? Any "oops, sorry" goes out the window w…

Disclaimer: mainland Chinese here.

> most major domains outside of China are blocked

I don't think this is true; GFW works in a disallow-list fashion and domains have to be explicitly blocked (which is why people do keyword attacks[0]).

[0]: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#255

Post by system2 »

xf1cf wrote: post #242
sacks2k wrote: post #83

It's not just WeChat. They own stakes in many american media companies and movie production houses. They use this influence to also change our Media and push pro-Chinese propaganda to the American public.

You can see the pro-chinese propaganda on this site alone. The number of people supporting Zoom, WHO, WeChat, etc is enough to conclude with near certainty this site as well is owned by the Chinese. Unfortunately this comment and mine will be downvoted to oblivion. But the truth is the Chinese war doctrine is to purchase land and acquire covenants. Look at Africa, Indonesia, and India. They are bought wholesale by Ch…

Downvotes don't mean censorship. You clearly made your point with complete freedom of speech. Agreeing with you is another thing.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#256

Post by alasdair_ »

devtul wrote: post #158
fiblye wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of China, we're pretty lucky that we can just register for random sites like HN with nothing more than a username and password and start talking. Every Chinese site I've ever used requires phone number or ID verification. Most of them only allow Chinese-registered phones, meaning it's absolutely impossible to communicate with Chinese people from the outside world, aside from a very small number of carefully v…

We will give our freedoms away in name of preventing toxicity and hate speech. Won't you feel good you are helping squash bigots by giving your PII away

>We will give our freedoms away in name of preventing toxicity and hate speech.

(I spent a good few minutes trying to come up with a politer response than the following. I failed.)

Bullshit.

I keep seeing this “free speech” slippery-slope claim. It’s simply not true. I don’t know of a single mainstream or even semi-mainstream us or eu-based site that demands PII to stock “hate speech”. They ask for two main reasons:

1. Money. A confirmed “real” user is worth more.

2. Anti-abuse/spam. The sites are tired of dealing with bots.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#257

Post by JCharante »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #98

It’s worth noting that Facebook Messenger also intercepts and filters messages. For example, it’s impossible to send a message containing the link “joebiden.info”. On the mobile app, it will simply say “failed to send.” On desktop, it will tell you the link violates its “community standards” and cannot be shared.

Wow I just tried this out. I can't believe they're so brazenly blocking content.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#258

Post by square_usual »

wolco wrote: post #193
MattGaiser wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook at least tells you, but yes, this is concerning.

I just visited that site. The concerning thing is the site isn't spam and offers a political view with photos/videos of real moments that may reflect poorly on joe . To censor that is crossing the line into censoring valid political speech.

Even the policy positions listed there are literally factual and backed with sources from CNN, NYT and government websites. There is no remotely plausible reason for that site to be blacklisted by facebook.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#259

Post by throw37543 »

yumraj wrote: post #90

Honestly curious: knowing what everyone knows, why would any person who is not of Chinese origin, use WeChat? What's the use case?

WeChat calling works amazingly well in low/bad data situations.

In places where I have almost no signal, a WeChat call will still sound good.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#260

Post by arminiusreturns »

I worked for a company that tried to require wechat. I refused. Never got any flak, but missed a lot of comms from the first gen Chinese immigrants in the company.

I posit they use WeChat more than just to censor/spy in wechat, but rather more as an one of a set of apps that can be used to side-channel leak data about the phone/user. (Israel is also the other giant player in this arena). I don't understand any tech-savy privacy conscious person being ok with it, other than being one of those who has completely given up on privacy.

There is a reason the military banned tiktok, for example. (and it's not just because I've never seen a user on tiktok not look like total base-dumbass)

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