WeChat, China and what the rest of us can expect

If you live in China, there is no Facebook. There are no Google Apps, Dropbox and there is no Twitter. Snapchat, Slack and Spotify? No. Instagram? Invisible. They do however have WeChat (Weixin 微信), and it's huge.

For an up-to-date list of banned Apps and Websites in China visit here. You will be shocked

Obviously to a captive audience without choice, the chances of solitary domination are large, but WeChat is not just dominating the Chinese social media market, it is absolutely intrinsically woven into the fabric of Chinese society.

What is WeChat?

WeChat is a social media application in which you can set up groups, with which Chinese school kids receive their homework. It has payment facilities, WePay, accepted all over China. There is chat, location-aware dating and news, and here is where the problems start. It's China, and of course, the news is controlled. Everyone has a WeChat account, if you visited China, you would be amazed. Of course, so does the government, and it has a beautifully organised database, ready for them to collect the movements, views payment habits and opinions of any citizen or user of their choice. Including me. Because I also have an account although I never use it.

WeChat was developed by Shenzen based Tencent, which is the world's 6th largest Internet company in the world's most populous country. 1.4billion people, or to give that some context, 20% of the world's population is Chinese. While it is difficult to still describe China as a 'communist country', it remains a powerful dictatorship or 'democratic dictatorship' as they aspire to be known as. Government has control. Complete control. It knows all. It sees all. This is nothing to do with socialism or any form of politics. It is simply about power and control, which is the common factor that unifies ALL governments.

So is WeChat really closely monitored?

So are there close ties between Tencent and the Chinese government? Absolutely, proven factually. As a perfect example of this, a BBC reporter based in China recently posted a picture of the iconic Tiananmen Square 'Tankman', and was amazed that many of his Chinese WeChat friends had no idea what the picture was, or even what the event was. In 1989, there was no social media to flash images of events in progress around the world at the speed of light but there was the press, and as their control of social media is today, their control of the press was and still is absolute. Worse than that, within hours, his account had been blocked.

"This WeChat account has been suspected of spreading malicious rumours and has been temporarily blocked…"

To recover his account, he had to provide both a faceprint and voiceprint through the App. That's frightening but shows what is easily achievable from constant monitoring of social media which also happens in the west, albeit in slightly more subtle ways.

So how does this compare to the West?

There appears to be a narrowing gap between what we see in China and what is happening in regards to the freedom of social media in the west. I would suggest the difference is tiny, albeit rather more camouflaged as governments create ever more draconian legislation to rein in the power of the giant tech companies. For their part, the huge tech companies get what they deserve and short-sightedly ignored the possibilities when they set-up to harvest the personal data of their billions of users in the name of profit. Did Facebook really not expect that their huge databases would never be infiltrated by governments, desperate to tap into a ready-made treasury of their citizen's most intimate details? The West basks in its respectable, democratic aura but it doesn't take too much scratching to see a western China lurking beneath.

Western governments still refuse to drop the pretence and even employ diversionary tactics such as the Huawei debacle which is no more than a fight over control of personal data. It is nothing but a fear-driven campaign based on getting as much personal information first. The incredulity of the Chinese getting their hands on all this personal and national data before the US and its aligned partners get their hands on more of their own citizen's data themselves is too horrifying for them to think about but from a citizens point of view, someone, somewhere will and is getting it. To the end user, does it really matter who? Am I personally safer buying a US or European manufactured mobile than a Russian or Chinese one? The answer is mute as it should by MY decision.

Better the devil you know?

We all complain about our lack of privacy and the ways in which our common internet tools extract and hold the use of their products to ransom in return for our private information but it will get worse. Instead of 'the West', we will all be citizens of 'China 2.0' in the very near future unless we fight back.

Use the freedoms of the blockchain and enjoy the juxtaposition of transparency, freedom and privacy but remain humans. The fightback against this invasion of big brother should not be based on insular libertarianism. It has to be based on global, cooperative interdependency and love. The common enemy is the governments of the world and their intrusive power, not the citizens.

@nathen007

Photograph and WeChat logo used under Fair use policy

Additional research gleaned from Wikipedia

Original BBC article can be found here