Category Archives: Censorship

YouTube has announced a new system to catch and flag what it calls controversial religious and supremacist videos hosted on the platform. The platform plans to hide these videos from wider audiences, and demonetize them to prevent their creators from earning revenue from YouTube.

The move was met with widespread skepticism from YouTube content creators.

To crack down on offensive content, the company is using a combination of machine learning and volunteer experts to flag that needs review. It also plans to implement tougher standards for videos that are controversial but do not violate the sites terms of service.

YouTube says it isnt going to remove the borderline content entirely, but will instead place these videos in a purgatory state preventing them from being monetized or promoted. To facilitate these changes, YouTube will be artificially altering its search algorithms to prevent offensive topics from discovery.

Well soon be applying tougher treatment to videos that arent illegal but have been flagged by users as potential violations of our policies on hate speech and violent extremism. If we find that these videos dont violate our policies but contain controversial religious or supremacist content, they will be placed in a limited state. The videos will remain on YouTube behind an interstitial, wont be recommended, wont be monetized, and wont have key features including comments, suggested videos, and likes.

According to YouTube, the system, while largely automated, will mix in human reviews in the form of its already established Trusted Flagger volunteer program that works with over 15 institutions to deal with extremist content, including the Anti-Defamation League.

The ADL recently released a list naming members of the alt-right and the alt-lite, the latter of which included controversial YouTube personalities like Gavin McInnes, Mike Cernovich, and Brittany Pettibone.

Its worth noting that the Trusted Flagger system was later transformed into the much maligned YouTube Heroes program, which invited the public to help moderate content. It was heavily criticized for giving social justice activists the power to manipulate the platform.

Despite the apparent focus on targeting extremism, YouTubes announcement includes the companys efforts to artificially promote videos through its Creators for Change program, which in YouTubes own words pushes creators who are using their voices to speak out against hate speech, xenophobia, and extremism.

High-profile feminists, including Franchesca Ramsey, are listed as ambassadors and fellows. Notably absent is Laci Green, whose strong 1.5 million subscriber count earns her top billing as the sites most popular feminist. Green has come under fire from social justice advocates for opening dialogue with anti-feminists.

If a video doesnt break YouTubes terms of services then they absolutely SHOULD NOT be attempting to dampen the reach of the video any further, said YouTuber Annand Bunty King Virk, who raised his concerns with The Daily Caller. Who determines whats passable and what isnt? At what point do we finally realize that saying the right thing isnt always about saying what people want to hear?

By these standards, if YouTube existed previous to the Emancipation Act, theyd be censoring videos criticizing slave owners, since being anti-slavery wasnt popular at all, he added. The popular opinion isnt always the right opinion.

Matt Jarbo, who goes by MundaneMatt on YouTube, shared his views with The Daily Caller on the move. They know its almost a non-issue completely, Jarbo said. But due to the controversies surrounding those videos, theyve gotten a much larger spotlight than they deserve.

I do not trust their ability [to automatically flag extremist content], he said. I think they have an algorithm in place to help combat those issues, but its not narrow enough to not impact the skeptical/anti-SJW content.

YouTuber Jeff Holiday told The Daily Caller that he doesnt worry about the policy affecting his revenue, as hes already diversified his income with other platforms, but worries that the crackdown will affect other creators.

The move to counter extremist content is of course a good one in theory, Holiday said. But the language used in their announcement does not fill me with confidence it will be restricted to legitimate extremism. I remain optimistic but wary.

YouTube has a clear bias given who they choose to promote for free on their site such as Francesca Ramsey who perpetually produces vastly disliked videos, he remarked.

That isnt to say there is a case for them censoring controversial content. Ive had a few videos marked advertiser unfriendly, but it hasnt been something perpetual. But hearing they might crack down further does concern me greatly. Again, not for the income, but for the potential disincentives it may cause future creators of controversial politics.

I do think there are valid concerns in Google possibly funding legitimate extremist enterprises, but the fact is that people like to abuse systems, especially automated ones, said YouTuber Chris Maldonado, whos also known as Chris Ray Gun. Its really only a matter of time before this backfires in some ridiculous way.

The curator of Undoomed, a channel that regularly makes light of social justice warriors, shared his concerns about YouTubes new direction.

No one can really say whos going to be impacted by this new road map, and thats the point isnt it? If their policies and terms of service arent there to help guide creators anymore, then why even have them? So really, anyone could be at risk without even knowing it, he said.

I have no problem with YouTube cracking down on terrorist recruitment videos and the likes, clarified Undoomed. What I dont understand is how such videos couldve possibly been considered acceptable under the extant TOS and policies.

I think there is a high probably for collateral damage with this new attitude, he said. Some people could conceivably consider skeptics and anti-SJWs extremists, while all we are doing is arguing for a little common sense, and of course for freedom of speech as demanded by the Constitution.

My suspicion is that trusted flaggers is just a code word for the usual suspects. i.e. the same type of radical left-wing reactionaries that have reshaped Twitter into an Orwellian nightmare, he concluded.

Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at@stillgray on Twitterand onFacebook.

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Popular YouTubers React To Censorship Of 'Controversial' Content - The Daily Caller

The move came at roughly the same time that Apple said it took down a number of apps from its China app store that help users vault the Great Firewall. Those apps helped users connect to the rest of the internet world using technology called virtual private networks, or VPNs.

Taken together, the recent moves by Apple and Amazon show how Beijing is increasingly forcing Americas biggest tech companies to play by Chinese rules if they want to maintain access to the market. The push comes even as the number of foreign American tech companies able to operate and compete in China has dwindled.

Beijing has become increasingly emboldened in pushing Americas internet giants to follow its local internet laws, which forbid unregistered censorship-evasion software. Analysts say the government has been more aggressive in pressuring companies to make concessions following the passage of a new cybersecurity law, which went into effect June 1, and ahead of a sensitive Communist Party conclave set for late autumn.

The government has been intent on tightening controls domestically as well. It recently shut down a number of Chinese-run VPNs. New rules posted to government websites in recent days said Communist Party members can be punished for viewing illegal sites and that they must register all foreign or local social media accounts.

Also in response to the new law, Apple said it planned to open a new data center in China and store user data there.

Ms. Wang, who said that Sinnet handles Amazon Web Services operations across China, said that the company has sent letters warning users about such services in the past but that the government had been more focused on other issues.

Amazon Web Services allows companies small and large to lease computing power instead of running their websites or other online services through their own hardware and software. Because Amazons cloud services allow customers to lease servers in China, it could be used to give Chinese internet users access to various types of software that would help them get around the Great Firewall.

Keeping in line with censorship rules is only a part of it. In cloud computing, China requires foreign companies have a local partner and restricts them from owning a controlling stake in any cloud company. New proposed laws, which have drawn complaints of protectionism from American politicians, further restrict the companies from using their own brand and call for them to terminate and report any behavior that violates Chinas laws.

While Microsoft and Amazon both run cloud services in China, similar ones run by local Chinese internet rivals dwarf them in scale. In particular Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba runs its own cloud services, which have grown rapidly in China. In order to operate in the country, Chinas biggest internet companies must stay in close contact with the government and carry out Beijings various demands, whether they be a request for user data or to censor various topics.

While China is not a major market for Amazon, the company has been in the country for a long time and has been pushing its cloud computing services there. Also recently the company announced a partnership with the state-run telecom China Mobile to create a Kindle, the companys e-reader device, aimed at the local Chinese market.

Adam Wu in Beijing contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on August 2, 2017, on Page B7 of the New York edition with the headline: Limiting Online Content, Amazons Cloud Service Bows to Chinas Censors.

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Joining Apple, Amazon's China Cloud Service Bows to Censors - New York Times

What do Winnie the Pooh, an image of an empty chair, and Justin Bieber have in common? They all have been recently banned by Chinese censors. BBCreportedthat China banned Winnie the Pooh from its social media sites because bloggers have been comparing him to Chinas President Xi Jinping.

Since the late NobelLaureateLiu Xiaobos death, Chinese WhatsApp userscomplainedthat Chinese censors blocked their attempts to send images of an empty chair to commemorate Liu inreal time. Last but not least, Chinese Bieber fans weretoldrecently by Beijings Culture Bureau that the Canadian pop star is banned from having concerts in China due to his past bad behaviors which caused public dissatisfaction. Thus banning him is necessary to purify Chinas domestic entertainment scene.

Id never imagined that Winnie the Pooh, an image of an empty chair, and Justin Bieber would all become symbols of liberty one day. For the last 30 years, while the daily lives of Chinese citizens have dramatically improved, their opportunities for free speech, assembly, and expression havent. Chinas wealth enables the Chinese government to control information flow, promote propaganda, and monitor and suppress dissent much more efficiently and effectively.

With Communist Partys leadership reshuffle getting close, Beijing has stepped up its censorship. Banning Winnie the Pooh and Justin Bieber are small potatoes compared to Chinas latestcrackdown on virtual private networks (VPNs), a popular method Chinese use to bypass Chinese authorities Great Firewall. The most intrusive tool the government deploys is facial recognition technology and iris scanners installed everywhere to keep a watchful eye on the entire Chinese population.

The Wall Street Journalestimatedthat China has 176 million surveillance cameras in public and private hands, and the nation will install about 450 million new ones by 2020. The U.S., by comparison, has about 50 million.Chinas vast, technology-driven surveillance system has made it easier for the state to arrest political dissidents. The all-seeing big brother George Orwell imagined in 1984 has become a reality in China.

During Maos Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), the Chinese government not only controlled every aspect of each citizens lifewhat to eat, how much to eat, where to live, and what one was supposed to do for a livingbut it also demanded full control of every citizens mind through thought control. Today the Chinese government no longer decide how much people can eat, but the state has even better control over the Chinese peoples minds.

Not all censorship flows from top-down. Many Chinese citizens and businesses have taken cues from the government and censor themselves. Chinas popular video and Internet streaming sitescleanedthemselves up by voluntarily taking down all foreign films and TV shows, replacing them with government-sanctioned propaganda that glorifies the Communist Party in the name of social harmony and patriotism.

One livestream showed a young woman host who dressed in Red Army uniform and filmed herself buying Mao Zedong badges at a gift shop. Chinas information control is so successful that she was probably never told that someone in her family perished during the man-made famine or tortured by Maos Red Guards in similar uniforms only four decades ago. Even if she was told the truth, will it change her self-censored behavior?

The most worrisome part of this whole situation is that while some Chinese reject state thought control (and pay a dear price for their struggle), many not only accept the governments propaganda, but also vigorously defend it. Pew Researchshowsroughly three-quarters (77%) of the [Chinese] public believes that their way of life needs to be protected against foreign influence.

Why should we care whats going on inside China? Because the impact of Chinas censorship and thought-control can be easily felt outside China. Many Chinese overseas echo propaganda like people inside China do. The most famous Chinese Internet troll group, Little Pink, is largely made up of Chinese females both inside and outside China. Theyre notorious for bombardingthe overseas social media of anyone who expresses any negative views about China, even fellow Chinese.

In May this year, Chinese student Yang Shuping gave a commencementspeechat the University of Maryland. She praised the fresh air and freedom of speech in the United States and contrasted it to her experiences growing up in China: wearing a mask to fight air pollution and passively accepting government-authenticated truth. Many Chinese netizens, especially those from Little Pink, called her a traitor who was sucking up to westerners at the expense of belittling her motherland. Many demanded that she apologize, which she did.

Still, her home address was posted online and some Chinese threatened her should she return to China. Even the Chinese government stepped in,withthe spokesperson of Chinas foreign ministry stating all Chinese should behave responsibly in their public statements.The cyber bullying and harsh reaction from China actually proved Yangs point that China lacks freedom of speech and thought.

But its the oversea reaction from Chinese to this student that really shocked me. Some Chinese students did speak out to support her, but it seems their rational reaction was drowned out by criticism. The Chinese Students and Scholars Association at the University of Maryland quickly put out aproud of China video campaign. Throughmedia interviewsand social media postings, many Chinese students in the United States said Yang was unpatriotic and she embarrassed herself and her motherland by speaking ill of her country in front of a biased western crowd.

I recently experienced such a feverish defense of China in the United States first hand. At the Las Vegas Freedom Fest, one of the largest libertarian gatherings, one of my fellow panelists was a 30-something young man who emigrated from China to the United States when he was 12. Facing a libertarian-conservative audience, he confidently proclaimed that Chinese President Xi is a virtuous leader, Chinas current economic system is laissez faire capitalism, western-style democracy is not suitable for China because of Confucianism, Chinas one-child policy was humane, and people can freely express themselves in China without any repercussions.

It was almost as if he took the talking points from Chinas foreign ministry and just read them. I thought he was telling a joke, but he finished his speech with a straight face. Later during the Q&A, he demonstrated that he believed everything he said by defending his statements unequivocally, despite mountains of evidence provided by other panelists.

If we believe some people inside China defend the government because they dont have access to information due to censorship, or they are doing so out of fear, whats the excuse for oversea Chinese like this young man and those from the Little Pink, who have all the information at their fingertips yet willingly accept and defend lies? They are the latest proof that Cultural Revolution-style censorship and thought control never dies because so many Chinese are willing participants and enforcers. If people like this young man can live among us for so long but stay immune to western ideas of human freedom, what does this say about the strength of our education, culture, values, and ideas, compared to the power of Chinas censorship and propaganda?

The ripple effect of Chinas censorship obviously doesnt stop at Chinas border. We in the west need to not only keep an eye on whats going on inside China, but also be aware how that affects our lives here. Its time we realize that not everyone who comes here and lives among us naturally seeks truth and freedom. Orwell wrote in1984thatThe choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness, and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. If we want the bulk of mankind to choose freedom, we have a lot of work to do.

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China's Censorship Powers Are More Dangerous Than You Know - The Federalist

ByJoshua Franco, Technology and Human Rights Researcher at Amnesty International @joshyrama

You have probably heard of VPNs (Virtual Private Networks), right? Theyre those things you use to stream movies online in other countries that are annoyingly blocked in yours. If VPNs were banned, how would you watch the latest robot apocalypse blockbuster online without having to wait a whole year?

Now imagine that the online content banned in your country isnt movies, but rather major social media platforms, or the main sources of information about your religion, or your sexual orientation. Imagine you use a VPN to access this information, and now that tool is being taken away.

This is whats about to happen in Russia. Its already happening in China.

On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning anonymizers and VPNs, while over the weekend, Apple pulled most major VPNs from its app store in China, in order to comply with national legislation requiring VPNs to be licensed by the government

Anonymizers, such as VPNs or TOR, are a key enabler of human rights online. As the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Mr. David Kaye, has noted: Encryption and anonymity provide individuals and groups with a zone of privacy online to hold opinions and exercise freedom of expression without arbitrary and unlawful interference or attacks A VPN connection, or use of Tor or a proxy server, combined with encryption, may be the only way in which an individual is able to access or share information in [environments with prevalent censorship].

Russia is one such environment. Overly broad anti-extremism laws in Russia allow for the prosecution of people for all types of expression protected by human rights law. For example a young blogger was recently convicted and given a three-and-a-half year suspended prison sentence for inciting hatred and offending believers feelings after he posted a video of himself playing Pokmon Go in a cathedral in Yekaterinburg.

In Russia's environment of censorship and state-sponsored homophobia, online anonymity can be a lifeline.

Meanwhile Russias infamous gay propaganda law is used to censor and punish content relevant to LGBTI people and LGBTI rights. The discriminatory law was recently and rightly - condemned by the European Court of Human Rights, but it nonetheless remains in force. The absurd situation is now that the authorities consider extremist a caricature depicting President Putin as a gay clown, while at the same time failing to open a formal investigation into the horrific campaign of abduction, torture and in some cases killings of gay men in Chechnya.

In this environment of censorship and state-sponsored homophobia, online anonymity can be a lifeline. Anonymizing tools like VPNs could allow crucial access to impartial and accurate information, especially to LGBTI kids and teenagers, who may not be able to access it elsewhere. The internet is also a key means for seeking out community and support. Taking away VPNs will leave more and more people stuck in a smaller online world, where even the statement homosexuality is natural is considered illegal.

Anonymizing tools can also help protect political rights. It is becoming an unfortunately common tactic for governments to shut down or block parts of the web around elections, protests or other sensitive events. For example, Amnesty International and OONI (Open Observatory of Network Interference) documented how the Ethiopian government used illegal blocking to censor information about protests in which as many as 800 people were killed by security forces, and to block messaging apps.

Notably, the anonymizing tool TOR showed a spike in traffic during these times, clearly indicating the usefulness of anonymization tools to circumvent unlawful censorship and exercise the right to access information.

That is why Apples decision is deeply disappointing. Internet censorship in China is expansive, and increasing: the country aims to ban all non-state-operated VPN services by January 2018. If other companies follow Apples lead, it could soon be much harder for people in China to access information freely online.

Apple says it is simply complying with Chinese law, but this is not a sufficient response. Businesses have a responsibility to respect international human rights law, independent of a states own compliance with their human rights obligations. By withdrawing access to VPNs from its Chinese customers, Apple is betraying these responsibilities. We would have expected a more robust stance from Apple, a company that prides itself on being a privacy champion.

The internet once seemed to offer the promise of nearly unfettered access to communication, across borders, and free of the heavy-handed censorship which too often plagued broadcast or print media. This free flow of information promised to bring us together and make the world smaller.

But if governments are able to restrict our access to information they dont approve of, through censorship and blocking access to tools to circumvent it, then that promise will die. In its place we will find increasingly closed islands of information - and the web will be a less inclusiveplace.

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VPNs are a vital defence against censorship - but they're under attack - Amnesty International

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed lawsuits against the governors of Maryland and Kentucky, claiming they violatedconstituents' First Amendment rights by blocking individuals from official social media accounts.

The organizations Kentucky branch filed a lawsuit Monday on behalf of several constituents, while its Maryland branch filed suit on Tuesday. Both suits ask forinjunctions to stop Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) from blocking constituents on social media accounts.

"The highest purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the right of Americans to engage in political speech and to petition the government to address their concerns," Deborah Jeon, who serves as the ACLU of Marylands legal director, said in a statement.

One of the Marylandplaintiffs said she was a Democrat who voted for Hogan and was blocked from his Facebook page after asking the governor to issue a statement on President Trumps travel ban.

My comment was deleted and I was blocked from the page. From the moment it happened, I couldn't believe Governor Hogan would block people who disagreed with him, but who weren't rude or threatening, Meredith Phillips said. Deleting any comment from constituents that doesn't praise or agree with Governor Hogan is a violation of free speech."

The lawsuits come several weeks after a First Amendment groupsuedTrump for blocking social media accounts that exhibit dissenting opinions.

William Sharp, the legal director for the ACLU of Kentucky, said in a statement that the First Amendment does not allow the government to exclude speakers from a public forum because it disagrees with their viewpoint.

And even when the government seeks to enforce permissible limits in such a forum, permanently excluding individuals for violating those limits goes too far, Sharp added.

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ACLU sues Maryland, Kentucky governors over social media censorship - The Hill

House Partyis a weird game that was available on Steam.House Partywas also a game that got removed from Steam a few days ago. But now it has returned. But now it also has some new censorship features.

Back on June 30th a game calledHouse Partylaunched for PC via Early Access. It then stayed there for quite a bit. Then last week it was removed from Steam kinda out of nowhere. But at the same time everyone who played the game, couldve seen it coming.

According to developer Eek! Games at the time, the removal was temporary, and was the result after Steam very kindly reached out to the developer. According to Eek!, Steam reached out after they received a number of complaints about its nature, and thus after presumably some type of review, issued the above notice, and offered for the game to removed, modified, and then resubmitted.

So what were the complaints and issues? Well, according to the developer it all stemmed from the games inclusion of pornography. Thus, once the pornography was removed, the game would be re-enabled. No specifics were provided on what content Steam was referring to specifically, but if you watch some playthroughs of the game, Im assuming you could garner a pretty good guess.

But none of that matters anymore because the game is back on Steam. But as I mentioned above, it now has some censor bars; however, otherwise the games story and content remains the same. Just, adios male and female nudity. Steam is happy.

As for people who bought the game before this debacle and want their nudity back well Eek! Games has a solution for you in the form of an off-Steam patch that lets users restore the game to its original form (because the current Steam version does not). According to the developer, the patch is small and easy and of course on-the-house.

House Partyis available for $14.99 USD. There is currently no word on a final release. If you want, below, you can check out an overview-type look of the game, courtesy of MeatyLock:

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Controversial Game House Party Returns to Steam After Some ... - DualShockers

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) notified a number of software developers Saturday that their virtual private network iOS apps would no longer be accessible in censorship-heavy China.

Consumers use the VPNs to circumvent the governments Great Firewall filtering internet content and limiting access to overseas sites, which renders some of the app features illegal and non-compliant with App Store guidelines.

A spokesperson implied that the decision is punitive merely for VPN developers failing to secure a government license.

We have been required to remove some VPN apps in China that do not meet the new regulations, Carolyn Wu, Apples China spokeswoman, told Bloomberg.

The apps are still available in other global markets, and at least one developer noted its continued accessibility in China through non-iOS platforms. ExpressVPN confirmed that users with international billing addresses will still be allowed to access the app in China.

Still, it expressed concern with the latest restrictions.

Were disappointed in this development, as it represents the most drastic measure the Chinese government has taken to block the use of VPNs to date, and we are troubled to see Apple aiding Chinas censorship efforts, the firm wrote in a press release. ExpressVPN strongly condemns these measures, which threaten free speech and civil liberties.

Golden Frog and Star VPN responded similarly.

We view access to internet in China as a human rights issue, and I would expect Apple to value human rights over profits, Golden Frog President Sunday Yokubaitis told the New York Times.

While many took the occasion to debate Apples social responsibility, some discussed the firms Catch-22 business position. Nearly a quarter of global sales come from China.

One argument is that, for the sake of its continuation in the Chinese market, Apple needed to submit to government standards and comply with regulations.

Conversely, some point out that its decision effectively repels consumers, whose only incentive to buy Apple over Android was the formers capacity to bypass security.

Related Links:

Can Apples Mega Cycle Overcome Chinese Demand Issues?

What The Future Holds For Apple In China

________ Image Credit: By Simon Wade - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Posted-In: News Topics Legal Global Markets Tech Media General Best of Benzinga

2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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Apple Bows To Chinese Regulators, Removes Internet Censorship-Defying Apps - Benzinga

Beijing appeared to have doubled down on its crackdown of the internet in China, with news emerging that over the weekend, Apple pulled several virtual private network (VPN) services from the local version of the App Store.

Multiple VPN service providers, affected by the decision, slammed the move online, calling it a "dangerous precedent" set by Apple, which governments in other countries may follow.

VPN service providers received notification from Apple on July 29 that their apps were removed from the China App Store for including "content that is illegal" in the mainland, according to a screenshot posted by ExpressVPN.

VPNs let users in China bypass the country's famous "Great Firewall" that heavily restricts internet access to foreign sites. It also allows for privacy by hiding browsing activities from internet service providers.

Manjunath Bhat, a research director at Gartner, told CNBC that a VPN could circumvent government censorship.

"VPN creates a private tunnel between you (the user) and the service you want to consume," Bhat said, explaining that such a connection escapes government censorship, hiding a user's true origin. It also encrypts communications so that users can be confident others aren't reading their information when connected to public internet services.

Data on GreatFire.org, a site that monitors censorship activity in the mainland, showed 167 of the top 1000 domains are blocked in China. Those include YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google and Instagram among others.

Golden Frog said its VyprVPN service is still accessible in China, despite the app's removal from the App Store. ExpressVPN said users can stay connected to the open internet with the company's apps for Windows, Mac, Android and other platforms.

Apple has recently stepped up business efforts in China. Earlier this month, the company announced the appointment of Isabel Ge Mahe in a new role of vice president and managing director of Greater China to provide leadership and coordination across Apple's China-based team. Apple is also setting up its first data center in the mainland by partnering with a local company, in order to comply with tougher cybersecurity laws in China.

In a blog post, ExpressVPN said it was "disappointed" with Apple's decision. It "represents the most drastic measure the Chinese government has taken to block the use of VPNs to date, and we are troubled to see Apple aiding China's censorship efforts," the post read.

Golden Frog also said in a blog post that it was "extremely disappointed" in Apple's decision. It added, "If Apple views accessibility as a human right, we would hope Apple will likewise recognize internet access as a human right (the UN has even ruled it as such) and would choose human rights over profits."

The move was also criticized by others, including U.S. whistle-blower Edward Snowden in a tweet.

"Earlier this year China's (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) announced that all developers offering VPNs must obtain a license from the government," an Apple spokesperson told CNBC. "We have been required to remove some VPN apps in China that do not meet the new regulations. These apps remain available in all other markets where they do business."

Apple's decision to remove the apps comes at a time when businesses and individuals inside the mainland are finding it harder to connect to the so-called open internet outside China via VPN. A business executive told CNBC that connecting through VPN in cities like Hangzhou is becoming far more difficult, as compared to bigger places such as Beijing and Shanghai. People using an international SIM card or apps downloaded from App Stores outside China are still able to use VPNs on the mainland, according to the executive.

Some of the remaining VPN companies that have yet to face Beijing's crackdown could end up collaborating with the authorities, according to Martin Johnson (a pseudonym) from GreatFire.org. He told CNBC that some of those companies may hand over user data when requested and be allowed to operate without restrictions. "Those that protect their users security will be removed."

Johnson added, "Apple is now an integral part of China's censorship apparatus, helping the government expand it's control to a global scale."

To be sure, Apple's removal of those apps is not the first time Beijing's cyber regulators have gone after VPN providers. Recent reports said two popular providers GreenVPN and Haibei VPN stopped their services following a notice from the regulators. In fact, a number of VPN apps are still available on the local App Store as of Monday.

In January, the MIIT embarked on a 14-month campaign to "clean up" China's internet connections by March 31, 2018. In a notice, the ministry said that, while China's internet access service market is facing "a rare opportunity for development," there are also signs of "disorderly development" needing to be rectified.

Among other services, the move also affected VPNs: The Ministry said those connections cannot be created without the approval of the relevant telecommunications authorities.

State-owned news outlet Global Times reported that a spokesperson for MIIT said at a press conference last week that foreign companies or multinational corporations that need to use VPN for business purposes could rent special lines from telecom providers that legally provide such services.

Previously, the Ministry had denied a Bloomberg report that it ordered major telco operators China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom to block individuals' access to all VPNs by February 1, 2018.

Johnson said the authorities would "prefer to divide users such that businesses can continue to access the global internet, while ordinary users can only access the filtered internet."

"The Chinese government does not care at all about freedom of speech, but they do care very much about economic growth and China's economy continues to be very dependent on the outside world. Apple should use this leverage and stand up for the principle. Sadly they don't," he said.

CNBC's Barry Huang contributed to this report.

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Apple removes VPN apps in China as Beijing doubles down on censorship - CNBC

When Chinese social media users on microblog Weibo came across an almost illegible post earlier this month, many of them would have instantly recognized it as Martian, a coded language based on Chinese characters that was very popular many years ago.

It was a version of a post by a prominent retired sociologist and sex adviser, Li Yinhe, in which she called for the elimination of censorship in China. The original post went viral on Weibo, which is similar to Twitter and has some 340 million monthly active users. More than 60,000 users (link in Chinese) shared the postunsurprisingly, it was soon deleted.

Chinese internet users and media observers have noticed tightening online restrictions in recent months, as stricter internet rules for online journalism and a new cybersecurity law came into effect in June. This month, in the wake of the death of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in custody, pictures vanished from private conversations on messaging platform WeChat, and similar blocks were noticed on WhatsApp, the last product from Facebook available in the country, and hotels announced they were reconfiguring internet access to comply with Chinese law.

To navigate around restrictions, Chinese internet users have often engaged in linguistic acrobatics, from code words, slang, and coded images, to dipping into other languages. Recently, some have turned to Martian (huo xing wen), a linguistic invention from the early days of the Chinese-language internet that had fallen out of favor and now is resurfacing.

Martian dates back to at least 2004 but its origins are mysterious. Its use appears to have begun among young people in Taiwan for online chatting, and then it spread to the mainland. The characters randomly combine, split, and rebuild traditional Chinese characters, Japanese characters, pinyin, and sometimes English and kaomoji, a mixture of symbols that conveys an emotion (e.g. O(_)O: Happy). For example, the word (y g), which means one of or one thing is transformed into in Martian language. It replaces with the number in a circle and adds a small square to the left of the traditional version of .

A Weibo user who goes by the alias Tangnadeshuo, and is a Martian-language user, says its a marker for Chinese people born after 1990: We use it to make fun and sneer. Its a cultural symbol of the post-1990s [generation], he said.

Its not an easy language to masterthe same Chinese character can have more than one Martian counterpart.

Even so, Martian language fever swept across the strait as players chatted in popular online games like Audition Online (link in Chinese) and then flooded onto Tencent QQ, a widely-used instant messaging app at the time. Soon creative Chinese developed new Martian language input methods for keyboards. The language has online translation tools.

It was very popular back in my school days People used Martian language in their ID and profile descriptions on QQ, Lotus Ruan, a research fellow at University of Torontos Citizen Lab, which conducts research on censorship, told Quartz.

Though its hard to read, young Chinese adopted the language not only because it was new and cool but also because it was incomprehensible to parents and teachers. Parents in paternalistic China seldom regard teenagers messages and diaries as their private materials. But they werent familiar with the transformation rules of Martian (and some even worried that using Martian might affect other language skills). Gossiping in Martian prevented many moms (link in Chinese) from understanding childrens messages in QQ and prevented teachers from reading notes passed to classmates.

Although Martian language is not as popular now as it was five to 10 years ago, people will still resort to it from time to time to circumvent the censors, Victor H. Mair, a professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of Pennsylvania, told Quartz.

Internet censorship works by filtering information for sensitive keywords. Research by Citizen Labs Jason Q. Ng shows that a Weibo post will first be reviewed by a machine and flagged if it contains certain keywords that are blacklisted. Human censors also review published posts. Using Martian can prolong the longevity of a post. If the Martian language [versions] of certain keywords are not on the blacklist already, it can be used to bypass censorship until a human reviewer censors it, she said.

It isnt only the Chinese whove resorted to using workarounds derived from Martian, such 7-1, 5-1 to refer to the June 4 Tiananmen Square protests (the math in the workaround refers to the date 6/4). In 2014 when the British Embassy in China published a 2013 human rights report, it posted (link in Chinese) the title in Martian: 2013 was written as 2013MZ. The new titl breaks down the word (rights) into its two parts , replaces with its synonym , and changes (democracy) into the initials of its pinyin MZ.

In the face of renewed efforts to ban the use of individual VPNs and crack down on online video streaming services, Chinese netizens have become increasingly concerned about their ability to communicate online. Earlier this month, a Weibo user posted in Martian language (link in Chinese and Martian language): From today on, I will post on Weibo in Martian language. Because if I post in Chinese I will be gagged. Guys you can have a try.

After the sexologist Li Yinhes anti-censorship July 9 post in Chinese was deleted in Chinait can still be read outside Chinait was reposted several times in Martian. Several of those posts got deleted too, most likely by a human censor, but one still survives.

Ruan notes that just because a Martian term gets blocked on one platform doesnt mean it wont be useful on another. Internet users should also note that censorship in China is not monolithic, she said. If a Martian-language keyword is censored on Weibo it does not necessarily mean that it is censored on other platforms such as WeChat.

Still, as Chinas sensitive-terms blacklist gets refined, Martian language may become less helpful. Also Chinese Martian users trying to evade censorship shouldnt ignore the possibility that, like them, people working in internet censorship groups might once have been Martian-speaking teens too.

Excerpt from:
In China, internet censors are accidentally helping revive an invented Martian language - Quartz

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The timing likely isn't coincidental. Russia is holding a presidential election in March, and banning technology like VPNs will make it harder for voters to see news that questions Putin's authority. Likewise, you may be less likely to organize a protest if you know that the police can trace anonymous chats back to you through your phone number. As with China's VPN crackdown, Russian officials are trying to control the online conversation at a crucial moment to make sure the powers that be go unchallenged.

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