WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram among apps cut from iPhone app store to comply with censorship demandChina ordered
China ordered Apple to remove some of the world’s most popular chat messaging apps from its app store in the country, the latest example of censorship demands on the iPhone seller in the company’s second-biggest market.
WhatsApp and Threads as well as messaging platforms Signal and Telegram were taken off the Chinese App Store Friday.
Apple said it was told to remove certain apps because of national security concerns, without specifying which.
These messaging apps, which allow users to exchange messages and share files individually and in large groups, combined have around three billion users globally. They can only be accessed in China through virtual private networks that take users outside China’s Great Firewall, but are still commonly used.
Beijing has often viewed such platforms with caution, concerned that these apps could be used by its citizens to spread negative content and cause social unrest. Much of the news China censors at home often makes it beyond the Great Firewall through such channels.
The Cyberspace Administration of China asked Apple to remove WhatsApp and Threads from the App Store because both contain political content that includes problematic mentions of the Chinese president, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Apple spokesperson said that wasn’t part of the reasoning.
The move shrinks the number of foreign chat apps Chinese internet users can use to commun…
Apps such as X were key to disseminating information and videos of protests against Covid rules in China that erupted in late 2022.
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@ISIDEWITH2yrs2Y
How important is it for people to have access to uncensored information, even if it challenges the views of their government?
@9LNV6B32yrs2Y
@9LNTMGGRepublican2yrs2Y
@9LNT9FGRepublican2yrs2Y
@ISIDEWITH2yrs2Y
Do you believe a government should have the power to remove apps from the public's access for reasons of national security?
China is the only country that has institutionalized large-scale IP theft under its joint venture system, which is fundamentally abusive. Meanwhile, the CCP promotes "free trade" and demands full access to US/EU markets. It's time we impose the same restrictions on Chinese companies that they apply to ours.
For a time during the pandemic Signal Messenger was available on the Chinese Apple App Store. Finally, it was possible to speak and text with people in China uncensored.
Unfortunately that was killed off around the end of 2021.
The CCP are paranoid about their public having unmonitored communications. In order to get rid of the CCP and nurture a rise against them from the Chinese public in China, it’s going to take us accepting that Apple are going to have to gradually relocate manufacturing to another country and service might not be possible there at some point. China’s going to get worse before it gets better.
It’s a crazy collaboration of western capitalism and eastern authoritarianism that results in the largest population on earth effectively existing in an artificial and sealed-off greenhouse-like society. You can look in from the outside but it’s a different environment entirely.
It’s like the iron curtain but instead of iron it’s plexiglas.
Remember when the West refused to share Covid vaccine IP ( in a global heath emergency) as signed up to in their own WTO Trips agreement. And demanded by the global South.
Free markets isn’t it.
@ISIDEWITH2yrs2Y
If you had to choose between safety and free access to information, which would you prioritize and why?
@9LNMPD72yrs2Y
@SenateSeatDomDemocrat2yrs2Y
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