Censorship and isolation as China bans thousands of mobile apps
globalvoices.org
Research on Apple censorship finds out, as of March 2023, 11,026 out of a total of 40,049 apps were unavailable in China Apple Stores. The ratio of unavailability was 27.53 percent.
  • When the US House of Representatives passed the legislation that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok, a popular video app, to an American company or face being banned in the US, citing national security concerns, the Chinese government criticized the move as “an act of bullying.” Yet, ironically, TikTok is also unavailable in China, and it is not an isolated case. For example, Alibaba’s popular messaging platform, Ding Talk, is also unavailable in China, and its local version is called Ding Ding.
  • A recent research report on Apple censorship in China, “Isolation by Design,” conducted by the App Censorship project under GreatFire, a censorship monitor group based in China, indicates that more than 60 percent of the world’s top 100 apps in China Apple App stores are either unavailable or inaccessible in China. These apps include Google Maps, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Messenger and Twitter.
  • While China has warned the West against economic decoupling, the country’s censorship system is designed for the purpose of isolation, as highlighted by the GreatFire research team.

Aside from the game sector, the App Censorship research team has identified eight sensitive categories from the list of apps banned by Apple in China:

1. Virtual private network – VPN: 240 unavailable apps including Lantern VPN, ProtonVPN, ExpressVPN, Nord VPN.

2. Privacy & Digital Security: 29 unavailable apps including Signal, ProtonMail, DuckDuckGo.

3. LGBTQ+ & Dating: 67 unavailable apps, including Hinge, Adam4Adam, weBelong, and Grindr.

4. News, Media & Information: 170 unavailable apps, including NYTimes, BBC News, and Reuters.

5. Social Media & Communication: 96 unavailable apps, including Skype, LinkedIn, Viber, Damus, and Line.

6. Tibet & Buddhism: 41 unavailable apps, including Himalaya Lib, MonlamGrandTibetanDictionary.

7. Uyghur: 72 unavailable apps, including RFA Uyghur, Hayatnuri, Awazliq Kitap, and UYGHUR MAN.

8. Religion: 144 unavailable apps, including the Bible App by Olive Tree, Quran Majeed, TORAH, JW Library.

  • xep@fedia.io
    39·
    5 months ago

    We know. The entire goal of their internet policy is to control exactly what their population can access, which means they have an isolated network, by any means necessary.

  • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
    371·
    5 months ago

    It’s like crazy ex syndrome. They block you, but if you block them back in reciprocating fashion now your the bad person.

  • 0x0@programming.devEnglish
    171·
    5 months ago
    1. Virtual private network – VPN: 240 unavailable apps including Lantern VPN, ProtonVPN, ExpressVPN, Nord VPN.

    When assessing a VPN, using one that’s blocked in China seems to be a safe item to check.

    • cheese_greater@lemmy.worldEnglish
      111·
      5 months ago

      Wouldn’t it make sense for them to buy out a couple and still offer it outside of China as a honeypot? Westerners be like “China banned? Sign me up” and add it to their banned list?

      Meanwhile China be like

      “We know you not like ricecakes and logged VPN”

      🫸ô🫷

      • WraithGear@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        5 months ago

        Probably, but any thought that VPNs keep you anonymous to anyone other then script kiddies and minor companies is fool hardy

        • cheese_greater@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          5 months ago

          Is there a more comprehensive overview of this or can you expand on if not using a VPN is better?

          Something, something, fingerprinting, logging in to identifiable services etc?

          • WraithGear@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5·
            5 months ago

            It’s more of recognition that the internet is not the Wild West it used to be. Your anonymity is dependent on how much you are worth to track, and that value shrinks every day. If you want to buy cheaper video games, or watch geo locked Netflix content you are fine… for now. But the US government has been offering VPNs for people wanting to be anonymous for a wile now. So its not extreme for china to do it too.

    • callmepk@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      5 months ago

      Most of the time those VPNs banned are still not effective to get pass GFW. A lot of people would have to buy special VPN service using protocols like Shadowsocks/ShadowsocksR/Trojan/Vmess/Vless with using specific softwares like shadowrocket or Surge or Clash or Quantumult to bypass the GFW.

  • General_Effort@lemmy.worldEnglish
    216·
    5 months ago

    Borders in cyberspace is the future. There are increased efforts to regulate the internet everywhere. Think copyright, age verification, the GDPR, or even anti-CSAM laws. It’s all about making sure that information is only available to people who are permitted to access it. China is really leading the way here.

    We do not agree with China’s regulations, but that only means that we need border controls. Data must be checked for regulatory compliance with local laws.

    • 0x815@feddit.orgOPEnglish
      12·
      5 months ago

      The ‘cyberspace’ is designed to be decentralized, exactly the opposite of what you describe. China is trying to ‘lead the way’ into an Orwellian dystopia, and that’s among the least things we need.

      • General_Effort@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9·
        5 months ago

        I just described what’s going on. The world outside of China or Russia is going slower but the direction is the same.

    • magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.orgEnglish
      7·
      5 months ago

      What an awful and terrifying thought.

      At least it would be if internet regulation was practically enforceable for anyone other than commercial businesses operating out in the open.

      • General_Effort@lemmy.worldEnglish
        23·
        5 months ago

        it would be if internet regulation was practically enforceable for anyone other than commercial businesses operating out in the open.

        Well, then I guess we just have to call for more government enforcement.

        In the EU, there is certainly more government pressure, instead of just lawsuits between big (or small) players.

        • magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.orgEnglish
          3·
          5 months ago

          The only way to really do that would be to essentially make it impossible to have easy, private, secure, and anonymous access to the internet and freedom respecting computing.

          Those things are, as far as I’m concerned, inalienable human rights.

          If that’s your goal please never touch any regulation involving the internet ever.

          • General_Effort@lemmy.worldEnglish
            22·
            5 months ago

            Hey, I’m just saying how it’s going. Look at, say, threads here about deepfakes. See all the calls for laws and government action. How can that be enforced?

            • magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.orgEnglish
              3·
              5 months ago

              It can’t. Simply put. I mean it’s not even a question of whether we should, its you’re fucking not going to.

              I have a raid array in my basement containing literally terabytes of illegally pirated media. Most people have at least consumed one or two pirated pieces of media.

              How’s the enforcement for those illegal files going?

              • General_Effort@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                5 months ago

                It’s steady pressure and it’s only in one direction. Some countries resist more than others. I’m guessing you are not in the EU, because if so, you’d be aware of the “chat control” push.

                Even so, it’s not the days of Napster anymore. Think about hardware DRM. It stops no one but you, too, paid to have it developed and built into your devices. Think about Content ID. That’s not going away. It’s only going to be expanded. That frog will be boiled.

                Recently, intellectual property has been reframed as being about “consensual use of data”. I think this is proving to be very effective. It’s no longer “piracy” or “theft”, it’s a violation of “consent”. The deepfake issue creates a direct link to sexual aggression. One bill in the US, that ostensibly targets deepfakes, would apply to any movie with a sex scene; making sharing it a federal felony.

                • magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.orgEnglish
                  3·
                  5 months ago

                  And has anyone who’s actually written any of those laws used a computer for more than basic day-to-day office/home tasks?

                  I’d love to see how they plan on enforcing that. What are they gonna do, send in a fucking swat team to take anything that doesn’t have hardware level DRM?

                  I can’t imagine we’ll get to a world where the only chips that don’t have shit like that are horribly obsolete. Though I could totally see one in which all high-end chipsets do unfortunately.

                  This is why I hope RISC-V takes off. The more we can free our hardware/software the better.