11 ms·

Honest question for Chinese users of WeChat: have you ever thought twice about WeChat posts and communications, whether they'll be deemed "acceptable" to censor

Honest question for Chinese users of WeChat: have you ever thought twice about WeChat posts and communications, whether they'll be deemed "acceptable" to censors? Everyone I know self-censors nearly constantly, if unconsciously. A good example: in a discussion of this case I was reading today in Chinese the author ironically noted that he couldn't summarize the US government's position because in a large WeChat group the content would be "deemed as against the rules" (视为违规) Such is the state of WeChat discourse in 2020.

mantap 6y ago
I don't use WeChat myself but it seems WeChat is the modern equivalent of sending mail into or inside the Soviet Union. You know it will be read by censors, but what is the alternative? Not sending mail?
- plandis 6y ago
  > Not sending mail? Is sending physical mail / calling someone on the phone impossible in China?
  - YetAnotherNick 6y ago
    That is even easier to monitor, right?
- toomanybeersies 6y ago
  Voice calls are a slightly more "secure" alternative to text messaging. It's more resource intensive to store and analyse audio/video than text, and less accurate to boot. It's easier to run `SELECT * FROM messages where messages.body LIKE '%tiananmen square%'` than it is to run speech-to-text over bulk data and run the same search. Obviously that's a trivial example, but digital text (i.e. not handwritten) is always going to be easier to parse than speech.
solaarphunk 6y ago
No. I need it to conduct business, and that's more important to me than posting or discussing controversial topics. People in China literally do not use email, so this is the only effective method to get things done (which I'm totally ok with!). This ban would be an absolute disaster for me, given that my entire rolodex are WeChat contacts, not email addresses. I also feel for my friends who have family in China, and want to stay connected with them through a medium that is widely adopted. There is a cultural standard that is just different in China when it comes to free speech, and it's hard for most people in the US to accept that.
- hurrdurr2 6y ago
  The average American has no idea how disruptive this is to the Chinese American community; as you stated they basically do not use email, and this is essentially the only way to communicate to friends and family in China. I know a lot of older Chinese Americans who were freaking out for weeks because banning this app would essentially cut them off with no clear alternatives. As to the censorship point, from my experience using wechat in the past people rarely discuss politics on there, unless it's to make fun of the US political reality TV. Perhaps not actively discussing internal Chinese politics is considered a form of self-censorship.
  - godelski 6y ago
    If you willingly talk about other politics but not your own, that does seem to be a bit of self-censorship. I mean in that case it does demonstrate that they aren't just avoiding politics in general (out of lack of interest). That or turning a blind eye, but that may or may not be meaningfully different.
  - apta 6y ago
    So you're admitting that WeChat is too big to fail. Let them be banned (the same way the CCP bans external apps) and let them get a taste of their own medicine.
- castratikron 6y ago
  Maybe they will decouple the app from the backend. Publish the interface, set up an auth system and let the community build their own apps to interface with it. That's the reason email still exists today and will continue to exist long after today's fad app goes out of style.
justicezyx 6y ago
I never discuss political issues on wechat. On the one hand, I am risking causing the group I am a member of to be banned, or my personal data being locked out from myself. On the other hand, my friends are mostly higher class of the society that naturally align with the government, just like elite capitalists like neoliberal doctrine. The discussion seldom ends in pleasant outcomes.
fiblye 6y ago
I’m not Chinese, but I do fear what I say on wechat because I know there’s a possibility I’ll be blocked from entering China again, or worse, blocked from exiting. I also fear what I say on American sites for similar reasons, and because I’ve dealt with normal people trying to hunt me down just because of online comments.
- yrlihuan 6y ago
  As far as I know, Chinese government doesn't ask for your social media accounts but the US does. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/20190604_collection-of-social-media-identifiers-from-U.-S.-visa-applicants.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/2...
  - philliphaydon 6y ago
    china probably doesn’t need to ask. They already know who you are and what your social media is.
    - mywittyname 6y ago
      The US Government only "asks" because it further benefits them. Maybe falsifying the documents counts as another charge to pressure someone they are holding, or legal counsel suggested it to ensure that any information found could be readily used against the person in a legal preceding, or plausible deniability cover for FOIA requests. I can think of a lot of ways that asking someone for something you already know about can be beneficial and no ways that it is detrimental.
      - unishark 6y ago
        I think you overestimate them. Sometimes 100 percent of government paperwork consists of telling them stuff they should already know.
      - toomanybeersies 6y ago
        I was told (but don't quote me on this) that this is the reason why they require you to answer so many questions as part of the ESTA process. It more or less serves to cover the govt's ass and give cause for deportation if you lie on your application. They used to ask if you had been involved in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. It still asks > Do you seek to engage in or have you ever engaged in terrorist activities, espionage, sabotage, or genocide? I don't think anybody would ever seriously answer "yes" to that question, but if the US government wants to deport an individual and it's discovered they lied on their ESTA application, it's more straightforward to deport them.
lhorie 6y ago
I don't use wechat myself but my wife is chinese. From what she tells me, many of her mainland china childhood friends, (including those she considered progressive) strongly disagree with many ideas americans consider fundamentally correct. For example, it's pretty normal for Americans to bicker about politics and criticize the government, especially because of its highly polarized political landscape. Many mainland chinese vehemently defend the idea that the government is truly representative of the people (similar to how the US constitution envisioned the state being a true representation of the People) Debating that the government is an evil brainwashing machine with these people would be akin to coming out as gay in a conservative religious family, i.e. it would be bound to negatively affect relationships
- mav3rick 6y ago
  "government is truly representative of the people" - how can they say that when there are no elections in China.
  - edwinyzh 6y ago
    Before 1949 China was dominated by KMT, and then KMT got kicked out to Taiwan by CCP. The question is, why CCP won given that KMT is backed by the US (advanced weapons supply, money, and so on) while CCP was so weak in terms of army? Because the vast majority of the people (most are farmers and industry workers) joined and helped CCP. I think that's why.
    - mav3rick 6y ago
      If the govt is so confident they can have an election
      - edwinyzh 6y ago
        And then let the ordinary people to elect a president like Trump who "knows anything better then everyone else" and just got laughed at by the entire World in an UN conference? No, not a good thing in my view. I prefer a team of government which has proved it has a true vision, which has proved its ability to execute the vision, which has proved its ability to the lead the people to a better future, which has proved its ability to protect the people from imperialism such as what we're seeing in recent years, which is aiming at and actually eliminating poverty from the vast majority of people... rather than a government which is elected by big corps. Edit 1: BTW, I myself believed in the so-called US-style democracy and election, until I saw what happened in those "taught by the US" democracy countries such as the Middle-east, Ukraine, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, several South American countries, and especially, in America itself, in the past decades, especially in recent years. Trust me, I believed it in my heart. Edit 2: I just got to know the name of Andre Vltchek the independent journalist who got killed recently, I read several excerpts of his reports. I think he knows something about the international things.
zhte415 6y ago
I've noticed the use of WeChat has changed quite a bit for over the past 4 years: Use of the 'Moments' function (a photo-orientated miniblog) that was quite popular when WeChat was newer has declined significantly and is not mainly focused on self-promotion (selling products, often food products) via WeChat, the odd personal post, photos of the odd teambuilding exercise. Groups popular for colleagues, ex-colleagues, ex-classmates to keep in contact with each other, even this use-case has been cracked down on especially international companies. The demographic for these friends/colleagues is mainly 20s-40s professionals in business services or IT; out of ~500 contacts there'll typically be 10-15 Moment posts. In chats people ask about VPNs and such things offline. Political discussion for younger people happens much more on Weibo than WeChat. For older people I see using on the bus or subway Groups are still a big social thing, and this group isn't going to be very anti-government as they're the generation that's benefited from the housing and associated booms of the last couple of decades. Two anecdotes that partially answer your question.
gaoshan 6y ago
"have you ever thought twice about WeChat posts and communications, whether they'll be deemed "acceptable" to censors?" Many Chinese do indeed think about this. I've heard people quite literally say, "Don't put that in the chat, we don't want trouble". I've seen group chats get blocked for saying the "wrong" thing. I also hate to see the US essentially giving credence to China's approach of blocking things by following suit. The US could take the high road (there are a number of legal approaches that would help and still be "American" in spirit) but has chosen to take the bait instead.
- toomanybeersies 6y ago
  > Don't put that in the chat, we don't want trouble I've heard people say exactly the same thing about Facebook. I guess the difference is that it's usually in regards to incriminating messages (e.g. drugs), and not censorship of ideological speech. Self-censoring on non-secure, non-anonymous messaging platforms, and especially in group chats, is not necessarily a bad thing. Consider anything you write in a group chat as public, because there's it easily could be.

mantap 6y ago

I don't use WeChat myself but it seems WeChat is the modern equivalent of sending mail into or inside the Soviet Union. You know it will be read by censors, but what is the alternative? Not sending mail?

plandis 6y ago
> Not sending mail? Is sending physical mail / calling someone on the phone impossible in China?
- YetAnotherNick 6y ago
  That is even easier to monitor, right?
toomanybeersies 6y ago
Voice calls are a slightly more "secure" alternative to text messaging. It's more resource intensive to store and analyse audio/video than text, and less accurate to boot. It's easier to run `SELECT * FROM messages where messages.body LIKE '%tiananmen square%'` than it is to run speech-to-text over bulk data and run the same search. Obviously that's a trivial example, but digital text (i.e. not handwritten) is always going to be easier to parse than speech.

solaarphunk 6y ago

No. I need it to conduct business, and that's more important to me than posting or discussing controversial topics. People in China literally do not use email, so this is the only effective method to get things done (which I'm totally ok with!). This ban would be an absolute disaster for me, given that my entire rolodex are WeChat contacts, not email addresses. I also feel for my friends who have family in China, and want to stay connected with them through a medium that is widely adopted. There is a cultural standard that is just different in China when it comes to free speech, and it's hard for most people in the US to accept that.

hurrdurr2 6y ago
The average American has no idea how disruptive this is to the Chinese American community; as you stated they basically do not use email, and this is essentially the only way to communicate to friends and family in China. I know a lot of older Chinese Americans who were freaking out for weeks because banning this app would essentially cut them off with no clear alternatives. As to the censorship point, from my experience using wechat in the past people rarely discuss politics on there, unless it's to make fun of the US political reality TV. Perhaps not actively discussing internal Chinese politics is considered a form of self-censorship.
- godelski 6y ago
  If you willingly talk about other politics but not your own, that does seem to be a bit of self-censorship. I mean in that case it does demonstrate that they aren't just avoiding politics in general (out of lack of interest). That or turning a blind eye, but that may or may not be meaningfully different.
- apta 6y ago
  So you're admitting that WeChat is too big to fail. Let them be banned (the same way the CCP bans external apps) and let them get a taste of their own medicine.
castratikron 6y ago
Maybe they will decouple the app from the backend. Publish the interface, set up an auth system and let the community build their own apps to interface with it. That's the reason email still exists today and will continue to exist long after today's fad app goes out of style.

justicezyx 6y ago

I never discuss political issues on wechat. On the one hand, I am risking causing the group I am a member of to be banned, or my personal data being locked out from myself. On the other hand, my friends are mostly higher class of the society that naturally align with the government, just like elite capitalists like neoliberal doctrine. The discussion seldom ends in pleasant outcomes.

fiblye 6y ago

I’m not Chinese, but I do fear what I say on wechat because I know there’s a possibility I’ll be blocked from entering China again, or worse, blocked from exiting. I also fear what I say on American sites for similar reasons, and because I’ve dealt with normal people trying to hunt me down just because of online comments.

yrlihuan 6y ago
As far as I know, Chinese government doesn't ask for your social media accounts but the US does. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/20190604_collection-of-social-media-identifiers-from-U.-S.-visa-applicants.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/2...
- philliphaydon 6y ago
  china probably doesn’t need to ask. They already know who you are and what your social media is.
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    The US Government only "asks" because it further benefits them. Maybe falsifying the documents counts as another charge to pressure someone they are holding, or legal counsel suggested it to ensure that any information found could be readily used against the person in a legal preceding, or plausible deniability cover for FOIA requests. I can think of a lot of ways that asking someone for something you already know about can be beneficial and no ways that it is detrimental.
    - unishark 6y ago
      I think you overestimate them. Sometimes 100 percent of government paperwork consists of telling them stuff they should already know.
    - toomanybeersies 6y ago
      I was told (but don't quote me on this) that this is the reason why they require you to answer so many questions as part of the ESTA process. It more or less serves to cover the govt's ass and give cause for deportation if you lie on your application. They used to ask if you had been involved in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. It still asks > Do you seek to engage in or have you ever engaged in terrorist activities, espionage, sabotage, or genocide? I don't think anybody would ever seriously answer "yes" to that question, but if the US government wants to deport an individual and it's discovered they lied on their ESTA application, it's more straightforward to deport them.

lhorie 6y ago

I don't use wechat myself but my wife is chinese. From what she tells me, many of her mainland china childhood friends, (including those she considered progressive) strongly disagree with many ideas americans consider fundamentally correct. For example, it's pretty normal for Americans to bicker about politics and criticize the government, especially because of its highly polarized political landscape. Many mainland chinese vehemently defend the idea that the government is truly representative of the people (similar to how the US constitution envisioned the state being a true representation of the People) Debating that the government is an evil brainwashing machine with these people would be akin to coming out as gay in a conservative religious family, i.e. it would be bound to negatively affect relationships

mav3rick 6y ago
"government is truly representative of the people" - how can they say that when there are no elections in China.
- edwinyzh 6y ago
  Before 1949 China was dominated by KMT, and then KMT got kicked out to Taiwan by CCP. The question is, why CCP won given that KMT is backed by the US (advanced weapons supply, money, and so on) while CCP was so weak in terms of army? Because the vast majority of the people (most are farmers and industry workers) joined and helped CCP. I think that's why.
  - mav3rick 6y ago
    If the govt is so confident they can have an election
    - edwinyzh 6y ago
      And then let the ordinary people to elect a president like Trump who "knows anything better then everyone else" and just got laughed at by the entire World in an UN conference? No, not a good thing in my view. I prefer a team of government which has proved it has a true vision, which has proved its ability to execute the vision, which has proved its ability to the lead the people to a better future, which has proved its ability to protect the people from imperialism such as what we're seeing in recent years, which is aiming at and actually eliminating poverty from the vast majority of people... rather than a government which is elected by big corps. Edit 1: BTW, I myself believed in the so-called US-style democracy and election, until I saw what happened in those "taught by the US" democracy countries such as the Middle-east, Ukraine, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, several South American countries, and especially, in America itself, in the past decades, especially in recent years. Trust me, I believed it in my heart. Edit 2: I just got to know the name of Andre Vltchek the independent journalist who got killed recently, I read several excerpts of his reports. I think he knows something about the international things.

zhte415 6y ago

I've noticed the use of WeChat has changed quite a bit for over the past 4 years: Use of the 'Moments' function (a photo-orientated miniblog) that was quite popular when WeChat was newer has declined significantly and is not mainly focused on self-promotion (selling products, often food products) via WeChat, the odd personal post, photos of the odd teambuilding exercise. Groups popular for colleagues, ex-colleagues, ex-classmates to keep in contact with each other, even this use-case has been cracked down on especially international companies. The demographic for these friends/colleagues is mainly 20s-40s professionals in business services or IT; out of ~500 contacts there'll typically be 10-15 Moment posts. In chats people ask about VPNs and such things offline. Political discussion for younger people happens much more on Weibo than WeChat. For older people I see using on the bus or subway Groups are still a big social thing, and this group isn't going to be very anti-government as they're the generation that's benefited from the housing and associated booms of the last couple of decades. Two anecdotes that partially answer your question.

gaoshan 6y ago

"have you ever thought twice about WeChat posts and communications, whether they'll be deemed "acceptable" to censors?" Many Chinese do indeed think about this. I've heard people quite literally say, "Don't put that in the chat, we don't want trouble". I've seen group chats get blocked for saying the "wrong" thing. I also hate to see the US essentially giving credence to China's approach of blocking things by following suit. The US could take the high road (there are a number of legal approaches that would help and still be "American" in spirit) but has chosen to take the bait instead.

toomanybeersies 6y ago
> Don't put that in the chat, we don't want trouble I've heard people say exactly the same thing about Facebook. I guess the difference is that it's usually in regards to incriminating messages (e.g. drugs), and not censorship of ideological speech. Self-censoring on non-secure, non-anonymous messaging platforms, and especially in group chats, is not necessarily a bad thing. Consider anything you write in a group chat as public, because there's it easily could be.