WhatsApp, the most popular messaging service has been disrupted by
Chinese government. The government has stepped up the security ahead of
upcoming Communist Party meeting.
The messaging service owned by Facebook has started going offline more than a week ago in China. The government is heavily tightening up the security ahead Communist Party’s national congress, which is organized every five years. The Chinese regime is increasing the censorship in the country.
Recently WeChat, the most used messaging app in China has publicly accepted collecting and sharing the sensitive user data with the government. The Chinese regime has been the center of criticism for violating the privacy of Chinese citizens. The government recently passed a rule that will let authorities to access and seize citizen’s digital data and assets without the need of any warrant.
WhatsApp is the only Facebook-owned service that was allowed in China. The step to tighten censorship is part of China’s agenda of online policing. WhatsApp started going down last week, users were not able to use any of the services. Text messages, voice and video calls seemed to be working on Tuesday but the multimedia content was not going through.
The Chinese regime has issued new rules that require tech companies to store user data and share it with the authorities. WhatsApp, on the other hand, offers end-to-end encryption. Other global services like Facebook, Gmail, Viber are already blocked in China. Users might consider using VPN servers to access these online services.
Blocking WhatsApp in China might not affect many users. Most of the Chinese users are on WeChat for the communication. However posts on the Chinese social network, Weibo are not very welcoming. Many users in China are relying on WhatsApp for international communications. One of the users has posted a frustrating post saying, “I can live without the others (applications), but blocking WhatsApp is driving me crazy.”
The messaging service owned by Facebook has started going offline more than a week ago in China. The government is heavily tightening up the security ahead Communist Party’s national congress, which is organized every five years. The Chinese regime is increasing the censorship in the country.
Recently WeChat, the most used messaging app in China has publicly accepted collecting and sharing the sensitive user data with the government. The Chinese regime has been the center of criticism for violating the privacy of Chinese citizens. The government recently passed a rule that will let authorities to access and seize citizen’s digital data and assets without the need of any warrant.
WhatsApp is the only Facebook-owned service that was allowed in China. The step to tighten censorship is part of China’s agenda of online policing. WhatsApp started going down last week, users were not able to use any of the services. Text messages, voice and video calls seemed to be working on Tuesday but the multimedia content was not going through.
The Chinese regime has issued new rules that require tech companies to store user data and share it with the authorities. WhatsApp, on the other hand, offers end-to-end encryption. Other global services like Facebook, Gmail, Viber are already blocked in China. Users might consider using VPN servers to access these online services.
Blocking WhatsApp in China might not affect many users. Most of the Chinese users are on WeChat for the communication. However posts on the Chinese social network, Weibo are not very welcoming. Many users in China are relying on WhatsApp for international communications. One of the users has posted a frustrating post saying, “I can live without the others (applications), but blocking WhatsApp is driving me crazy.”
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