I don't get your worries. Yes your conversation will be monitored. But you know that. And let's face it, 99.9% of your conversation won't be political (I'm just making an educated guess here; I don't know you), nor about sensitive subjects.
If you want to talk about sensitive subjects, you can always ask those friends to get off Wechat and on a different channel, specifically for those subjects.
For the 99.9% of fun, personal conversations that are about cat photo sharing, pizza recipes and the latest celebrities, Wechat is not a problem. CCP really doesn't care about those, they just care that nobody on Wechat causes trouble (by their definition of "trouble").
When do you accidentally say something considered not OK, the worst that happens is that the message gets deleted. They don't go after people unless you're instigating mass protests or something like that.
You won't get advertisements about CCP propaganda. Unless you subscribe to those channels yourself.
> If you want to talk about sensitive subjects, you can always ask those friends to get off Wechat and on a different channel, specifically for those subjects.
Isn't you device already potentially compromised when you install WeChat?
On iOS, every app is fully sandboxed from all others. You can't even run background processes on iOS. Anything that modifies system behavior (such as activating a VPN that snoops traffic) requires system confirmation dialogs. No compromise can happen here.
On Android, isolation is not as strict and there are more holes. But each app runs as a separate Linux user, and with each Android version Google locks down the security model more.
Rootkits like you find on Windows just aren't possible on iOS and Android.
I believe they still allow clipboard snooping. I can't confirm nor deny whether Wechat does this.
Apple and Google should do something about that and further restrict their security model.
I can tell you that AI, NLP, software, Portland Protest, and Donald Trump all aren't sensitive subjects.
Tiananmen obviously is.
But let's face it. Are you going to talk about Tiananmen and similar subjects all day long? Most Chinese people are apolitical. As I said, 99.9% of your conversations won't be about anything political.
Yes I get that you're ideologically opposed to censorship, and that we "shouldn't have to" move to a different platform to talk about certain subjects. I agree.
I'm not talking about ideology, I'm talking about what's practical. You want to put up a barrier between yourself and your Chinese friends on the odd chance that 0.1% of your conversations might be about Tiananmen, and you can't be bothered to move to another platform? You have to pick your battles.
Let's face it: even if you refuse to use Wechat due to ideology, you won't change anything about the censorship policy. And your Chinese friends clearly don't care, and if the Chinese government answers to anybody then it would be first to them, and maybe a few kilometers behind them, be interested in what you think. So why are you taking this ideological stance for them? Isn't Chinese censorship mainly their problem and not yours?
If you want to convince your Chinese friends of how evil CCP is, and therefore that they should ban Wechat, go ahead. But don't you think that it should be their choice and not yours?
> You want to put up a barrier between yourself and your Chinese friends on the odd chance that 0.1% of your conversations might be about Tiananmen, and you can't be bothered to move to another platform?
This kind of thinking is exactly why WeChat should be banned. China has banned every other means of communication, so it's the only option. Banning WeChat isn't a provocation, it's reciprocation.
Reciprocation, for what? For censoring their own citizen? That's like saying China should sanction the US for crimes during BLM.
Of course censorship isn't okay, but US doesn't get to play world police.
And you're supporting this attack in order to spite China, while totally ignoring practical outcomes for Chinese people, the very people you claim to support?
"We support you, we just hate your government. So we'll forcefully liberate you, even if you didn't ask for liberation."
I get the feeling that I'll be downvoted again if I don't make myself clear with a disclaimer, so here goes: I support the idea of democracy in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the current movement has many problems (understatement) and cannot be called a true democratic movement. Here are some Hong Kong'ers with a different perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk-m6FDMYg0
Note: there's no great firewall in Hong Kong, so it's normal that they post to Youtube.
Those US flag wavers were limited to some in Hong Kong only. The rest of the population (including Hong Kong) has a very different opinion. See the above videos, posted by Hong Kong'ers.
Furthermore, how exactly does the US plan to liberate people? Here's what's done so far:
- Hong Kong Human Rights bill, which damages the Hong Kong economy.
- Banning Chinese companies, which damages both the Chinese and the US economy.
I believe that your intentions are genuine, but I don't believe the US govt's intentions are. To them it's all a political game, like "liberating" Iraq from that evil dictator who conjured weapons of mass destruction out of nothing.
So? In 7.5 million people, you can find examples of pretty much any opinion you can think of. I can find videos from Westerners who will lecture you like they're reading from a CCP propaganda script.
> Those US flag wavers were limited to some in Hong Kong only.
Of course: anyone who did that in China outside of Hong Kong would have been arrested immediately, just like anyone who would try to do that now inside of Hong Kong (due to the new national security law).
> The rest of the population (including Hong Kong) has a very different opinion.
I'm not so sure, even before the national security law, a call for liberation would have been pushing the boundaries. If an opinion is literally illegal, it's impossible to say with any kind of reliability how prevalent that opinion truly is (or what kinds of opinions people would hold, without the threats and their second and third order effects).
> Furthermore, how exactly does the US plan to liberate people? Here's what's done so far:
> - Hong Kong Human Rights bill, which damages the Hong Kong economy.
> - Banning Chinese companies, which damages both the Chinese and the US economy.
The most obvious is to drop the economics uber alles outlook, and limit engagement to areas that might eventually lead to positive results on the human rights front.
>>> "We support you, we just hate your government. So we'll forcefully liberate you, even if you didn't ask for liberation."
>> You do recall there's a pretty high-profile movement of Chinese citizens, some of whom were waving American flags and asking for liberation?
> Furthermore, how exactly does the US plan to liberate people? Here's what's done so far:
I didn't say it had a plan or that it could, I was merely pointing out that as a matter of fact, that liberation was wanted and asked for.
Did you even watch the video? They aren’t talking about supporting CCP, they’re examining what’s wrong with some of the protest movement’s attitude. There is literally zero CCP-sourced material in what they say.
When someone has an opinion that differs from yours, you downplay it as being an exception to the rule. For some reason, you stick to the default position that most Chinese people overwhelmingly want liberation from US, and that any evidence to the contrary is an anomaly.
It’s up to you to believe what you want. But I will let you know that I disagree, and that you ought to reexamine your axioms.
> Did you even watch the video? They aren’t talking about supporting CCP, they’re examining what’s wrong with some of the protest movement’s attitude. There is literally zero CCP-sourced material in what they say.
I watched a bit, but it seem to start reason from some East vs. West stereotypes so I took a peek at some of their other videos. One "National Security vs Democrazy: Analyzed with Facts and Logic" appeared to try to justify the new HK National Security law by appealing to superficial readings of some foreign laws, and the others like "Italians: "HK Separatists are Traitors, EU is Failing" - Keybros SOFTtalk Ep.2 🇮🇹 (3/3)" appear to be collections interview of random Westerners with rather fringe views. If they said anything interesting, feel free to summarize them in text, but I think I have better things to do with 20 minutes.
> When someone has an opinion that differs from yours, you downplay it as being an exception to the rule. For some reason, you stick to the default position that most Chinese people overwhelmingly want liberation from US, and that any evidence to the contrary is an anomaly.
You know, I didn't actually say any of what you claim I did.
I didn't watch all of their videos, but you certainly have a point with regards to them interviewing people with fringe views. For what it's worth, I've sent this feedback to them and they say they plan to do something about it.
> Reciprocation, for what? For censoring their own citizen?
It doesn't matter why they are banning every other means of communication. The fact is, they are banned.
It's not a matter of spite. In every other area of international relations, reciprocation is how things get done. You tariff me, I tariff you. You restrict visas for me, I restrict visas for you.
It would suck for Chinese people overseas. That would be unfortunate. They should petition their government to unban a few means of communication!
Your tit-for-tat comparison makes no sense. Censoring messages on Wechat does not affect US. You’re making up a non-existant attack from China against US. Your attitude is 100% spite, you're just rationalizing it.
The CCP is absolutely censoring, monitoring and harvesting data from every app that is based and controlled from China, especially WeChat.
That is publicly stated policy.
There is no need for 'tit for tat' apps from China should be banned by every reasonable jurisdiction outside China for that reason alone.
Without even getting complicated, just using EU GDPR as a basis for banning it would be just fine under already established legislation.
We just went through the entire 20th century of trying to overcome such bad regimes, the only reason that China is able to get away with any of it is due to basic economic power i.e. trade interdependance.
So it's time to reconsider and realign - too bad Trump pulled out of the TPP because that would have been a good first step.
Wechat should comply with local laws. I completely agree with that.
But at the same time you're also saying that, regardless of law, the fact that the Chinese government can monitor the data, is justification for banning all Chinese apps.
You're so proud of rule of law, but once it's about China you're throwing rule of law away, and the only reason is because you want to stick it to them?
If you limit your statement to "it should be banned because it violates concrete laws" then I would agree. But "it should be banned because it's Chinese" is absurd and unfair.
Look at the Tiktok ban: they accuse Tiktok of forwarding data to the CCP, yet no concrete evidence of such practice has ever been shown. Everything is based on the speculation that it could happen. Well, okay, we can solve that via a security audit, right? Audit all the infrastructure, all the firewall rules, all the communication channels, and exhaustively prove that privacy laws are being adhered to. But no, nobody's interested in such an investigation. Chinese apps are guilty until proven innocent, and nobody's interested in proof of innocence or proper due process. Is your belief in western values really that shallow?
If the ban is limited to the US only, and if they provide clear conditions on how to resolve this problem (such as pointing out which concrete US data laws are violated, and talking about clear steps towards resolving those violations) then you may have a point.
But the ban is world wide. Even inside China. And there are no conditions, it's a ban that cannot be resolved.
Claims of spying is just an excuse. They want to burn China's prosperity down to the ground.
