I think that point in the original article isnt 100% accurate. The ‘People Nearby’ feature can be turned off in the settings, but you also have to click into i

I think that point in the original article isnt 100% accurate. The ‘People Nearby’ feature can be turned off in the settings, but you also have to click into it to use it - it’s by no means automatic (ie. you sign into Wechat and suddenly it start getting random harassing messages). Your visibility expires after a few minutes. It’s never been used as a feature to add a contact - in China is was mostly used for hookups in the early days, and now if you’re in a big city it’s mostly prostitutes and/or people trying to sell products. Chinese women using that feature would absolutely have received ‘stalking’ messages, but that’s basically the same as women receive on any kind of dating or hookup app. The only difference I can see (speculating somewhat about Indian users) is that Chinese users have always seemed quite happy to use an app for their work/business/friends/school that also includes basically sex-on-demand type features. I know whenever criticisms of Wechat are brought up in the West, a lot of people focus on the fact that how could you recommend this app to your dad or gran or kids, knowing that it has this weird dark and nefarious corner in it. So I dont think it’s fair to say India has a stalking problem based on this - more like, Wechat has a weird feature that enables potential sexual harassment that Chinese users don’t seem to care about.