Posted on 08/29/2019 2:22:11 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
David, a Chinese American doctor who does not want to use his last name for fear of backlash against his relatives still living in China, noticed his posts on WeChat's Moments — akin to a Facebook news feed — were not going through. Undeterred, he kept sharing politically charged articles.
Within days, he couldn't send messages to any group chat: "Although I was able to read the other people's messages, when I posted my message, nobody could see it. It was like I wasn't there," he says.
David then dialed back his sharing of news articles, limiting his conversations to trivial chitchat and music-sharing. His group chat function was quickly restored. Emboldened, he began sharing his political posts in group chats, only to find himself blocked again.
"Now I am very careful. I feel like this censorship has affected both my psychology and my behavior," says David.
Whether China's government can compel companies to hand over data access is a key question facing the country's major technology companies as they seek a larger share of world markets. For instance, telecommunications giant Huawei is trying to build a mobile network upgrade, known as 5G, around the world and says it would refuse Chinese government requests for data access. But legal experts say national security trumps privacy in China, even if companies put up a fight. U.S. officials allege that Huawei is controlled by the Chinese government, something the company and China's government have repeatedly denied.
"It's a bit of a red herring I think to argue about what the law says or does not say," says Donald Clarke, a George Washington University professor who specializes in Chinese law. Despite economic reforms, Clarke says, "China is essentially a Leninist state in which the government does not recognize any limits on its power."
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
Tencent, the owner of WeChat is directly tied to the PLA.
Just like here in the US by our Gov’t. Twitter, Instagram shadow ban people for wrong think.
Emily Feng is a good reporter.
Yes. FB does it here.
Shadow banning.
Anyway, my sister chose a book written by a Chinese girl who had managed to escape to Hong Kong.
One particularly haunting chapter told of a woman who had been pronounced dead and was in a wood coffin awaiting cremation when she awoke.
She climbed out of the coffin and returned to her family. rather than welcoming her back, they told her the bureaucracy had listed her as dead, so there were no longer rations available for her. She went to the bureaucracy to try to get the situation reversed to no avail. One sympathetic bureaucrat tried to help (and was eventually the source of the story) but was slapped down by his superiors because the death had been "properly recorded". Totally discouraged, the woman went back to the crematory and got back in her coffin for the inevitable fate pronounced upon her.
Shut it down.
“the Ministry of State Security. “
Over here we call it Facebook.
It might be nice if they could hack US police state agencies. Then the people might be able to find out what’s going on.
Try posting a picture of Winnie the Pooh on WeChat. It won’t last long
They have more censors than Facebook, Twitter and Instagram combined.
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