WhatsApp, Threads, more banished from Apple App Store in China Apple has removed four apps from its China-regional app store, including Meta's WhatsApp and Threads, after it was ordered to do so by Beijing for security reasons. The Chinese government also ordered the removal of Telegram and Signal, making it clear that the directive was targeted at communications apps in particular. With …
I thought WhatsApp was not operable in China and hasn't been for years.
Probably they've been blocking the traffic between the app and the server, so it won't work unless you're on a VPN.
Taking it out of the Apple store is just going to make that VPN workaround more inconvenient: you now jailbreak the phone if you don't have a non-China bank card to change the region. (Or use Android and side-load the app because Google Play is banned.)
Quite a few Chinese businesses have been using WhatsApp to keep in touch with their foreign contacts, this could make that a bit more difficult I guess.
Incidentally I've met Chinese people in the UK who still have iPhones set to the China region and cannot download various apps even over here. They can change it to UK if they present a UK bank card to Apple, but it's a pain and they might lose previous purchases or something, so the usual reaction is to just not be interested in the stuff that's banned in China even when they're not in China. Well done Apple for propagating Chinese censorship to other countries....
Given that congress is working on a bill to enforce the same thing for Tik Tok. The only difference is that if the bill passes in the US Bytedance will immediately sue and it'll be tied up in court for a few years as I imagine getting an injunction to pause enforcement will happen since selling Tik Tok US is something that can't be undone.
... how this can be anything but a reaction to the TikTok news ....
It'll be interesting to see how far things get ratcheted up and which country really needs the other more. I've always stated that I think the US's end goal is to sanction/blacklist China, and treat it in the same way as North Korea, Iran, Syria etc
The US and Chinese economies are too entangled to do this currently, but I think it's only a matter of time before this happens. Both countries have isolationist policies so it's kind of obvious (at least to me) that this is the way both countries will go ...
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