- Apple has removed WhatsApp and Threads from its Chinese app store following a government order.
- WhatsApp has been blocked in China since 2017 and its parent company Meta since 2009.
- Other Western platforms like Gmail, YouTube, Snap, and Spotify have also been censored in China.
Apple removed WhatsApp and Threads from its app store in China after being told to do so by the Chinese government, according to the Wall Street Journal.
China’s top internet regulator asked Apple to remove the two apps because of national security concerns.
They need to ban all corporate social media, not just TikTok.
The whole conversation around banning TikTok is pretty silly and hypocritical. Meta spies on even more Americans than TikTok does, and just as egregiously. Additionally, Meta is willing to sell much of that data to anyone, including China. So even if the US bans TikTok, all that changes is that now China has to pay more money to access the same information as before. By banning one app and not another, it just becomes painfully obvious that it’s corporate protectionism all in the name of national security, and how many times have we seen other ridiculous laws passed using that as an excuse? E.g. the joke that is TSA, Patriot act and all of its facsimiles, DEA, etc.