WhatsApp suddenly becomes available in China without a VPN
Over the past two weeks, residents of Beijing and Shanghai have been able to use WhatsApp freely without the need for a VPN, despite the app’s official ban in China. This case seems strange against the backdrop of the Chinese government’s tough measures against foreign Internet services, including platforms such as Signal and Instagram, which are on the banned list of the Great Firewall of China.
WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, is not particularly popular in China compared to the local messenger WeChat, which has more than a billion users. However, several million Chinese still use WhatsApp, mostly through VPN services. Interestingly, the access to WhatsApp came at the same time as Apple removed the app and other social media from the Chinese App Store at the request of the government, which is seeking to eliminate any circumvention of Internet censorship.
The sudden lifting of restrictions on WhatsApp in China may indicate that the government is testing new methods of controlling the Internet or that there are technical problems with the blocking system. Similar incidents in the past have often sparked heated debate among cybersecurity and human rights experts.
