China puts brakes on WhatsApp
CHINESE authorities appear to have severely disrupted the WhatsApp messaging App in the latest step to tighten censorship as they prepare for a major Communist Party congress next month.
Users in China have reported widespread disruptions in recent days to the Facebook-owned service, which previously malfunctioned in the country over the summer.
Experts said the problems began on Sunday, but text messaging, voice calls and video calls appeared to be working again yesterday, though voice messages and photos were not going through.
WhatsApp provides message encryption technology that likely does not please Chinese authorities, which closely monitor and restrict cyberspace through their “Great Firewall”.
Many Chinese activists favour WhatsApp over local messaging Apps because of its end-to-end encryption function.
Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and a slew of foreign media have been blocked for years.
The WhatsApp troubles emerged ahead of the Communist Party congress on October 18, when President Xi Jinping is expected to be given a second five-year term as general-secretary.
“It smells like party congress pre-emptive blocking,” Jason Ng said. He researches China’s internet at University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab.
China usually stepped up surveillance around major events, Ng said.
While the WeChat messaging App owned by China’s Tencent company is more widely used in the country, many WhatsApp users complained about the disruptions.
“As we get closer to the party congress, I think authorities will use more extreme censorship measures. The public knows that WeChat isn’t safe,” prominent Beijing-based activist Hu Jia said.
“Me and other dissidents use WhatsApp to communicate 70% of the time. WhatsApp was completely inaccessible, we didn’t talk at all,” Hu said.
Other users in China noted that the WhatsApp disruptions would make it difficult to work with clients abroad.
“Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Viber were blocked before. Now even WhatsApp is blocked? Without good messaging tools, it will reduce the efficiency of the foreign trade industry,” one person wrote on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media website.
WhatsApp declined to comment.