But others such as Google have chosen to pull out completely from mainland China. To operate in China, some foreign tech companies have complied with local regulations.
“I can live without the others (applications), but blocking WhatsApp is driving me crazy,” said another. Now even WhatsApp is blocked? Without good messaging tools, it will reduce the efficiency of the foreign trade industry,” wrote one person on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media website. “Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Viber were blocked before. Other users in China noted that the WhatsApp disruptions would make it difficult to work with clients abroad. For the few days WhatsApp was completely inaccessible, we didn’t talk at all,” Hu said. “Me and other dissidents use WhatsApp to communicate 70 per cent of the time. The public knows that WeChat isn’t safe,” prominent Beijing-based activist Hu Jia told AFP. “As we get closer to the Party congress, I think authorities will use more extreme censorship measures+. While the WeChat messaging app owned by China’s Tencent company is more widely used in the country, many WhatsApp users complained about the disruptions. China usually steps up surveillance around major events, Ng said. “It smells like Party congress pre-emptive blocking,” said Jason Ng, who researches China’s internet at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. The WhatsApp troubles emerged ahead of the Communist Party congress on October 18, when President Xi Jinping is expected to be given a second five-year term as the party’s general secretary. Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and a slew of foreign media have been blocked for years. China has tightened online policing this year, enacting new rules that require tech companies to store user data inside the country as well as imposing restrictions on what is permissible content.
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