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We Chat, They Watch

citizenlab.ca

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Re: We Chat, They Watch

#401

Post by pta2002 »

cirosantilli wrote: post #353
bgee wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Certainly the block is manually controlled. But I believe that GitHub is not blocked yet just because it is not "major" enough because it is used almost exclusively only by programmers. If non-programmers started to use it more, I believe it will get banned.

GitHub's been banned in the past. It made development work near impossible, so they unbanned it.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#403

Post by gulerc »

hiq wrote: post #377
gulerc wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can create download link by sendgb.com and share up to 5 GB via WhatsApp.

Or any other file sharing website for that matter, but at least use something more secure from a more trustworthy company, such as https://send.firefox.com/ (never heard of sendgb.com).

Yes firefox is good option. Sendgb is from Estonia. Sendgb allows file transfer up to 5 GB. File are storages up to 90 days for free. Nobody knows which one is more safety. Sometimes big services have more security problems...like Dropbox, wetransfer etc...

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#404

Post by minusSeven »

Do we have a website with list of all Chinese websites and apps that we can have a look and not install them ?

I wonder if all this is applicable to Taiwanese companies as well or not.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#405

Post by jeltz »

JCharante wrote: post #330
ascorbic wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why WeChat? Any other chat app will do the same, without being monitored by the Chnese government.

Really? Messenger can't. Whatsapp can't. Snapchat can't. Zalo can't. GroupMe can't (maybe I could create a solo group chatin it?. I don't remember telegram having it. At some point app fatigue sets in and you don't want to install even more apps. I'm not setting up a second account just to have something to send it to. Additionally the messages won't be available on my computer.

Slack and most XMPP clients can do this.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#406

Post by devit »

rorykoehler wrote: post #297
balola wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If what the gov is doing (ostensibly) makes them rich, e.g. they can afford cars and condo prices double every few years, them yes, the majority of people doesn't care.

You can have those things without the oppression. Correlation doesn't equal causation.

Yeah, is there any information on why the Chinese government feels like they need the censorship?

As far as I can tell they are the most successful government at least in modern history in terms of increasing living standards (huge GDP growth and even things like being the only country to successfully almost eradicate SARS-CoV-2), so it seems they would keep power even in a fully functioning democracy with no censorship since they are so good.

Then maybe the censorship is actually integral to their success as it reduces the time wasted on going in directions different from the government's one and possibly boosts morale and happiness?

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#408

Post by yeetman21 »

kart23 wrote: post #348
midasz wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh I can kind of understand why the site is deemed questionable. It's paid for by a Republican political consulting firm. It may not be orchestrated by the Trump campaign but they definitely condone it. According to Snopes some parts of it can also be deemed as misinformation (like the picture framed as Biden groping Stephanie Carter). So to me it's in the grey area bordering on black, but I'm also not a fan of this…

So? Are we really at the point where we can defend censorship of a website that doesn't have any illegal content, no links to illegal content, and the purpose of which is not to do anything illegal, but whose only purpose make ones political opinions known. On Facebook messenger, one of the biggest messaging apps in the world. This is honestly disgusting, and I think they are going to face backlash for it.

they're a private company and can do whatever they want

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#409

Post by madengr »

givinguflac wrote: post #398
brabel wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you believe the US government, which says that it actually came from a lab in China.

The intelligence agencies have been clear there is no evidence of that. Do not confuse the US government’s position with the rantings of an old orange racist.

There is evidence pointing to cleavage:

https://youtu.be/R6y8dlhoMpo

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#410

Post by gitrog »

kccqzy wrote: post #141
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.

The differences are: (1) with Facebook it's a private company doing the censoring and there's no issue with that, no First Amendment issues at all, unlike WeChat where the censoring is heavily linked to the government; (2) Facebook at least tells you when a message can't be sent but WeChat fails silently.

Really? Facebook started censoring completely of their own volition? Not because Western governments started to apply pressure on them?

Facebook's handling of filtered out messages is honestly not an improvement over WeChat worth celebrating.

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