![]() There’s Shein, the fast-fashion brand Temu, the online marketplace and CapCut, a video editing app also owned by ByteDance. TikTok, which has 150 million active users in the US, has routinely been named the primary target.īut TikTok isn’t the only Chinese tech company with a huge user base in the US. Three proposed pieces of legislation-the DATA Act, the RESTRICT Act, and the ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act-all take aim at foreign companies that process Americans’ data. TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew is due to testify before Congress today. Earlier this month, US President Joe Biden told TikTok that it faces a total ban if it doesn’t sever ties with China. Over the past few months, the US government has been ramping up pressure on Chinese-owned technology companies and, in particular, TikTok, the social video platform owned by Beijing-headquartered ByteDance. ![]() ![]() “There’s a million different apps, but for those that are not tech savvy … it will be difficult for them to move to another application.” “For my generation, it’s easy enough for us to move on to another app,” he says. (WeChat users outside of China received notifications last year informing them that their personal data, including likes, comments, and search history, would be transmitted back to the People’s Republic.) But Zhou says he’s willing to make the tradeoff between privacy and staying connected to his parents. Zhou, 38, works in project management and mobile app development, and says he’s conflicted about using the app, which is heavily censored and monitored in China. Many of them, like Zhou’s mother, depend on the app to stay connected to family overseas and to the tight-knit Chinese communities in the States. The app has around 19 million daily active users in the US. US-owned messaging apps, including WhatsApp and Signal, are banned in China, so for Zhou’s mother, WeChat-a social messaging and payments platform owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent-has become a lifeline. Out of all the messaging apps to choose from, there’s only one his mother feels comfortable using-in fact, it’s the only app she knows how to use. Other options include video conferencing apps, like Zoom, Skype, or Houseparty, the last of which is partly owned by Epic Games, a video game maker partly owned by Tencent.Jimmy Zhou is a New Yorker his mother, in her seventies, moved to the United States from Dongguan, China, in 1982, a few years before he was born. Some can require some technical know how, like installing a VPN, to circumvent Chinese censorship. There are other options for people living in China to stay in touch with their relations abroad. CEO Joel Wallenstrom told tech blog the Verge in 2018 that “people trust very secure stuff to Wickr, and they’re trusting us not only to secure the data but that we’ll get it where it needs to be.” VPN and video conferencing ![]() The encrypted messaging service uses a VPN-like method to remain operational in nations where it might otherwise be censored. WickrĪnother chat app that may work is Wickr, which can’t be downloaded in China, but it can be brought into the country after being downloaded elsewhere. Facebook’s WhatsApp uses the same underlying software to protect its 2 billion users.įor now, Signal is not banned in China, and its downloads have been surging in the wake of the impending WeChat ban. You might be using Signal’s tech already and not even even realize it. The technology helps keep conversations safe, secure, and private. Signal has been praised by cybersecurity researchers as having best-of-breed encryption. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |