Censorship and isolation as China bans thousands of mobile apps
globalvoices.org
Research on Apple censorship finds out, as of March 2023, 11,026 out of a total of 40,049 apps were unavailable in China Apple Stores. The ratio of unavailability was 27.53 percent.
  • When the US House of Representatives passed the legislation that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok, a popular video app, to an American company or face being banned in the US, citing national security concerns, the Chinese government criticized the move as “an act of bullying.” Yet, ironically, TikTok is also unavailable in China, and it is not an isolated case. For example, Alibaba’s popular messaging platform, Ding Talk, is also unavailable in China, and its local version is called Ding Ding.
  • A recent research report on Apple censorship in China, “Isolation by Design,” conducted by the App Censorship project under GreatFire, a censorship monitor group based in China, indicates that more than 60 percent of the world’s top 100 apps in China Apple App stores are either unavailable or inaccessible in China. These apps include Google Maps, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Messenger and Twitter.
  • While China has warned the West against economic decoupling, the country’s censorship system is designed for the purpose of isolation, as highlighted by the GreatFire research team.

Aside from the game sector, the App Censorship research team has identified eight sensitive categories from the list of apps banned by Apple in China:

1. Virtual private network – VPN: 240 unavailable apps including Lantern VPN, ProtonVPN, ExpressVPN, Nord VPN.

2. Privacy & Digital Security: 29 unavailable apps including Signal, ProtonMail, DuckDuckGo.

3. LGBTQ+ & Dating: 67 unavailable apps, including Hinge, Adam4Adam, weBelong, and Grindr.

4. News, Media & Information: 170 unavailable apps, including NYTimes, BBC News, and Reuters.

5. Social Media & Communication: 96 unavailable apps, including Skype, LinkedIn, Viber, Damus, and Line.

6. Tibet & Buddhism: 41 unavailable apps, including Himalaya Lib, MonlamGrandTibetanDictionary.

7. Uyghur: 72 unavailable apps, including RFA Uyghur, Hayatnuri, Awazliq Kitap, and UYGHUR MAN.

8. Religion: 144 unavailable apps, including the Bible App by Olive Tree, Quran Majeed, TORAH, JW Library.

  • magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.orgEnglish
    7·
    3 days ago

    What an awful and terrifying thought.

    At least it would be if internet regulation was practically enforceable for anyone other than commercial businesses operating out in the open.

    • General_Effort@lemmy.worldEnglish
      23·
      3 days ago

      it would be if internet regulation was practically enforceable for anyone other than commercial businesses operating out in the open.

      Well, then I guess we just have to call for more government enforcement.

      In the EU, there is certainly more government pressure, instead of just lawsuits between big (or small) players.

      • magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.orgEnglish
        3·
        3 days ago

        The only way to really do that would be to essentially make it impossible to have easy, private, secure, and anonymous access to the internet and freedom respecting computing.

        Those things are, as far as I’m concerned, inalienable human rights.

        If that’s your goal please never touch any regulation involving the internet ever.

        • General_Effort@lemmy.worldEnglish
          22·
          3 days ago

          Hey, I’m just saying how it’s going. Look at, say, threads here about deepfakes. See all the calls for laws and government action. How can that be enforced?

          • magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.orgEnglish
            3·
            3 days ago

            It can’t. Simply put. I mean it’s not even a question of whether we should, its you’re fucking not going to.

            I have a raid array in my basement containing literally terabytes of illegally pirated media. Most people have at least consumed one or two pirated pieces of media.

            How’s the enforcement for those illegal files going?

            • General_Effort@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              2 days ago

              It’s steady pressure and it’s only in one direction. Some countries resist more than others. I’m guessing you are not in the EU, because if so, you’d be aware of the “chat control” push.

              Even so, it’s not the days of Napster anymore. Think about hardware DRM. It stops no one but you, too, paid to have it developed and built into your devices. Think about Content ID. That’s not going away. It’s only going to be expanded. That frog will be boiled.

              Recently, intellectual property has been reframed as being about “consensual use of data”. I think this is proving to be very effective. It’s no longer “piracy” or “theft”, it’s a violation of “consent”. The deepfake issue creates a direct link to sexual aggression. One bill in the US, that ostensibly targets deepfakes, would apply to any movie with a sex scene; making sharing it a federal felony.

              • magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.orgEnglish
                3·
                2 days ago

                And has anyone who’s actually written any of those laws used a computer for more than basic day-to-day office/home tasks?

                I’d love to see how they plan on enforcing that. What are they gonna do, send in a fucking swat team to take anything that doesn’t have hardware level DRM?

                I can’t imagine we’ll get to a world where the only chips that don’t have shit like that are horribly obsolete. Though I could totally see one in which all high-end chipsets do unfortunately.

                This is why I hope RISC-V takes off. The more we can free our hardware/software the better.

                • General_Effort@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  1·
                  2 days ago

                  What are they gonna do, send in a fucking swat team to take anything that doesn’t have hardware level DRM?

                  In a future where this is established, wouldn’t you expect non-compliant hardware to be treated just as drugs or machine guns are treated now?

                  I think that’s hardly an immediate worry, though. Various services already scan for illegal content or suspicious activity. It wouldn’t take much to get ISPs to snitch on their customers.

                  • magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.orgEnglish
                    2·
                    2 days ago

                    Unix Surrealist Tech Mage Webcomics are not supposed to be a documentary lol.

                    I think that’s hardly an immediate worry, though. Various services already scan for illegal content or suspicious activity. It wouldn’t take much to get ISPs to snitch on their customers.

                    Stop using proprietary platforms and services, start bouncing your traffic off of foreign VPNs.

                    The internet was literally built to tear down borders, not help enforce them. Technologists will find a way around the red tape set up by bitter old men in suits.