Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to re-enter China may have just hit another roadblock. Of all Facebook products, WhatsApp was the only one that was seemingly surviving the North Asian country’s censorship. But apparently, it is now almost complete blocked, just a couple of months after the government started to crack down on some aspects of the app. Some are saying that this further tightening of the censorship belt is due to the upcoming Communist Party major gathering in October.
While Facebook and Instagram have been unavailable in China for a few years now (the former since 2009), WhatsApp was able to go past the country’s strict censorship laws. But mid-July, users started noticing that some aspects of the app, like sending photos, video chats, and voice chats were not going through. Only text messages were still fully functional. A few weeks later, services returned to normal (or whatever passes for normal in mainland China).
Fast forward to two months later and it looks like even text messages are being disrupted, and some users don’t have access to it anymore. According to Nadim Kobeissi, a cryptographer at a Paris-based research startup called Symbolic Software, it looks like China’s ce sort have been able to develop specialized software that is able to interfere with the encryption technology that WhatsApp and a few other services are using.
The Communist Party will have their congress this coming October 18. It’s a once every five years gathering here they pick the party’s leadership (although it looks like President Xi Jinping will remain in power). The government is probably taking all precautions, including blocking apps like WhatsApp. Users have been complaining on Weibo that this is disrupting their lives, particularly with businesses that rely on the app for communication services. Facebook has no comment as of yet.
VIA: The New York Times
