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Corona-Protests Apple and Elon Musk are helping China’s regime against the protesters
Tech companies like Apple and Twitter are involved in the protests against the Corona policy of the Communist Party and President Xi Jinping – and support the regime.
… Online censorship is China’s reaction to the protests against the government’s corona measures.
via REUTERS
Anger at the strict zero-Covid policy in China had erupted in nationwide protests in the past few days.
via REUTERS
That’s what it’s about
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China is responding to the unprecedented protests with online censorship.
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Apple has restricted the function of the AirDrop file transfer function there.
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This had previously been used to send flyers critical of the government to passers-by without being recognized.
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Back in 2019, during the Hong Kong protests, Apple had apps in its app store that protesters used to communicate.
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On the other hand, hardly any information about the protests could be found on Twitter on Sunday. Instead, there was erotic spam if you searched for it in Chinese.
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This is also due to the fact that all employees who were responsible for Chinese influence operations have now left Twitter, writes the Washington Post.
China is reacting to the unprecedented protests against the strict government corona measures with online censorship. The authorities apparently deleted all reports of the protests in Chinese online networks. Search terms for central locations of the protests have been removed from the online platform Weibo. Videos from the online service WeChat also disappeared.
Apple is also involved. The group has significantly restricted the AirDrop file transfer function in China – apparently quietly with the latest iPhone update, such as the «Guardian» reported.
Photos, videos and other files can be sent to other nearby Apple devices via AirDrop. The special: AirDrop bypasses the Internet because it sends the data over a local network. In this way, the censors can also get a bargain.
In China, for example, it was used to circulate leaflets criticizing the Communist Party or Chinese President Xi Jinping in crowded squares.
Turned off automatically
But now Chinese iPhone owners can only send their files to people who are not in their contacts for 10 minutes. Then the function is switched off automatically.
A student in Beijing (26) confirmed to 20 minutes that he could only use his airdrop function with this time constraint for a little over a week. Not only he assumes that the silent change of the AirDrop function goes back to requests from the Chinese government. Apple has not yet commented on inquiries about this.
Apple deleted apps
While the Guardian assumes that “the company is now planning to roll out the feature around the world,” others write mediathat the AirDrop change only affects devices sold in China.
The limited Airdrop feature is just one example of Apple reaching out to the Chinese government. In 2019, the company removed apps from the app store that protesters used to communicate and plan during the Hong Kong protests against China.
Twitter also seems to be reaching out to Beijing
Apple also doesn’t appear to be the only tech company doing favors for Beijing. Anyone who searched for the locations where the anti-government demonstrations were taking place on Twitter on Sunday in Chinese received a lot of erotic instead of reports on what was happening.
The countless spam tweets were provided with the city names or the exact locations of demonstrations, so that reports of the protests were completely lost. Some of the accounts that spread the spam reportedly hadn’t posted any content for months or years beforehand, the agency writes «Washington Post». There is a suspicion that these accounts are operated by the Chinese government.
«All employees for Chinese influence operations are gone»
Another measure seems to have been set in motion: in response to the protests on Sunday, a harmless hashtag in Chinese spread en masse on Twitter. With several hundred thousand posts, the hashtag is one of the most used Chinese-language keywords Spiegel.de. He could also make information about the protests less easy to find.
These diversionary maneuvers have also become possible thanks to the new course taken by Twitter boss Elon Musk. A former Twitter employee told the Washington Post: “All employees responsible for Chinese influence operations have left the company.”
(gux)