168

Canada bans WeChat, Kaspersky applications on government devices (www.reuters.com)

submitted 1 year ago by tioute@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Tencent's WeChat and Kaspersky's suite of applications have been removed from government-issued mobile devices effective October 30, 2023. Going forward, users of these devices will be blocked from downloading the apps.

WeChat is the super app in China with over 1 billion monthly users, and is a ubiquitous part of daily life in China. You can essentially do everything through WeChat, which is convenient.

However, this convenience comes at a cost. WeChat has monopolized the market to the extent that users have little say in front of the app. Identity verification is mandatory, and the app can suspend accounts at any time. And WeChat has always had the support of the central government, receiving funding, and the government has often restricted or banned competing apps.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] woshang@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Canada banning WeChat is a great idea, for the country's security and privacy. Speak of that, look at what Elon is doing; he keeps trying to turn Twitter into WeChat, and he won't stop until he makes it true!

In case you are not familiar with WeChat and the seriousness of its censorship toward users: 👇

We have to ditch centralized platforms for our own sake! And there are plenty of choices: Mastodon, Misskey, WireMin, Damus. (PS: WireMin is a combination of a private messenger & social media; it's my favorite for now because I get to join chat groups for anonymous discussions.)

[-] Amaltheamannen@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

While I agree that privacy is important the censorship claim in the image is based entirely on "I think", no proof beyond opinion.

[-] Zoboomafoo@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

"There's no proof of censorship in the USSR, I can go to the Party Library and read whatever books I want"

[-] Amaltheamannen@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

I don't deny it's plausible, but back it up with something stronger than "I suspect".

this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023

168 points (96.2% liked)

Privacy

31607 readers

93 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

[Matrix/Element]Dead
Discord

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS