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

WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 203 posts

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#91

Post by rsynnott »

throwaway4good wrote: post #2

"Shares in Tencent plunged 9.0% in Hong Kong on Tuesday amid widespread market jitters over Chinese regulatory crackdowns on high-growth sectors, including online platforms and, most recently, private tutoring. Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index (.HSI) fell 4.2%." Fascinating how the Chinese authorities seem to be regulating the these companies with complete disregard on how the stock market might react.

> Fascinating how the Chinese authorities seem to be regulating the these companies with complete disregard on how the stock market might react.

I mean, that's fairly normal, surely? _Any_ aggressive regulatory action is going to upset the stock market; it regulatory bodies had to take the stock market's delicate feelings into account they might as well shut their doors.

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#92

Post by tablespoon »

jjaammee wrote: post #89
tablespoon wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're broadly correct. With regard to China, a lot of people's understanding is driven in large part by wishful thinking, which is a serious weakness and vulnerability. > Sure lots of people disagree with the party, but that doesn't that they want a western liberal democracy. So lots of people will speak in favor of a benevolent elite and against populism or what they see as western chaos or oppression. When…

That's maybe true when young people in China first learned western democracy ideas. Nowadays I think most of educated Chinese believe democracy is not suitable for China. They didn't get the whole picture of western world, but who does nowadays. They see signs of culture revolution in western social movements and rejected those wholeheartedly.

> Nowadays I think most of educated Chinese believe democracy is not suitable for China.

Isn't that exactly 1) what the Communist Party wants them to think, and 2) an idea that they can manipulate the information environment to promote?

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#93

Post by Steltek »

sudosysgen wrote: post #82
marderfarker2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like a lot of frustration in the west are due to a lack of voice from within China, who can explain the context and give their point of view. Instead all you get are these disjointed news and headlines without any depth to it. People then make assumptions based on it.

Well, yes and no. Go to reddit for example, you can find endless amounts of people explaining the Chinese perspective and getting voted down and accused of being wumaos, and you'll get banned for it in many places too. At some point I imagine it gets tiring.

Isn't that the problem though? How do you know you're getting a genuine opinion when there's a public, broad, and well funded astroturf campaign? What even is a genuine opinion or free thought when the government employs such ruthless censorship?

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#95

Post by throwaway4good »

sudosysgen wrote: post #81
aerosmile wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it make sense to have strong principles and not be guided by financial incentives alone? Sure. But would it make more sense to have a solid regulatory framework to start with, as opposed to being loosey goosey for a very long time and then course correcting in a way that evaporates billions in value overnight from domestic and foreign investors? Countries and companies have a lot in common. Consider this analogy…

It's not possible to have a solid regulatory framework from the beginning. You can't predict the advance of cutting edge tech. Sure, you can do it earlier, but never from the start. Also, billions of dollars of value didn't disappear overnight. No jobs are or will be lost, and very little utility is lost, except being able to sign up for 1-2 weeks. I'm not absolutely thrilled by the rise of China either, but we gotta…

It is worth noting that SMIC, the main Chinese semiconductor fab is up considerably on a day where the rest of market crashes:

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/0981.HK?p=0981.HK&.tsrc=fin-...

Possibly reflecting China's (new) policy to focus on what it considers "hard tech", instead of social media, fintech, e-commerce.

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#96

Post by grishka »

dalbasal wrote: post #69
m3kw9 wrote: post #35

Looks like tech will inevitably one day circumvent all the barriers China has set up. It seem there is a panic with in the govt as they notice the trend. Delays the inevitable, but for how long?

Hello 2003. I remember when the "great firewall" seemed like a joke, as did digital copyright compliance, online censorship or basically any means of controlling the internet. Information wanted to be free, and neither man nor king could stand in its way. Maybe that is true, and the last 15 years have been an aberration. But... that would mean a reversal of a trend, not a continuation of the current one. To me it see…

The problem is excessive centralization. The internet used to be millions of servers owned by independent people and organizations. That was, for all intents and purposes, uncontrollable. Now much of the internet is comprised of giant platforms that are a whole lot easier to coerce to comply with even most nonsensical regulations.

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#97

Post by xyzzy21 »

The Chinese government also forced a removal of WeChat from online stores in China.

Consensus in some quarters is that a Maoist crackdown akin to the cultural revolution may be starting up.

Other companies have been hammered such as all cram schools have been "told" they will not only not be allowed to issue stock (IPO) but possibly no longer allowed to be for-profit but must be non-profit now.

https://www.newsdirectory3.com/china-bans-cram-school-busine...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-23/china-is-...

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#98

Post by refenestrator »

Steltek wrote: post #93
sudosysgen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes and no. Go to reddit for example, you can find endless amounts of people explaining the Chinese perspective and getting voted down and accused of being wumaos, and you'll get banned for it in many places too. At some point I imagine it gets tiring.

Isn't that the problem though? How do you know you're getting a genuine opinion when there's a public, broad, and well funded astroturf campaign? What even is a genuine opinion or free thought when the government employs such ruthless censorship?

If you're not open to other opinions, you will hear none, and that's entirely on you.

In extremely broad strokes, China has gone from colonized and poor to powerful and rich. Is it so hard to believe that the average Zhao is pretty OK with things?

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#99

Post by blacksmith_tb »

tablespoon wrote: post #65
vehemenz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the CCP has nothing to replace this cultural vacuum with. They want to legislate a return to "old" (post 1949) values by banning foreign tutors, suppressing dissent on WeChat and Weibo, and doing generally authoritarian shit to encourage nationalism. Meanwhile, young, educated people almost exclusively consume the cultural products of the West, Korea, and Japan. And they find the North Korean styl…

> Meanwhile, young, educated people almost exclusively consume the cultural products of the West, Korea, and Japan. What now? China has a pretty extensive film and television industry, and as far as I know it's very popular. > And they find the North Korean style propaganda embarrassing. The disconnect really cannot be understated. And in that case, the most logical reaction is political disengagement, which is compl…

You might think so, but slacking now seems to be considered to be dangerously rebellious[1] by the CCP.

1: https://qz.com/2019322/why-lying-flat-a-niche-chinese-millen...

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#100

Post by blueblisters »

aerosmile wrote: post #75
paganel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with complete disregard on how the stock market might react. I personally regard this as a positive fact, and I'm generally against the policies of the current Chinese authorities. The stock market should not be the be-all and end-all of our modern society.

Does it make sense to have strong principles and not be guided by financial incentives alone? Sure. But would it make more sense to have a solid regulatory framework to start with, as opposed to being loosey goosey for a very long time and then course correcting in a way that evaporates billions in value overnight from domestic and foreign investors? Countries and companies have a lot in common. Consider this analogy…

> I, for one, am happy that China is tripping over itself and will give us a bit more room to breathe and figure out our own mess, so that when the inevitable takeover of Taiwan and all the other shit storms happen in the future, we'll be at least a tiny bit more prepared.

A China with a stable regulatory regime is probably preferable over a China that is prepared to do short-term self-harm in return for its long-term strategy objectives. This just reinforces that there is no transparency in policy-making, and there is no room for capital to act as a tempering voice. Moreover, Taiwan's economy is heavily linked to China - China is Taiwan's biggest trading partner. If China has no regard for domestic or foreign capital and industry, it almost certainly doesn't care about disrupting Taiwan economically and forcing it to submission without firing a bullet.

OT: I see a lot of Chinese experts rationalize recent moves by saying it's all foreshadowed in CCP's public policy goals and so on. If that was the case, I would expect at least domestic investors to have priced-in the impact of the recent changes well ahead of time.

Post reply on HN