December 1, 2022

While everyone watches Twitter, Apple helped China fight dissidents

Our silly media obsession with Twitter while other tech monopolists actually aid authoritarian regimes remains unabated.

Protests in China have attracted international attention as the greatest challenge of President Xi Jinping’s premiership and a major knock to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) longstanding authority.

But their spread within China was partially hobbled by a key change in Apple’s AirDrop feature, launched just weeks before the unrest.

AirDrop, which allows users to share content between Apple devices, has become an important tool in protestors’ efforts to circumvent authoritarian censorship regimes over recent years.

That is because it relies on wireless connections between phones, rather than internet connectivity, placing it beyond the scope of internet content moderators. It uses Bluetooth to form a peer-to-peer Wi-Fi network between two devices.

The tool was used widely during Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protests, when demonstrators would share messages and protest literature with passers by and visitors from mainland China through AirDrop’s open network.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/30/apple-limited-a-crucial-airdrop-function-in-china-just-weeks-before-protests.html

Now. What did Musk have for lunch today? I hope at least five media outlets cover this vital and breaking news.