Telegram among social media platforms used by China's COVID-19 protesters
People who protest against China's COVID-19 measures are using dating apps and social media platforms, including Weibo, Douyin, WeChat, Telegram, Instagram, and Twitter, to organize protests and circumvent censorship. Protests against the measures have taken place in several cities across China over the past few days, and are believed to be the first instances of civil disobedience in the country since President Xi Jinping took power a decade ago.
While state media did not cover the protests and the government has made a very few statements, the Foreign Ministry has said that China is a country with the rule of law and that all the rights and freedoms of its citizens are protected within the law.
Some protesters are using VPN software to access encrypted messaging apps and are adopting a decentralized model to exchange information with close-knit networks of friends. Others are using dating apps hoping to avoid scrutiny and are sharing information about the protests on social media platforms. Police is reportedly checking phones for VPN apps and the Telegram app. According to Sensor Tower, Telegram has seen a significant increase in downloads in China during the protests.
Protesters are adopting decentralized models, similar to those used in the Hong Kong protests of 2019. People have also used social media platforms to share advice on what to do if arrested, such as how to erase data from phones.
Apple has limited the use of its AirDrop file-sharing function on devices in mainland China, restricting the ability of users to send or receive files from non-contacts to a 10-minute window. The move comes weeks after reports that protesters had used the feature to spread messages critical of the Chinese government. The restrictions do not appear to affect iPhones purchased outside China, though iOS beta imposes the restriction globally. The change has received mixed reactions in Chinese media, with some praising it for addressing the problem of nuisance messages on public transport, while others have accused Apple of appeasing the Chinese authorities. The US tech giant has faced similar accusations in the past, including pulling the Quartz app from its store in China during the 2019 Hong Kong protests.
Subscribe to our Chinese channel for more China's local news.
#statistics #censorship #China
People who protest against China's COVID-19 measures are using dating apps and social media platforms, including Weibo, Douyin, WeChat, Telegram, Instagram, and Twitter, to organize protests and circumvent censorship. Protests against the measures have taken place in several cities across China over the past few days, and are believed to be the first instances of civil disobedience in the country since President Xi Jinping took power a decade ago.
While state media did not cover the protests and the government has made a very few statements, the Foreign Ministry has said that China is a country with the rule of law and that all the rights and freedoms of its citizens are protected within the law.
Some protesters are using VPN software to access encrypted messaging apps and are adopting a decentralized model to exchange information with close-knit networks of friends. Others are using dating apps hoping to avoid scrutiny and are sharing information about the protests on social media platforms. Police is reportedly checking phones for VPN apps and the Telegram app. According to Sensor Tower, Telegram has seen a significant increase in downloads in China during the protests.
Protesters are adopting decentralized models, similar to those used in the Hong Kong protests of 2019. People have also used social media platforms to share advice on what to do if arrested, such as how to erase data from phones.
Apple has limited the use of its AirDrop file-sharing function on devices in mainland China, restricting the ability of users to send or receive files from non-contacts to a 10-minute window. The move comes weeks after reports that protesters had used the feature to spread messages critical of the Chinese government. The restrictions do not appear to affect iPhones purchased outside China, though iOS beta imposes the restriction globally. The change has received mixed reactions in Chinese media, with some praising it for addressing the problem of nuisance messages on public transport, while others have accused Apple of appeasing the Chinese authorities. The US tech giant has faced similar accusations in the past, including pulling the Quartz app from its store in China during the 2019 Hong Kong protests.
Subscribe to our Chinese channel for more China's local news.
#statistics #censorship #China
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MIUI identifies Telegram as a dangerous app
Xiaomi's new MIUI security feature has identified Telegram as a dangerous app.
The new feature, which was launched in China in February 2022, scans sideloaded apps "for security vulnerabilities and illegal content".
If an app is found to contain malware or other harmful content, MIUI will force users to uninstall it. There are claims that the incident also gets reported to Chinese police, but there's no clear evidence on that.
The scanner claims Telegram contains fraudulent content, and thus must not be used.
Listing Telegram as a dangerous app is probably another sign of the Chinese government's crackdown on free speech and privacy. In recent years, the Chinese government has blocked or limited access to an increasing number of websites and apps, including Facebook, Twitter, and Google.
#xiaomi #censorship
Xiaomi's new MIUI security feature has identified Telegram as a dangerous app.
The new feature, which was launched in China in February 2022, scans sideloaded apps "for security vulnerabilities and illegal content".
If an app is found to contain malware or other harmful content, MIUI will force users to uninstall it. There are claims that the incident also gets reported to Chinese police, but there's no clear evidence on that.
The scanner claims Telegram contains fraudulent content, and thus must not be used.
Listing Telegram as a dangerous app is probably another sign of the Chinese government's crackdown on free speech and privacy. In recent years, the Chinese government has blocked or limited access to an increasing number of websites and apps, including Facebook, Twitter, and Google.
#xiaomi #censorship
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Telegram Is Banned in India, Deleted from App Stores, Suffered a Global Outage
The Indian government ordered a temporary ban on Telegram due to mass leaks of NEET-UG exam questions. However, a local telecom‘s attempt to restrict access led to interceptions far beyond the country. Editors at @tginfo explain how local censorship turned into a global outage.
What Happened in India
The formal reason for the ban was leaked questions for the national medical exam in Telegram channels. Currently, the official Telegram client has been removed from the Indian App Store and Google Play storefronts.
Pavel Durov points out that this move punishes 150 million users in India, while the leaks simply migrated to a different app, and that Telegram cooperated with regulators by deleting “hundreds of channels sharing leaked exam materials and related scams in India”. The CEO also adds that the messenger team has “been making the ‘edited’ label more visible to prevent backdating scams”, although it is not clear whether this change hasn't shipped yet or is some local change that our editors couldn‘t confirm independently. The “edited” indicator changes are said to be done to fight backdating scams.
For context, India is one of the biggest Telegram markets. The Indian government tried to pressure Telegram before: in 2022, a court demanded the disclosure of pirate channel owners‘ personal data. At that time, Telegram only complied on paper, stating that it didn‘t store the requested data on its servers. It is clear that this time the government is trying to act with more force.
From a Local Ban to a Global Outage
Trying to restrict Telegram inside the country, an Indian telecom company used a BGP routing hijacking trick.
• The Internet is made up of many interconnected networks that tell each other the data paths using the BGP protocol.
• An Indian telecom company announced to the whole world that it owns Telegram's IP addresses, forcing part of the global traffic to be sent through the false route, which blocks access to the messenger.
• Since many service providers around the world still don‘t verify the authenticity of the routes they receive, the false routes spread around the globe.
As a result, connectivity issues could be observed even outside India, including regions like the UAE. Similar incidents happened before: for example, in 2023, the Iraqi government used a similar trick to ban Telegram.
Industry experts point out that the Indian telecom even got into a brief network war with Telegram, in which one company tried to overwrite the opponent‘s routing directions. Pavel Durov announced that Reliance stopped malicious routing four hours after his post.
Erroneous Accusations Against Meta Trying to Blame for All Their Problems
Pavel Durov called the service provider‘s actions intentional sabotage and assumed that it might be part of the competitive war that WhatsApp is leading against Telegram, based on a claim that Reliance is partially owned by Meta (parent company of WhatsApp and Facebook).
Despite this, community and media research shows that Pavel Durov confused two companies. The network system that was hijacking the traffic is owned by Reliance Communications, an old telecom asset midway through bankruptcy, while Meta invested in a completely unrelated company — Jio Platforms (which also owns Reliance Jio, a large Indian service provider).
The theory about WhatsApp‘s corporate conspiracy couldn‘t be backed by any technical data. It is likely that the global traffic hijacking was caused by incompetence among the engineers at the Indian company responsible for configuring the hardware to block Telegram. It is not the first time that Pavel Durov has publicly accused WhatsApp of attacking Telegram, explaining unfavorable events with conspiracy theories.
#India #censorship #outages
The Indian government ordered a temporary ban on Telegram due to mass leaks of NEET-UG exam questions. However, a local telecom‘s attempt to restrict access led to interceptions far beyond the country. Editors at @tginfo explain how local censorship turned into a global outage.
What Happened in India
The formal reason for the ban was leaked questions for the national medical exam in Telegram channels. Currently, the official Telegram client has been removed from the Indian App Store and Google Play storefronts.
Pavel Durov points out that this move punishes 150 million users in India, while the leaks simply migrated to a different app, and that Telegram cooperated with regulators by deleting “hundreds of channels sharing leaked exam materials and related scams in India”. The CEO also adds that the messenger team has “been making the ‘edited’ label more visible to prevent backdating scams”, although it is not clear whether this change hasn't shipped yet or is some local change that our editors couldn‘t confirm independently. The “edited” indicator changes are said to be done to fight backdating scams.
For context, India is one of the biggest Telegram markets. The Indian government tried to pressure Telegram before: in 2022, a court demanded the disclosure of pirate channel owners‘ personal data. At that time, Telegram only complied on paper, stating that it didn‘t store the requested data on its servers. It is clear that this time the government is trying to act with more force.
From a Local Ban to a Global Outage
Trying to restrict Telegram inside the country, an Indian telecom company used a BGP routing hijacking trick.
• The Internet is made up of many interconnected networks that tell each other the data paths using the BGP protocol.
• An Indian telecom company announced to the whole world that it owns Telegram's IP addresses, forcing part of the global traffic to be sent through the false route, which blocks access to the messenger.
• Since many service providers around the world still don‘t verify the authenticity of the routes they receive, the false routes spread around the globe.
As a result, connectivity issues could be observed even outside India, including regions like the UAE. Similar incidents happened before: for example, in 2023, the Iraqi government used a similar trick to ban Telegram.
Industry experts point out that the Indian telecom even got into a brief network war with Telegram, in which one company tried to overwrite the opponent‘s routing directions. Pavel Durov announced that Reliance stopped malicious routing four hours after his post.
Erroneous Accusations Against Meta Trying to Blame for All Their Problems
Pavel Durov called the service provider‘s actions intentional sabotage and assumed that it might be part of the competitive war that WhatsApp is leading against Telegram, based on a claim that Reliance is partially owned by Meta (parent company of WhatsApp and Facebook).
Despite this, community and media research shows that Pavel Durov confused two companies. The network system that was hijacking the traffic is owned by Reliance Communications, an old telecom asset midway through bankruptcy, while Meta invested in a completely unrelated company — Jio Platforms (which also owns Reliance Jio, a large Indian service provider).
The theory about WhatsApp‘s corporate conspiracy couldn‘t be backed by any technical data. It is likely that the global traffic hijacking was caused by incompetence among the engineers at the Indian company responsible for configuring the hardware to block Telegram. It is not the first time that Pavel Durov has publicly accused WhatsApp of attacking Telegram, explaining unfavorable events with conspiracy theories.
#India #censorship #outages
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