Tag Archives: censorship

How 2023 marked the death of anonymity online in China

How 2023 marked the death of anonymity online in China

In reality, it’s already impossible to be fully anonymous online in China. Over the years, to implement a stricter regime of online censorship, the country has built a sophisticated system that requires identity verification to use any online service. In many cases, posting politically sensitive content leads to account removal, calls from the police, or […]

Big Tech could help Iranian protesters by using an old tool

Big Tech could help Iranian protesters by using an old tool

But these workarounds aren’t enough. Though the first Starlink satellites have been smuggled into Iran, restoring the internet will likely require several thousand more. Signal tells MIT Technology Review that it has been vexed by “Iranian telecommunications providers preventing some SMS validation codes from being delivered.” And Iran has already detected and shut down Google’s […]

WeChat users are begging Tencent to restore their accounts after a Beijing protest

WeChat users are begging Tencent to restore their accounts after a Beijing protest

What most of the posts share is a sense of desperation. As WeChat has grown to be the super app that’s used in almost all aspects of life, having your primary account banned can be devastating. The Weibo posts describe how having their WeChat accounts banned made it difficult for people to get messages from […]

The Download: Trolling text scammers, and China’s social media censorship

The Download: Trolling text scammers, and China’s social media censorship

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The people using humor to troll their spam texts The other night, I received a mysterious WhatsApp message. “Dr. Kevin?” it began, the question mark suggesting the sender felt bad for interrupting my […]