Canada on Monday banned Chinese messaging application WeChat and Russian antivirus program Kaspersky on government-issued mobile devices due to privacy and security risks, but said government information had not been compromised.

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.

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

I don’t deny it’s plausible, but back it up with something stronger than “I suspect”.

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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
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  • If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
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