{"id":12031,"date":"2020-11-04T10:53:28","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T15:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=12031"},"modified":"2020-11-11T09:00:33","modified_gmt":"2020-11-11T14:00:33","slug":"the-dark-side-of-wechat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/the-dark-side-of-wechat\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dark Side of WeChat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<aside class=\"wp-block-magazine-aside\">\n<header class=\"wp-block-magazine-aside-header aside-header\"><\/header>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-magazine-aside-body aside-body\">\n<p>This excerpt is adapted from the forthcoming book <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/monmouth-faculty-publish-democracy-in-crisis-around-the-world\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Democracy in Crisis around the World<\/a><\/em>. It is printed here with permission. All rights reserved by Lexington Books.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n<p>Fearing the free flow of information on the internet, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has banned all foreign internet services in China and built the Great Firewall to deny the Chinese people access to outside online sources. As a result, social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other services such as Google, Wikipedia, and Amazon are not available. In their place, China has developed its own domestic internet and affiliated services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One such service is WeChat, a smartphone app that boasts \u201cover 1.1 billion users\u201d.<sup>1<\/sup> Released by the state-sponsored company Tencent in 2011, it started out as a simple messaging app. However, hand in hand with its popularity, WeChat quickly grew into a \u201cmega-platform,\u201d boasting a massive number of practical features.<sup>2<\/sup> The list of uses includes public social media, ordering food delivery, Uber\/Lyft-like functionality, sending money to friends, making doctor\u2019s appointments, paying bills, communicating in the business world, and even using government services.<sup>3<\/sup> As its monopoly continues to expand, the app has become indispensable in Chinese citizens\u2019 lives. Though it may sound like an exaggeration to someone who has not used the app before, \u201cleaving WeChat means leaving [social] life in China,\u201d not to mention missing out on the convenience of all of its other functions.<sup>4<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Beyond its surface-level ease and accessibility, however, is a darker side, a side strictly monitored and regulated by the CCP: censorship. As cybersecurity journalist Patrick O\u2019Neill detailed in a 2019 MIT Technology Review article, Beijing heavily pressures Tencent to implement effective real-time censorship of not only text, but also images posted to WeChat users\u2019 Moments (analogous to Facebook\u2019s timeline) and even in group chats and one-on-one conversations. In particular, it is the social dimension of WeChat that has allowed technology to become a powerful weapon in tightening censorship and state control in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-2-Half-Page-DUNG-HOANG-1024x808.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12062\" width=\"418\" height=\"330\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-2-Half-Page-DUNG-HOANG-1024x808.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-2-Half-Page-DUNG-HOANG-300x237.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-2-Half-Page-DUNG-HOANG-768x606.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-2-Half-Page-DUNG-HOANG-1120x884.jpg 1120w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-2-Half-Page-DUNG-HOANG-560x442.jpg 560w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-2-Half-Page-DUNG-HOANG-280x221.jpg 280w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-2-Half-Page-DUNG-HOANG-320x253.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-2-Half-Page-DUNG-HOANG-640x505.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-2-Half-Page-DUNG-HOANG-1400x1105.jpg 1400w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-2-Half-Page-DUNG-HOANG-828x654.jpg 828w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-2-Half-Page-DUNG-HOANG-360x284.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-2-Half-Page-DUNG-HOANG-9x7.jpg 9w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-2-Half-Page-DUNG-HOANG.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 418px) 100vw, 418px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Censorship has had a long and unfortunate history in China. Two millennia of emperors, wars, revolutions, and bloodshed after Qin Shi Huang, General Secretary Xi Jinping sits at the head of the CCP. Under his leadership, both traditional and newer internet media are being tightly regulated in order to avoid \u201cpotential subversion of authority,\u201d going as far as jailing dissenting \u201cjournalists, bloggers, and activists.\u201d<sup>5<\/sup> With the emergence of WeChat, the CCP has a new medium, with cooperative developers, through which it can maintain its stranglehold on the availability of information. WeChat defines its mission as seeking to \u201cimprove the quality of life through internet value-added services,\u201d but in reality, its work is to \u201creflect the party\u2019s will, safeguard the party\u2019s authority, and safeguard the party\u2019s unity.\u201d<sup>6,7<\/sup> This is legally echoed in WeChat\u2019s privacy policy, which offers no protection against government surveillance.<sup>8<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>WeChat\u2019s model fits political theorist Langdon Winner\u2019s outline of an authoritarian technology: It is \u201csystem centered\u201d and \u201cimmensely powerful,\u201d a technology that leads society toward authoritarianism.<sup>9<\/sup> This is made evident by WeChat\u2019s unprecedented rise and the ways that it censors information. As mentioned, WeChat is indispensable in today\u2019s China. However, it has not become a backbone of Chinese lifestyle simply because of its usefulness; as long as it continues to align with the CCP\u2019s values, it will receive plenty of help from the government. On top of granting subsidies to Tencent, Beijing has globally banned or heavily handicapped virtually all of WeChat\u2019s foreign competitors, making it the only logical choice for practical use.<sup>10<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This rise from service platform to infrastructure has allowed WeChat to become an easy one-stop shop for a large portion of the government\u2019s censorship, fulfilling its role as an authoritarian technology. As the publishing platform of virtually all media outlets in China, as well as the newsfeed provider of most citizens, information flow can be strictly controlled with ease, effectively making WeChat a propaganda machine of the state. This is accomplished by Tencent\u2019s censorship algorithms, ever-improving due to stress from Beijing such as monitoring by government agencies in \u201cspecial operations.\u201d<sup>11<\/sup> Beyond simply blacklisting words and phrases, the real-time censorship technologies have even been improved to recognize images, and any text that may be contained in those pictures, using a self-reinforcing machine-learning approach to generate dynamic blacklists.<sup>12<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>WeChat scored dead last in Amnesty International\u2019s ranking of messaging app privacy, achieving a grand total of zero out of one hundred points.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Technology becomes hazardous when it becomes the driving force of society due to people\u2019s complete dependence on machines.<sup>13<\/sup> The sticky nature of WeChat has not only enforced complete dependence by enhancing its users\u2019 addictive behaviors; it has taken the hazard one step further by creating an intimate and dangerous one-way relationship with China\u2019s central government through its censorship technologies.<sup>14<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a specific example, in the protests in which Hong Kong residents opposed the extradition law passed by the central government, WeChat played a prominent role in keeping mainland citizens out of the know. As a bit of background, Hong Kong holds a special classification different from the rest of China due to its previous status as a colony of the United Kingdom. It was returned to China in 1997 under the principle of \u201cone country, two systems,\u201d in which Hong Kong would enjoy \u201ca high degree of autonomy\u201d for 50 years.<sup>15<\/sup> However, in June 2019, just 22 years later, plans of an extradition from Hong Kong to mainland China sparked protests in Hong Kong that have now grown to encompass more general arguments for democratic reform.<sup>16<\/sup> Early in the protests, CNBC concluded that searching for the Hong Kong demonstrations on WeChat did not return any relevant results, and that images of the protests sent in one-on-one conversations did not go through.<sup>17<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not only has information availability been limited, but WeChat has also been the root of the spread of misinformation. <em>The Guardian<\/em>\u2019s Lily Kuo recently reported that on WeChat\u2019s newsfeeds, prior peaceful demonstrations were described as \u201criots,\u201d protesters were portrayed as \u201cradicals\u201d and \u201cthugs\u201d \u201clured by the evil winds of foreign agents,\u201d and the United States was accused of being the \u201cblack hand\u201d behind the protests. By painting radicals or other nations as the instigator, the narrative in mainland China has been shifted toward a nationalist sentiment in which the protestors\u2019 arguments are the minority, while the rest of Hong Kong\u2019s citizens just want to live their lives peacefully under the CCP\u2019s rule.<sup>18<\/sup> As tensions continue to increase, Beijing can maintain its control over the rhetoric and keep its citizens in blissful ignorance by implementation of their nearly omnipotent authoritarian technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"object-position: 9.64% 65.795%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-3-Closer-DUNG-HOANG-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12055\" width=\"405\" height=\"540\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-3-Closer-DUNG-HOANG-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-3-Closer-DUNG-HOANG-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-3-Closer-DUNG-HOANG-1120x1493.jpg 1120w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-3-Closer-DUNG-HOANG-560x747.jpg 560w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-3-Closer-DUNG-HOANG-280x373.jpg 280w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-3-Closer-DUNG-HOANG-320x427.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-3-Closer-DUNG-HOANG-640x853.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-3-Closer-DUNG-HOANG-1024x1365.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-3-Closer-DUNG-HOANG-828x1104.jpg 828w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-3-Closer-DUNG-HOANG-360x480.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-3-Closer-DUNG-HOANG-9x12.jpg 9w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-3-Closer-DUNG-HOANG.jpg 1125w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 405px) 100vw, 405px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, WeChat has also begun its conquest of Tibet, a far-west region in China. Ever since the Dalai Lama\u2019s failed uprising against the People\u2019s Republic of China in 1959, activists have maintained a government-in-exile, claiming that \u201cTibet is an independent state under unlawful occupation.\u201d<sup>19 <\/sup>However, as smartphone usage rises in the region, WeChat has invaded the lives of over 70% of the Tibetan population.<sup>20<\/sup> As one would predict, the Dalai Lama\u2019s spiritual messages are heavily censored by Tencent and the CCP, and users with dissenting political viewpoints are cut off from the internet by removing them from the app, effectively silencing activism.<sup>21 <\/sup>Rates of restrictions, fines, and arrests doled out have also been increasing, with recent news stating that Tibetans could face up to eight years of prison time for sharing information on WeChat about politically sensitive current events like Hong Kong\u2019s protests.<sup>22<\/sup> In this remote region over 1,500 miles away from Beijing, previous insurrection has been crushed, and new information is being censored easily through WeChat and looming punishments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One final striking example of WeChat\u2019s role as an extension of state control is in the introduction of China\u2019s relatively new social credit system. This system is a way for the CCP to monitor, shame, and punish 1.4 billion Chinese citizens, separating the trustworthy from the disobedient. Just like a personal credit score, one\u2019s social credit score can fluctuate depending on good behavior (e.g., paying bills on time) and bad behavior (e.g., smoking in a non-smoking zone), and those with low scores may be placed on blacklists in all aspects of life.<sup>23<\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tencent and WeChat\u2019s role in this topic of unease is its implementation of a system nicknamed the \u201cDeadbeat Map.\u201d This disturbing application will display the full name, court case number, reason they are deemed untrustworthy, and even partial home addresses of anyone with low social credit scores within a user\u2019s 500-meter radius, with a radar changing colors as the density of \u201cdeadbeats\u201d increases or decreases.<sup>24<\/sup> This massive infringement of personal privacy by Western standards aims to enhance the repercussions of the social credit system by shaming the \u201cdeadbeats\u201d and encouraging others to \u201ctreat those people as subhuman,\u201d effectively making Chinese society a \u201cvirtual prison.\u201d<sup>25<\/sup> Without the support of WeChat as a medium, consequences of a low social credit score would obviously still be felt in citizens\u2019 daily lives, but not in the same dimension as being publicly exposed and shunned by everyone within 500 meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With its willingness to provide users\u2019 information, it is no surprise that Tencent\u2019s WeChat scored dead last in Amnesty International\u2019s ranking of messaging app privacy, achieving a grand total of zero out of one hundred points.<sup>26 <\/sup>With the role of media under President Xi Jinping\u2019s reign to be supporting \u201cthe party\u2019s unilateral rule, and nothing less,\u201d WeChat has demonstrated its commitment to this philosophy from end to end, helping the CCP move quickly from its role of spectator to authority in today\u2019s information age.<sup>27<\/sup> Without resorting to brute force that would attract the attention of countries around the world, China has ensnared its people in a digital vice grip, filtering and manipulating this grasp as the CCP pleases. By downloading WeChat and clicking on the happy little icon, all that the Chinese citizens wanted was modern convenience. The price: whatever limited social and political freedom they had left, engulfed by the abyss of one of today\u2019s most ambitious and successful authoritarian censors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>NOTES<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>1 <\/sup>&nbsp;Patrick Howell O\u2019Neill, \u201cHow WeChat Censors Private Conversations, Automatically in Real Time.\u201d <em>MIT Technology Review<\/em> (July 15, 2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>2<\/sup> &nbsp;Yujie Chen et al., <em>Super Sticky WeChat and Chinese Society<\/em> (U.K.: Emerald Publishing, 2018).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>3<\/sup> &nbsp;O\u2019Neill, \u201cHow WeChat Censors Private Conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>4 <\/sup>&nbsp;Chen, <em>Super Sticky WeChat and Chinese Society<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>5<\/sup>&nbsp; Beina Xu, \u201cMedia Censorship in China.\u201d Council on Foreign Relations, 2017, https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/backgrounder\/media-censorship-china.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>6<\/sup> &nbsp;Tencent, \u201cTencent,\u201d 2019, https:\/\/www.tencent.com\/en-us\/abouttencent.html.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>7<\/sup> &nbsp;Beina Xu, \u201cMedia Censorship in China.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>8<\/sup> &nbsp;Emma Lee, \u201cUpdated: WeChat\u2019s Privacy Policy Update Draws Attention to Information Shared with the Government TechNode. <em>TechNode<\/em> (blog), September 19, 2017, https:\/\/technode.com\/2017\/09\/19\/now-its-official-wechat-is-watching-you-1\/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>9<\/sup> &nbsp;Langdon Winner, \u201cModern Technology: Problem or Opportunity?\u201d <em>Daedalus, <\/em>Vol. 109, No. 1 (Winter 1980): 121-136.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>10 &nbsp;<\/sup>Tenzin Dalha, \u201cHow WeChat Conquered Tibet,\u201d 2019, https:\/\/thediplomat.com\/2019\/07\/how-wechat-conquered-tibet\/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>11 &nbsp;<\/sup>Chuin-Wei Yap, \u201cSmartphone Messaging Apps Face New Pressure in China.\u201d <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>, May 27, 2014, sec. Tech. https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/smartphone-messaging-apps-face-new-pressure-in-china-1401191388.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>12<\/sup> &nbsp;Patrick Howell O\u2019Neill, \u201cHow WeChat Censors Private Conversations, Automatically in Real Time.\u201d <em>MIT Technology Review<\/em> (July 15, 2019), https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/s\/613962\/how-wechat-censors-private-conversations-automatically-in-real-time\/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>13<\/sup> &nbsp;Leo Marx, \u201cTechnology: Emergence of a Hazardous Concept.\u201d<em> Technology and Culture<\/em>, Vol. 51, no. 3 (July 2010): 561-577. <em>Project MUSE<\/em>, doi:10.1353\/tech.2010.0009<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>14<\/sup> Chen, <em>Super Sticky WeChat and Chinese Society<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>15 <\/sup>&nbsp;Matthew Campbell, \u201cWhat Happens to Hong Kong When \u2018One Country, Two Systems\u2019 Expires in 2047.\u201d Bloomberg.com, August 27, 2019, https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2019-08-27\/countdown-to-2047-what-will-happen-to-hong-kong-quicktake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>16<\/sup>&nbsp; Helier Cheung and Roland Hughes, \u201cThe Background You Need on the Hong Kong Protests.\u201d <em>BBC News<\/em>, September 4, 2019, sec. China. https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-china-48607723.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>17<\/sup>&nbsp; Arjun Kharpal, \u201cHow Social Media Is Shaping What People Know\u2014and Don\u2019t Know\u2014about the Hong Kong Protests.\u201d <em>CNBC<\/em>, June 13, 2019, https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2019\/06\/13\/hong-kong-protests-role-of-technology-and-china-censorship.html.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>18<\/sup>&nbsp; Lily Kuo, \u201cBeijing\u2019s New Weapon to Muffle Hong Kong Protests: Fake News.\u201d <em>The Observer<\/em>, August 11, 2019, sec. <em>World News<\/em>. https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/aug\/11\/hong-kong-china-unrest-beijing-media-response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>19&nbsp; <\/sup>&nbsp;Walt van Pragg, \u201cThe Legal Status of Tibet,\u201d 2010, https:\/\/www.culturalsurvival.org\/publications\/cultural-survival-quarterly\/legal-status-tibet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>20 <\/sup>&nbsp;&nbsp;Dalha, \u201cHow WeChat Conquered Tibet<em>.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>21 <\/sup>&nbsp;&nbsp;Dalha, \u201cHow WeChat Conquered Tibet<em>.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>22<\/sup>&nbsp;&nbsp; \u201cTibetan WeChat Users Could Face Eight Years in Prison for Sharing News about Hong Kong.\u201d Free Tibet, September 5, 2019, https:\/\/freetibet.org\/news-media\/na\/tibetan-wechat-users-could-face-eight-years-prison-sharing-news-about-hong-kong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>23<\/sup>&nbsp; Ma, \u201cChina Has Started Ranking Citizens with a Creepy \u2018Social Credit\u2019 System.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>24<\/sup>&nbsp;&nbsp; Erin Handley, \u201c\u2018Deadbeat Map\u2019: China Opens up Social Credit Scores to Social Media Platform WeChat.\u201d Text. <em>ABC News<\/em>, January 24, 2019, https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2019-01-24\/new-wechat-app-maps-deadbeat-debtors-in-china\/10739016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>25<\/sup>&nbsp;&nbsp; Handley, \u201c\u2018Deadbeat Map\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>26<\/sup>&nbsp; Angus Grigg, \u201cWeChat\u2019s Privacy Issues Mean You Should Delete China\u2019s No. 1 Messaging App.\u201d <em>Australian Financial Review<\/em>, February 21, 2018, https:\/\/www.afr.com\/world\/asia\/wechats-privacy-issues-mean-you-should-delete-chinas-no1-messaging-app-20180221-h0wgct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>27 <\/sup>&nbsp;Bob Dietz, \u201cIn China, Mainstream Media as Well as Dissidents under Increasing Pressure,\u201d October 7, 2014, <a href=\"https:\/\/cpj.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/China-mainstream-media-as-well-as-dissidents-under-incre.php\">https:\/\/cpj.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/China-mainstream-media-as-well-as-dissidents-under-incre.php<\/a> and Phillip Bennett, \u201c21st-Century Censorship.\u201d <em>Columbia Journalism Review<\/em>, 2015, http:\/\/www.cjr.org\/cover_story\/21st_century_censorship.php.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How the chat app turned \u201cmega-platform\u201d has become China\u2019s ultimate tool for authoritarianism and censorship. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":12040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"{\"x\":57,\"y\":66}","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"thumbnail":"<img width=\"225\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-1-Opener-EDIT-HOANG-225x300.jpg\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-12040 wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" role=\"presentation\" style=\"object-position:57% 66%\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-1-Opener-EDIT-HOANG-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2020\/10\/32-WeChat-1-Opener-EDIT-HOANG-768x1024.jpg 768w, 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