Censorship isn't new in China. But they are not shy about adding some more.
It seems that there will be a lot of news regarding censorship that will be coming out of China in the next days. According to WeChat expert Matthew Brennan, the app, which is the country's top messaging app with 800 million registered users, has prohibited its users from editing their usernames, profile photos or taglines until the end of the month.
From an outside perspective, it may seem like nothing, but political experts have noted that this is a move to prevent the spread of progressive political ideas and opinions that Beijing would prefer to be subtly quelled through user profile changes and updates on their aliases.
In the Chinese progressive political landscape, this is a common form of expression that can get across even beyond a single chat log.
China's National Congress, a large and influential political summit that happens every half a decade, will happen this week and this will also be the time when the government's censors will be on high alert especially on social media.
This is not the only form of censorship being implemented on WeChat. The company has set up a long-standing self-policing measure on its users that blocks certain sensitive words in response to the call of the Chinese government for the app to take responsibility for user content.
Being the popular channel for dissidents and activists, WeChat will be impacted once again with the state-mandated social media lockdown. It can be remembered that the app already encountered several service interruptions last month.
This was after the government detected the app's heavy traffic after the death of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who died of liver cancer after the government denied his request to travel abroad to seek treatment.
Even Airbnb services will be affected. In a statement to Reuters regarding the clampdown, the company said, "Due to external circumstances, homes in certain areas in Beijing are unavailable through October 31."
These disruptions are just the tip of the iceberg. Recently, Apple was forced to remove its VPN service from its App Store. There is also the long-term block placed on Facebook, Twitter, Google and other Western internet services.
