Special offer: Try The Information and get $100 off your plan today
About Us
Pricing Corporate Sales
Briefing
Asia

WeChat Gathers Data From Overseas Users for Chinese Censorship

By Wayne Ma
· · Source: The Information

The University of Toronto’s online security watchdog, Citizen Lab, revealed that Tencent’s social-media app, WeChat, secretly monitors content generated by users outside of China. The content is then used to bolster censorship within China. The research group conducted experiments where they created politically sensitive Chinese images and sent them between Canadian-registered WeChat users in a...

Get access to exclusive coverage
Read deeply reported stories from the largest newsroom in tech.
Latest Articles
 
Exclusive Asia
Is Oracle Biting Off More TikTok Than it Can Chew?
By Alex Heath · Sept. 22, 2020 8:30 PM PDT

New details about a way Oracle envisions managing TikTok user data and rewriting the app, and how TikTok’s technology actually operates, underscore how hard it could be for Oracle to separate the app from its Chinese owner.

At the same time, Oracle has held preliminary discussions with the U.K. government about protecting TikTok’s user data in that country, similar to its plan in ...

Latest Briefs
 
Tesla Shares Fall As Musk’s Battery Updates Disappoint
By Juro Osawa · Sept. 23, 2020
Amazon Gives its Own Hardware an Advertising Edge
By Shai Oster · Sept. 23, 2020
More State-Backed Chinese Media Condemn TikTok’s Deal With Oracle
By Shai Oster · Sept. 23, 2020
Stay in the know
Receive a summary of the day's top tech news—distilled into one email.
Access on the go
View stories on our mobile app and tune into our weekly podcast.
Join live video Q&A’s
Deep-dive into topics like startups and autonomous vehicles with our top reporters and other executives.
Enjoy a clutter-free experience
Read without any banner ads.
Startups Microsoft
Tech Execs Are Obsessing Over Note-Taking Apps. We Tested Them Out
By The Information Staff
Investors are newly enamored of note-taking apps, financing startups like Notion Labs, Coda and Roam Research at high valuations.
Exclusive Policy Google
In Ironic Twist, Google’s Pro-Privacy Move Boosted U.S. Antitrust Probe
By Nick Bastone
Google has taken a lot of heat for violating people’s privacy. Now it could get in trouble for trying to protect it.
Venture Capital Asia
TikTok Valued at Around $60 Billion, As Deal Structure Emerges
By Kate Clark, Kevin McLaughlin and Jessica E. Lessin
Walmart and Oracle are valuing the soon-to-be formed TikTok Global at between $50 billion and $60 billion, according to two people familiar with the deal, as key aspects of one of the most convoluted global tech deals in history take shape.
The Takeaway Media/Telecom Google
Accepting Kickbacks, Publishers Are Playing Into Tech Companies’ Hands
By Jessica E. Lessin
For years, news publishers have been clamoring for Facebook, Google and Apple to pay for the news content that gets distributed through their services.
Venture Capital Startups
Politics Create High-Wire Act for Tech CEOs
By Zoë Bernard
In June, after protests against the police killing of George Floyd swept the country, Glenn Kelman, CEO of online real estate brokerage Redfin, wrote an email to his customers in which he committed to doing more to help Black customers find homes in neighborhoods they’ve traditionally been shut out of.
Exclusive Google Enterprise
With TikTok Deal, Oracle Could Gain Billion-Dollar Cloud Customer
By Amir Efrati
Oracle’s deal to act as TikTok’s new “trusted technology partner” could be worth more than $1 billion in potential revenue annually for Oracle’s cloud business in the coming years, according to previously undisclosed data viewed by The Information.