By Jing Yang
China's do-everything app, WeChat, has become one of the most
powerful tools in Beijing's arsenal for monitoring the public,
censoring speech and punishing people who voice discontent with the
government.
Authorities are increasingly using the app from Tencent Holdings
Ltd. to justify arrests or issue threats, say dissidents, consumers
and security researchers.
Wang Shengsheng, a labor and women's rights lawyer, said
authorities were monitoring her WeChat and text messages earlier
this year so they could gather evidence to thwart her legal
career.
Local public security and party discipline officials in her
hometown also tracked down her father as part of their efforts to
tarnish her reputation, she said.
"People always say that all of your communications on WeChat are
out in the open. I never fully grasped what that meant until the
recent incident," she said. "Now I'm terrified."
A spokesman for Tencent declined to comment. The Cyber
Administration of China and China's Ministry of Public Security
didn't respond to requests for comment.
Released in 2011, WeChat and its domestic sister app, Weixin,
now have--Tencent says--more than 1.2 billion monthly active users
in China, where its pervasiveness extends beyond any app used in
the U.S. In addition to messaging, Chinese consumers use it to
share photos, pay utility bills, hail taxis, get news, book
doctors' appointments and use government services.
Its dominance in Chinese society has become more entrenched this
year due to remote working and learning during the coronavirus
pandemic. Companies and schools have flocked to WeChat Work, a
communication tool for businesses that is integrated with the
WeChat app. In the first quarter this year, governments, businesses
and individuals used WeChat QR codes more than 140 billion times,
according to Tencent. A WeChat QR code is used to make payments and
also when logging onto different devices and accounts.
The Chinese government also tapped Tencent and Alibaba Group
Holding Ltd. to design health-rating systems that make up one of
the main contact-tracing tools to contain the spread of the
coronavirus. The health codes embedded within WeChat and Alipay,
operated by Alibaba affiliate Ant Group Co., have become essential
passes in China for entering residences, office buildings and
accessing public transportation.
But that utility has come with a cost. WeChat was one of the
primary venues where government censors tried to restrict
information during the outbreak in Wuhan.
In addition to taking down content that was deemed sensitive,
users say WeChat routinely blocks accounts for discussing issues
ranging from the pandemic to human rights abuses in the Xinjiang
region. After users' accounts are blocked, police will often
question them.
"I was shocked and befuddled," a Chinese student studying in
Australia, who declined to be named, said of his reaction when his
account was blocked earlier this year for posting comments critical
of the government's handling of the outbreak in Wuhan.
Although he was able to set up a new account with a different
mobile number within a few days, he lost access permanently to tens
of thousands of chat messages with his family, friends and scores
of professional contacts.
"It puts me in a very awkward situation because having your
WeChat blocked means telling others you have dissenting political
views, which is frowned upon when you are looking for a job," he
said.
One Beijing-based user who didn't want to be named said he was
taken in for questioning several days after his WeChat account was
blocked for criticizing China's foreign policy. During the two-hour
interrogation, police officers held printouts of his WeChat chat
logs and read out parts that were critical of the Chinese
leadership. He was released after signing a pledge that he wouldn't
criticize the government again.
The problem for many users is that the app has so thoroughly
permeated everyday life that shutting it off would be like giving
up water or air.
"There are many functions in WeChat that we just can't live
without," said Zhang Qingfang, a Beijing-based human-rights lawyer,
adding that his WeChat communications have also come under
surveillance.
Disturbed by their overdependence on the app, several users
started a campaign earlier this year called "Free From WeChat," in
which they called on peers to migrate to other platforms--like
Telegram--that are believed to be free of Chinese government
interference. They published a manifesto on the Chinese language
blogging site Matters.news, referring to themselves as "digital
immigrants" who wanted to escape China's internet firewall.
After members of the group had convinced a few hundred users to
join Telegram, state security officials began calling them and
their families in for questioning. Those involved say they ended
the campaign in March and told authorities they had no political
motives, but security officials have continued to question and
monitor them.
China's internet firewall has long blocked foreign sites and
messaging apps, including Google, WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook,
but these can be accessed via virtual private networks, or VPNs.
Signal, another messaging app, is available to users of Apple
Inc.'s iOS, but not Android users.
The hassle of setting up a VPN keeps most people from using the
sites and apps, which means that those who try to migrate to more
secure apps can have trouble convincing others to join them.
"Some of my friends and clients switch to Signal or FaceTime for
sensitive conversations. Still, for the majority of people, they
don't think it's absolutely necessary to get over the firewall for
daily communications," said Mr. Zhang.
But disenchantment with WeChat appears to have grown over the
past year, as more evidence emerged that authorities were
increasingly relying on WeChat to control speech and surveil
dissidents.
Downloads of Telegram and Signal in China iOS stores have been
growing steadily over the past few years, according to app tracker
Apptopia, though they still have only a fraction of WeChat's user
base. Both apps provide end-to-end encryption that prevents any
third-party access to communications between the sender and the
receiver.
"I've been calling on my friends in mainland China to switch to
Telegram for the last few years," said a university professor in
Hong Kong. "A lot of them used to think using a VPN service to get
over the firewall was such a bother. Now more and more of them
don't mind this bother."
WeChat uses client-to-server encryption, which grants Tencent
full access to data between senders and recipients, as opposed to
end-to-end encryption, said Fergus Ryan, an analyst at the
Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank
created by the Australian government.
"Chatting over WeChat is like writing a letter to your contact
[and] giving it to WeChat to transport in a securely locked opaque
box, which they take back to their office," he said. Then they
"open up the box, read your letter and modify/redact as they see
fit, then put it in another secure, opaque-colored locked box and
transport to your contact."
The Trump administration has cited WeChat's access to user
information and censorship as reasons to ban it from the U.S.,
along with short-video app TikTok. Both bans have been challenged
in American courts and haven't taken effect.
Censorship during the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak became so
strict that even content from Chinese state-owned media was
occasionally taken down, a phenomenon that researchers attributed
to internet companies overcompensating to avoid running afoul of
rules governing speech that are often unclear.
"The primary mechanism here is not the law, but rather fear,"
said David Bandurski, co-director of The University of Hong Kong's
China Media Project. "Companies must abide by regulations and
propaganda guidelines imposed by the leadership in order to protect
their business interests."
Write to Jing Yang at Jing.Yang@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 22, 2020 05:44 ET (10:44 GMT)
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