Let's talk about China

[teqniq]

Jeez

 

[8ball]

Jeez

Any word on how they managed this?
They'd need to know who was at the protest, times that recordings were taken etc.

There should be patterns of false positives that give clues as to how this was done.

 

[frogwoman]

I wonder if this affects search results on Huawei phones bought outside China as well.

There's an app Uighurs had to install on their phones to detect problematic stuff etc iirc

 

[elbows]

I do wonder if this happened pre 2020 there would have been plenty of opting out as it could be seen as a backdoor way to privatising the nhs which many don't want.

Would you consider the two apps (the vax pass and the check-in/out one - I can't remember their given names now) to be merely opt in?

There would have been plenty of opting out at any time, with or without the pandemic, so long as the issue and the fact people had the option to opt out was well highlighted in the media etc. I was just pointing out that things people may have been prepared to accept in the pandemic didnt automatically change their attitudes to other data issues.

I would consider apps like those to have been opt-in but with carrots and sticks, with some of the sticks being profession-specific. So it is legitimate for people to talk about coercion when discussing those. Certain profession/settings based circumstances actually ended up applying pressure in the reverse direction, eg staffing level concerns during some large waves led to pressure in some sectors to 'turn off the app when at work'.

 

[8ball]

I think it's plausible that US-led psy ops are something to do with these reports tbf.

 

[teqniq]

Any word on how they managed this?
They'd need to know who was at the protest, times that recordings were taken etc.

There should be patterns of false positives that give clues as to how this was done.

I dunno. There's a lot of speculation in the replies and that's all I can say really.

 

[NoXion]

These apps though did cross the border between surveillance to a china like social score app.

Did they though? As far as I know you can't "opt out" of state surveillance in China. Unlike the Covid app over here, which I've never installed on any of my devices.

 

[maomao]

Any word on how they managed this?
They'd need to know who was at the protest, times that recordings were taken etc.

There should be patterns of false positives that give clues as to how this was done.

Everyone has tracking apps on their phones because of covid. Sounds straightforward to me.

 

[maomao]

My wife asked her mum if she knew about the portests today and was told that there can't have been any because there hasn't been anything on tv and you don't want to trust those overseas fake news wsebsites. Mrs maomao has given up hope of seeing her parents anytime soon (and at their age that's possibly 'ever again').

 

[8ball]

Everyone has tracking apps on their phones because of covid. Sounds straightforward to me.

If it was done that way you'd expect people to have lost videos that weren't of the protest, but they happened to be in the area.
Which is the question I'm asking re: patterns of false positives.

Also, it's less straightforward than you appear to think.

Not to say it's not possible, but a few TiKTok videos by themselves don't mean very much,

 

[Pickman's model]

I think it's plausible that US-led psy ops are something to do with these reports tbf.

You've a unreasonably high opinion of American psychological ops

 

[8ball]

You've a unreasonably high opinion of American psychological ops

Seems like an easy way to spread doubts about Huawei phones. Not so much in China as elsewhere.

 

[teqniq]

This reply to the tweet seems fairly plausible to me:



If true it would imply firmware-level control i reckon.

 

[Pickman's model]

Any word on how they managed this?
They'd need to know who was at the protest, times that recordings were taken etc.

There should be patterns of false positives that give clues as to how this was done.

Amazon can delete people's kindle books easy enough. Energy companies can do what they want to people's accounts via smart meters, reported in past week. Sure Huawei can delete things made on their proprietary apps, it's not beyond the realm of possibility

 

[8ball]

This reply to the tweet seems fairly plausible to me:

View attachment 353619

If true it would imply firmware-level control i reckon.

I'm happy to discount that based on username alone.

 

[8ball]

Amazon can delete people's kindle books easy enough. Energy companies can do what they want to people's accounts via smart meters, reported in past week. Sure Huawei can delete things made on their proprietary apps, it's not beyond the realm of possibility

I never said it was beyond the realms of possibility. I just think other explanations for these videos are equally plausible in the absence of more information.
Also, I expect we're talking OS rather than app level access. Which is open-source coding sat on a Huawei microkernel, assuming that the phones were built after Huawei lost access to the code provided by Google.

On which point, knowing which model of phones are alleged to have had deletions would also be useful.

Having one case now of a protest where they suddenly decide to use write access to the phones (or cloud deletion followed by synching?) is also... interesting.

 

[frogwoman]

Not sure Huawei needs a few unsourced tweets for people to be suspicious of it tbh

 

[8ball]

Not sure Huawei needs a few unsourced tweets for people to be suspicious of it tbh

No, but there are loads of people round the world using Huawei phones, and the US isn't particularly chuffed about that.
I certainly wouldn't have one. I'm suspicious enough of my Lenovo work laptop.

 

[frogwoman]

The Chinese government probably has an interest in spreading such reports itself, to increase paranoia inside China among anyone who might be tempted to protest let's be honest.

But I think that all sorts of information true and untrue are going to fly about atm especially in such an atmosphere of suspicion where you can't trust official news

 

[Thesaint]

Amazon can delete people's kindle books easy enough. Energy companies can do what they want to people's accounts via smart meters, reported in past week. Sure Huawei can delete things made on their proprietary apps, it's not beyond the realm of possibility

That's true although amazon can only impact Amazon related stuff so limited in impact (other than losing a valued customer which is a deterrent to doing this), but most importantly this isn't state driven and can impact people's liberties.

My wife asked her mum if she knew about the portests today and was told that there can't have been any because there hasn't been anything on tv and you don't want to trust those overseas fake news wsebsites. Mrs maomao has given up hope of seeing her parents anytime soon (and at their age that's possibly 'ever again').

If it's any consolation, there were anti lockdown protests in the west but virtually all media channels here ignored it...the same ones now who hail Chinese protesters bravery

 

[8ball]

Those were bad anti-lockdown protests.

 

[frogwoman]

Don't think that's quite what happened tbh

 

[Yossarian]

I've seen a few doofuses on social media trying to draw parallels between protests in China and protests that were freely held in the West against the policies of democratically elected governments, pretty desperate stuff.

 

[frogwoman]

Those were bad anti-lockdown protests.

This sort of whataboutery is really not helpful tbh, I agree the way the UK lockdown was policed was pretty bad like fining people for sitting on a bench ffs and I'm not really pro lockdown, I def wouldn't want one now or think it's needed, i think it always has to be a last resort. However even at its height the UK measures were nowhere as bad as shutting people in their houses and sealing doors shut tbh

 

[Thesaint]

I've seen a few doofuses on social media trying to draw parallels between protests in China and protests that were freely held in the West against the policies of democratically elected governments, pretty desperate stuff.

How about the canadian PM today critisizing China's approach, yet his government closed the bank accounts of truckers and their sympathisers who disagrees with their livelyhoods being choked off?

 

[teqniq]

Heh. You mean these people?

Canadian Anti-Vax Trucker Protests Feed The Far-Right Machine

A trucker protest in Ottawa, initially over vaccine requirements, has attracted the hearty support of right-wing figures across the United States.

talkingpointsmemo.com

/derail

 

[Sasaferrato]

Any word on how they managed this?
They'd need to know who was at the protest, times that recordings were taken etc.

There should be patterns of false positives that give clues as to how this was done.

Well, I would imagine that in China the state either owns or has unfettered access to the phone system.

 

[Thesaint]

Heh. You mean these people?

Canadian Anti-Vax Trucker Protests Feed The Far-Right Machine

A trucker protest in Ottawa, initially over vaccine requirements, has attracted the hearty support of right-wing figures across the United States.

talkingpointsmemo.com

/derail

More the hypocracy of it all. Had china started to close people bank accounts who objected to government policy the critisism would be forthcoming. Canada does it and it's ok.

 

[teqniq]

The two situations are not even remotely comparable. On the one hand you have a highly repressive surveillance state imposing really drastic lockdowns and persecuting ethnic minorities versus a rabble of anti-vax looney tunes with connections to the far-right:

meanwhile in actual China

Heres is a very long twitter thread concerning PRC repression and it's consequences:

Uyghur man's agony after five relatives died in Urumqi fire

When a deadly fire broke out in China's northwest Xinjiang region, triggering a wave of public anger over the country's zero-Covid policy, Abdulhafiz Maimaitimin initially could not believe that it claimed…

www.france24.com

 

[8ball]

This sort of whataboutery is really not helpful tbh, I agree the way the UK lockdown was policed was pretty bad like fining people for sitting on a bench ffs and I'm not really pro lockdown, I def wouldn't want one now or think it's needed, i think it always has to be a last resort. However even at its height the UK measures were nowhere as bad as shutting people in their houses and sealing doors shut tbh

Well, no, the UK Government wasn’t quite as authoritarian as the Chinese, but you’re setting a bar that even Boris Johnson can clear.