Apple said it complied with orders from the Chinese government to remove the Meta-owned WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China. Apple also removed Telegram and Signal from China.
The New York Times similarly wrote that “a person briefed on the situation said the Chinese government had found content on WhatsApp and Threads about China’s president, Xi Jinping, that was inflammatory and violated the country’s cybersecurity laws. The specifics of what was in the content was unclear, the person said.”
“These apps and many foreign apps are normally blocked on Chinese networks by the ‘Great Firewall’—the country’s extensive cybersystem of censorship—and can only be used with a virtual private network or other proxy tools,” Reuters wrote.
“For years, Apple has bowed to Beijing’s demands that it block an array of apps, including newspapers, VPNs, and encrypted messaging services,” The New York Times noted yesterday.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The New York Times similarly wrote that "a person briefed on the situation said the Chinese government had found content on WhatsApp and Threads about China’s president, Xi Jinping, that was inflammatory and violated the country’s cybersecurity laws.
WhatsApp, Threads, Telegram, and Signal were reportedly still available on Apple devices in Hong Kong and Macau, China’s special administrative regions.
The House Commerce Committee last month voted 50–0 to approve a bill that would force TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the company or lose access to the US market.
US lawmakers argue that TikTok poses national security risks, saying that China can use the app to obtain sensitive personal data and manipulate US public opinion.
Stewart reportedly told members of his staff that Apple executives were concerned about potential show topics related to China and artificial intelligence.
“For years, Apple has bowed to Beijing’s demands that it block an array of apps, including newspapers, VPNs, and encrypted messaging services,” The New York Times noted yesterday.
The original article contains 519 words, the summary contains 164 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Yes, use an Android phone (which you can sideoad apks on), preferably with a custom ROM and Tor, if you have to be in China for whatever reason.
Doesn’t matter where you are. Side loading is a must have for any device, especially phones because a lot of their functions require installing applications. This is like saying privacy is only important if you have something to hide. People are under the assumption that just by enabling side loading they’ll open up their phones to viruses or something. If you don’t need to just stick to your regular app store but having the option is important. If everything you do on your phone is connected to a single company then you aren’t private, it’s only an illusion of privacy.
Oh, certainly I would advocate using Android anywhere, but especially China.
Just be careful if the trusted download sources also get blocked.
I know sideloading is a big concern for the folks over at Signal. They’ve been worried about compromised APKs floating around.
Yeah, Signal is a funny one. Claim to be about privacy and then don’t put their app on F-Droid.
They had a reasonable argument a long time ago. They didn’t want fdroid to sign their app. They wanted to sign their own app. But now fdroid supports reproducible builds where the app developer signs their own app. So that argument has been addressed and they still haven’t done it.
I think The signal leadership is still emotional about the big debate at the time
You can’t even sideload on ios can you? So if Apple removes it from the app store you’re shit outta luck?
Fuck apple. But it stuff like this that makes me have no sympathy for people who buy iphones.
Edit: also fuck China. Just being thorough
So if Apple removes it from the app store you’re shit outta luck?
Not if you’ve installed it before, in which case you can download it from a not-very-well-known purchase history.
You can sideload in a way, but it’s a bit annoying. Unless you pay for an Apple Developer account (IIRC about 100$ a year), you’ll have to re-sideload the app every 7 days.
What a stupid thing. What is this preventing? Like if Apple is trying to prevent you from side loading a malicious app, it’s cool if it’s only malicious for a week?
You can sideload on iOS. It’s not nearly as easy it is on Android, but it’s not hard. Any of us that are developing are doing it consistently.
That said. Sideloading isn’t exactly easy when China’w great firewall is blocking direct download sites and monitoring / censoring search engines, VPNs, ISPs, etc. Things are not like they are in the west.
Only government backdoor unencrypted communications allowed, as is normal in dictatorships.
