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I know a number of Tencent engineers through college and past tech job. There's this game among employees on certain teams - find compromising pics your ex has

I know a number of Tencent engineers through college and past tech job. There's this game among employees on certain teams - find compromising pics your ex has sent through WeChat messaging, and put them side by side with the screenshot of your ex breaking up with you (as in "who's laughing now"). I don't think this is a political / trade issue, but rather a difference in cultural norms. It strikes me when people outside of China willingly send their most private info (including nudes & PII) to WeChat, Grindr, Tiktok, or any other Chinese apps.

stochastic_monk 7y ago
That’s profoundly horrifying. In America, unauthorized dissemination of nude photos is both criminalized and widely reviled. What I don’t know is if it’s that difference or end to end encryption platforms that makes the difference.
- sneak 7y ago
  There are entire websites dedicated to it, and the photographers/subjects willingly provide the data to companies like Facebook and Snapchat under permissive licenses (read the TOS!) in the US. I am not sure the contrast between the US and China is quite as stark as you imagine.
deleted 7y ago
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bwang8 7y ago
Story sounds made up. Definitely not an acceptable cultural norm in China.
yorwba 7y ago
I don't think it's a difference in cultural norms. It's just what happens if you give people access to production databases without oversight. Snapchat [1], Uber [2] and police departments [3] have had employees abuse their database access, and there are probably many more cases that didn't turn up in a quick search. Whether or not a company has proper access control in place is mostly a function of whether they've had a scandal in the past that required them to lock things down. If it were widely known that Tencent employees are spying on WeChat users, they'd probably pretty quickly lose that access to stop the inevitable outrage. [1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwnva7/snapchat-employees-abused-data-access-spy-on-users-snaplion https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwnva7/snapchat-employees... [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/uber-whistleblower-says-employees-used-company-systems-stalk-exes-celebs-n696371 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/uber-whistleblower-sa... [3] https://apnews.com/699236946e3140659fff8a2362e16f43 https://apnews.com/699236946e3140659fff8a2362e16f43
huxflux 7y ago
I call bullshit Mr Trump
verroq 7y ago
Humans being petty and abusing their power for personal revenge has been a global cultural norm for how many millennia?

stochastic_monk 7y ago

That’s profoundly horrifying. In America, unauthorized dissemination of nude photos is both criminalized and widely reviled. What I don’t know is if it’s that difference or end to end encryption platforms that makes the difference.

sneak 7y ago
There are entire websites dedicated to it, and the photographers/subjects willingly provide the data to companies like Facebook and Snapchat under permissive licenses (read the TOS!) in the US. I am not sure the contrast between the US and China is quite as stark as you imagine.

deleted 7y ago

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bwang8 7y ago

Story sounds made up. Definitely not an acceptable cultural norm in China.

yorwba 7y ago

I don't think it's a difference in cultural norms. It's just what happens if you give people access to production databases without oversight. Snapchat [1], Uber [2] and police departments [3] have had employees abuse their database access, and there are probably many more cases that didn't turn up in a quick search. Whether or not a company has proper access control in place is mostly a function of whether they've had a scandal in the past that required them to lock things down. If it were widely known that Tencent employees are spying on WeChat users, they'd probably pretty quickly lose that access to stop the inevitable outrage. [1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwnva7/snapchat-employees-abused-data-access-spy-on-users-snaplion https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwnva7/snapchat-employees... [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/uber-whistleblower-says-employees-used-company-systems-stalk-exes-celebs-n696371 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/uber-whistleblower-sa... [3] https://apnews.com/699236946e3140659fff8a2362e16f43 https://apnews.com/699236946e3140659fff8a2362e16f43

huxflux 7y ago

I call bullshit Mr Trump

verroq 7y ago

Humans being petty and abusing their power for personal revenge has been a global cultural norm for how many millennia?