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.
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.
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- 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 :)
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WeChat is closely tied to the Chinese government, so that one makes sense. But is there evidence Kaspersky’s products are compromised? Because without knowing more about that situation I’m inclined to agree with them that this is “a response to the geopolitical climate rather than a comprehensive evaluation of the integrity of Kaspersky’s products and services”.
Kaspersky is closely tied to Russian government. The dude himself (founder and CEO) has a government position as one of Putin’s advisors or something. Also he believes that anonymity should be purged from the internet, and every user should be personally indentified, enforced by the government. In the name of “security”, of course.
Kaspersky is a russian proprietary peace of crap that can’t be trusted by default.