Apple helped Chinese Communist Party to suppress protests by restricting crucial iPhone feature
As anti-lockdown protests continue across China, it has been revealed that Apple restricted the use of its AirDrop functionality on iPhones in China. The move, which happened weeks ago, when the protests were first starting, has hampered the organizational efforts of protesters whose ability to coordinate actions is limited by the Chinese government’s strict censorship and control of social media.
As detailed by Rebel News, widespread protests erupted all across China over the weekend and over the country’s “Zero COVID” policy, which led to the deaths of ten people last week in a high-rise building in Urumqi.
Protests were staged in Shanghai, Wuhan, Hangzhou, the nation’s capital of Beijing, and even as far as Hong Kong, where protesters held up blank papers to protest the communist country’s censorship of criticism over the lockdowns.
The lockdowns have been in place for around three months as the pandemic extends into its third year.
Earlier in November, Apple released an update to iPhone users in China to restrict the use of AirDrop, which protesters used send messages directly to each other and evade censorship.
AirDrop allows for local peer-to-peer connections in the immediate vicinity, which makes it difficult for authorities to monitor and censor.
The update to the function limited the usage to 10 minutes, making it hard for protesters to communicate with each other, or send messages to bystanders.
AirDrop saw a lot of use during the 2019 Hong Kong protests.
“Apple has helped Beijing to suppress public dissent multiple times, mostly by complying with its requests to remove apps used by protestors for information and communication,” reports Reclaim the Net.
“Apple also helps the Chinese Communist Party prevent users from remaining private by banning VPNs in the region.”
The move to hamper protest activity in China comes as Apple faces a war with Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk, who alleged that the company has threatened to withhold Twitter from its app store.
Apple and Google maintain a duopoly on the smart phone market and serve as gatekeepers to the apps in their software ecosystems.
Ian Miles Cheong
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Ian Miles Cheong is a freelance writer, graphic designer, journalist and videographer. He’s kind of a big deal on Twitter.
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