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Not a big fan of this. It was weird having a Wechat call alongside my wife talking to her grandmother in china basically under the assumption that this may be t

Not a big fan of this. It was weird having a Wechat call alongside my wife talking to her grandmother in china basically under the assumption that this may be the last time we talk to her ever because wechat is going to be blocked. Later we learned that it was only going to be removed from app stores, which is easy enough for me to work around. But I really don't appreciate this move by the government. Not to understate all the awful things that the CCP has done and is continuing to do, but I'd rather not see the USA become the authoritarian government that it's trying to combat. How about ordering app stores to put a warning label that the app may be leaking data to hostile foreign governments, rather than taking away MY choice to use the app?

CGamesPlay 6y ago
I don't understand. There aren't any other ways for you to make a call to China? Does China block Skype, WhatsApp? Genuine questions.
- helen___keller 6y ago
  From my understanding they are both blocked (or atleast not available on chinese app stores). I believe imessage & facetime would work, except my relatives don't have iPhones. Realistically, if it came down to it my plan was to buy a VPN to china, and if that wasn't good enough to unlock wechat, to send relatives an iPhone. A simple app store block is a lot easier to get around, luckily.
  - derwiki 6y ago
    OT: is there a trick to getting a VPN that works reliably? I’ve tried a different one each time I’ve visited and none have worked well enough for basic web browsing
    - helen___keller 6y ago
      Are you talking about a VPN into china or a VPN out to the western internet? For the latter, I don't know if this still works but last time I visited China my Google Fi plan (which has a built in VPN https://support.google.com/fi/answer/9040000?hl=en https://support.google.com/fi/answer/9040000?hl=en ) actually worked with no further changes, so I was able to pretend I was on western internet over 4G the entire time I was in China. This was in early 2019. Which is lucky for me because the school VPN I was initially relying on stopped working halfway through the trip.
- derwiki 6y ago
  China blocks WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Google Search. Never tried Skype.
- jhart99 6y ago
  Skype as of 2019 was working. Whatsapp was blocked a while ago. Currently I know that Teams and Zoom both work into or out of China. There is a new WeChat clone that popped up when all of this started that was marketed in China as a way to evade this ban for people that needed to talk with others outside of China, but I don't remember the name at the moment.

CGamesPlay 6y ago

I don't understand. There aren't any other ways for you to make a call to China? Does China block Skype, WhatsApp? Genuine questions.

helen___keller 6y ago
From my understanding they are both blocked (or atleast not available on chinese app stores). I believe imessage & facetime would work, except my relatives don't have iPhones. Realistically, if it came down to it my plan was to buy a VPN to china, and if that wasn't good enough to unlock wechat, to send relatives an iPhone. A simple app store block is a lot easier to get around, luckily.
- derwiki 6y ago
  OT: is there a trick to getting a VPN that works reliably? I’ve tried a different one each time I’ve visited and none have worked well enough for basic web browsing
  - helen___keller 6y ago
    Are you talking about a VPN into china or a VPN out to the western internet? For the latter, I don't know if this still works but last time I visited China my Google Fi plan (which has a built in VPN https://support.google.com/fi/answer/9040000?hl=en https://support.google.com/fi/answer/9040000?hl=en ) actually worked with no further changes, so I was able to pretend I was on western internet over 4G the entire time I was in China. This was in early 2019. Which is lucky for me because the school VPN I was initially relying on stopped working halfway through the trip.
derwiki 6y ago
China blocks WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Google Search. Never tried Skype.
jhart99 6y ago
Skype as of 2019 was working. Whatsapp was blocked a while ago. Currently I know that Teams and Zoom both work into or out of China. There is a new WeChat clone that popped up when all of this started that was marketed in China as a way to evade this ban for people that needed to talk with others outside of China, but I don't remember the name at the moment.