
China deletes 'malicious' mobile apps - theBashShell
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-gaming-tencent-holdings/china-deletes-malicious-mobile-apps-idUSKCN1PI0LO
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porpoisely
"China's cyber watchdog" to stop "malicious mobile apps that infringe on
users’ rights”.

Are the unelected chinese authorities and their various ministries really
worried about users' rights or is it just cover to control what their
citizens/subjects see, hear and read?

I find it interesting how our media portrays this as china's authorities
trying to control the internet. But when our media, politicians, elites
pressure tech companies to delete, censor, etc, they don't portray it as an
attempt to control the internet.

Anyone know if the chinese press are as hypocritical as our press? Do they
portray our censorship as an attempt to control the internet?

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azurezyq
As a Chinese I'd say that Chinese people are already used to rely on the
government to perform this kind of control with no business incentives. For
example, they limit hours you can play continuously to fight against game
additives.

On the other hand, government is not like what Reuters usually portrayed (full
of police and agents). Many agencies try to solve all kinds of problems in
many ways, some elegant while some stupid.

For this exact action, I think it's something the adminstration thinks it
would work to solve the immediate problem. They just happened to have the
tool.

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mc32
It’ll be interesting to see how society develops in this controlled
environment.

>it had deleted more than 7 million pieces of online information as well as
9,382 mobile apps, and criticized a news app run by Tencent for spreading
“vulgar and low-brow information.

It’s very fascistic, anc is reminiscent of early twentieth century movements
to eliminate undesirable behavior and create ideal societies. So far it’s
always resulted in misery, death and other horrible outcomes. Still a
control/contrast to liberal societies will be interesting.

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deogeo
The (presumed) lack of due process on banning apps, and the centralized
control on what users may install (corporate or governmental) are concerning.
But, judging from the article, it sounds like calling those apps 'malicious'
is warranted, and I wouldn't bat an eye if the developers behind them were
charged with some sort of fraud (assuming a fair trial).

So I'd rather we not conflate Chinese human rights abuses with what just might
be consumer protection.

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pmlnr
What frightens me is that nearly all common mobile devices - that is android
with google play services, or iOS - could do the same, technically speaking.

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ajross
They already do, c.f. the "Apple banned my app" genre of blog post. In most
cases, probably even this one in China, the apps are legitimately bad and
users see aggregate benefit.

Obviously the important difference is that in this case it's a government
agency and not a private company. With Android at least, it remains the case
that a (reasonably adept) user can side-load any app she wants.

