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China Blocks WhatsApp

nytimes.com

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Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#321

Post by PresidentObama »

yourapostasy wrote: post #292
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only users of WeChat have strong ties to China, and use it for those ties (e.g. WePay). Even in HK and Taiwan, WeChat is not used outside of those reasons. WeChat working in the US is like UnionPay working in the US. Ya, its great if you are a Chinese tourist or an expat with a Chinese bank account, but it is irrelevant if you aren't, UnionPay isn't going to start taking over the American ATM card market.

> Even in HK and Taiwan, WeChat is not used outside of those reasons. Before someone asks, the approximate equivalent of WeChat in Taiwan is Line. Don't know what it is in HK.

The equivalent of WeChat in HK is WhatsApp.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#322

Post by dreamfactored »

chaostheory wrote: post #298
westiseast wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a China hawk, but this is what has been happening and what will continue happening unless something massively more drastic than blocking a single minority foreign app happens. I think there's a tendency for people to overestimate the importance of foreign apps to Chinese consumers and to underestimate the Chinese market. It's almost laughable that people think blocking WhatsApp will make any difference to Chinese…

> I think there's a tendency for people to overestimate the importance of foreign apps to Chinese consumers Then why take the trouble of blocking something so small and unimportant? ;) > eg., the Chinese tech/online market is so huge it can sustain multiple competitors of its own in each sector Doesn't China have bigger aspirations than just the mainland? People are missing the bigger point. I'm not talking about the…

1. These are foreign-owned infrastructure platforms and China is protective about its markets. Foreigners can't set up businesses of any kind, let alone infrastructure.

2. You seem to assume the bulk of innovation is going to be happening outside China and that blocking consumer access to Western platforms would somehow inhibit a flow of information to China. I'd disagree on both counts. The Chinese government is acting as the word's biggest VC and is also very practised and willing to take on long-term transformation plans at the national level. Shutting down foreign platforms only drives adoption of home-grown ones. In addition, they are explicitly targeting a future position as the world leader in AI. In the West I'd be betting on the MIC over individual privately owned companies to put any kind of dent in that ambition. I think any moment where Apple or Google alone could outspend and outcompete China in tech is gone.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#323

Post by [deleted] »

EGreg wrote: post #300
barkingcat wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a technology problem. Be aware that human operators are hired specifically for correlating internet traffic with these kinds of evasions. In the end, unless it's a robot talking to another robot, all internet traffic in China can be resolved to people. And people can be arrested or jailed or killed. Of course, if you want to "go tech" you can go underground, but being illegal has disadvantages in a state lik…

As I see it, a large set of computers all running a webserver over TLS can form a cryptographic global consensus (blockchain) for permissionless chat and other stuff. Sure, someone has to be running these serveds. But once they are ubiquitous enough, the government wouldn't be able to stop the chats by arresting / remocing any percentage of machines short of 90% or so. What kind of traffic correlations would then be…

[deleted]

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#324

Post by bitmapbrother »

ben_jones wrote: post #87
Jerry2 wrote: post #65

TechAltar made a video few days ago about censorship in China and what their goals are [0]. He also talked about lengths to which Mark Zuckerberg went to try to get Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp unblocked in China. It was quite shocking. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swuir_7YIPs

The 5 points according to the video: 1) Married Priscilla Chan 2) Learned Mandarin 3) Joined Tsinghua University 4) Befriended Xijinping 5) Offered to let Xijinping name firstborn Personally I have trouble believing 1 and 5 were to get Facebook products into China unabridged. 5 sounds like a joke at a dinner party.

I think we have our script outline for The Social Network 2.0

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#325

Post by FabHK »

bad_user wrote: post #116
micaksica wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people who will get ahead in China in the future are the ones who are somehow able to live outside of China to experience new ideas. So in other words, the ruling class continues to rule, as they will be the only ones with the sanctioned political freedoms to study abroad, etc. > China's fate as being relegated to being the world's giant copy machine is sealed unless things revert China being the world's giant…

China might build their own products and I can see them building WhatsApp alternatives, but I won't install Chinese alternatives to WhatsApp on my phone, which means the Chinese won't be able to talk with me, an European, all the while I'm communicating without issues with acquaintances from all over Europe and the U.S. This means that the Chinese are living in a bubble. This isn't news of course. But the other issue…

> I can see them building WhatsApp alternatives

And maybe later they might even build alternatives to Google, Twitter, and eBay!

/sarcasm - please check out WeChat, Baidu, Sina Weibo, Alibaba

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#326

Post by the_common_man »

Joking_Phantom wrote: post #89

WeChat is the replacement for WhatsApp, fully compliant with Chinese censorship controls. What's mildly disturbing is that many Chinese Americans, both American citizens and not, living in the US use WeChat. They use it because of their cultural and social ties with China. Chinese tourists as well have had increasingly better integration inside the US as well, which would only serve to spread the usage of WeChat to a…

Well, it's all perspective. What's greatly disturbing is that people in US giving all their data to corporations to mine and monetize... Everyone using gmail and this ends up with _my_ data (as a non-gmail user) being mined. US startups have also turned pretty much every website into a wormhole for tracking users/visitors.

Atleast, in china, there is none of this advertising BS.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#327

Post by eighthnate »

meri_dian wrote: post #15

Edit: This is not a justification or defense of internet censorship. It is an explanation of why the Chinese public may be more willing to accept strict government controls than the West. While most Westerners see actions like this as serious violations of individual rights, the Chinese are used to such exercises of control by their leaders. There is a firm historical basis for similar behavior going back thousands o…

> While most Westerners see actions like this as serious violations of individual rights

Really? We do. Everyone here seemed okay with censorship on twitter, facebook, etc.

> It is an explanation of why the Chinese public may be more willing to accept strict government controls than the West.

Where in the "west" are you? We have censorship and controls in the US. And last I checked, europe is even worse with their controls.

> It's important for Westerners to realize that the Chinese never had a Locke, or a Rousseau, or a Hobbes.

Britain did and britain is at the forefront of censorship, control and monitoring of its population.

> The foundational political philosophy taken for granted in the West has no parallel in China.

It's empty words we used to pretend we are "superior".

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#328

Post by the_common_man »

mads wrote: post #204
creatrixcordis wrote: post #191

I visited China for a month and my view is limited, but i do not think the average Chen in China cares about this, just like the average John in America doesn't. They are happy to be able to grow their personal GDP as much as they can. A lot of people there are part of the waves of the population that are provided incentives to relocate from rural areas to urban areas. Censorship is their least concern. They are happ…

I lived in China for many years and you are right. Most Chinese people reaction will be "Meh.." and they will move on with their life and just use a VPN if they really really need WhatsApp. A lot of western people are now probably frantic to get the WeChat addresses of the Chinese people they only had on WhatsApp, so they can ensure their production line or development people are on track. We need them more than they…

> We need them more than they need us. That is the problem.

Actually the problem is that the west has no higher moral ground than the east. Not a single US person here uses a chinese app or plans to use one. There is a reason for this.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#329

Post by Danihan »

the_common_man wrote: post #319
meri_dian wrote: post #15

Edit: This is not a justification or defense of internet censorship. It is an explanation of why the Chinese public may be more willing to accept strict government controls than the West. While most Westerners see actions like this as serious violations of individual rights, the Chinese are used to such exercises of control by their leaders. There is a firm historical basis for similar behavior going back thousands o…

> Edit: This is not a justification or defense of internet censorship. It is an explanation of why the Chinese public may be more willing to accept strict government controls than the West. What are you talking about? The west has completely accepted surveillance by it's governments. The ideas by Locke, Rousseau, or Hobbes have 0 effect on western society. If you think western society is an 'freer', it's only because…

That's simply factually wrong. The US has much better press freedoms, freedom of speech and gun ownership rights than any other large country.

It has nothing to do with an echo chamber. The laws are objectively very different.

Comparing surveillance by the NSA to information accessibility in general is disingenuous at best.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#330

Post by sytelus »

chaostheory wrote: post #40

What the long-term effects will be: China's ruling class further cement their power at the cost of China's innovation and future growth. Interesting and useful things are made when people able share and consume information. e.g. Jack Ma's US visit exposed him to Yahoo. Ma Huateng was clearly inspired by his exposure to ICQ. The list goes on. The same thing happens in the West but it happens a lot more often since the…

I don't think there is virtually any impact on innovations in China because of western social media censorships. China is on track to match US in AI research paper output, for example. Same goes for other fields in medicine and manufacturing. Also, you have to look at Chinese view point to understand why there is no revolt in China around blocking Google or Facebook. The argument that government has successfully made is that China is not ready for democracy, the democracy usually means incompetent politicians coming to power because of their ability to fool people and that lot of developing countries which adopted democracy have managed to make only a tiny fraction of progress that China has made (for example, compare India with China in metrics like GDP, research output or army).
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