this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2026
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I was born and raised here. The VPN is for the firewall which has many reasons to exist and I support, also they're not illegal. Criticising the government is super common but mostly over mundane stuff because that's what people care about (there's a reason the approval even according to Harvard is 95+%). You people are always so arrogant while being so uninformed it's amazing.
Making a statement that online surveillance there is no different from elsewhere will get you that kind of response tbh. It is measurably worse.
It simply isn't. Remember snowden? The NSA? TAO? Pegasus? Our government is simply more open and honest with us (might be a side effect of having real democracy as opposed to a charade put on by bought candidates every 4 years). Also before you say that's just America, Europe are American vassal states all of these and more (since this is just what has leaked) are deployed against Europeans too and intel is shared in deals like five eyes.
The method of voting isn't what makes it real democracy it's the class content of the state and the fact that voting is a ritual for representatives that will only ever serve capital as opposed to voting being a single part of a daily system of feedback and interaction with deputies embedded in the grassroots situation who need accomplishments (to solve our problems) to go for higher offices. There's a reason the number of billionaires in China is shrinking while public services and social safety nets are constantly seeing investment while in Europe and America austerity for the masses and tax cuts for the rich is law.
Nice vibes based analysis sort of redundant when they have backdoors on every piece of technology deployed there or the fact that most end to end encrypted messages are some mix of lying and insecure like WhatsApp.
I hate to break it to you but if the government want to see that titty pic if it's on either of your phones or any other device they can and likely have.
Again remember snowden? If you live in the western hemisphere the US and Israeli intelligence apparatus owns all of your tech that's the unfortunate truth you need to reckon with.
If we work off the assumption that signal is secure then not without a court order where I live.
Not quite the same in China.
Edit: Awwww. The mods are removing my posts now. Bless their fragile hearts.
Since that's happening I'm out now. It's been an interesting discussion though I fundamentally disagree that surveillance there is the same as everywhere else. I've made my points. Catch you again o/
Yes the EuroAmerican intelligence apparatus famous for obeying court orders and never being outed by whistleblowers for running massive illegal spying and data harvesting operations. Are you trolling?
You fundamentally disagree because you're a chauvinist and an idiot
It's clearly true you are just stating things that are untrue but you feel must be because you are a chauvinist. And you are an idiot as you look past the very clearly documented history of the EuroAmerikan surveillance apparatus and pretend it's not real and if it is real it's bound by your laws etc etc. Hence you are a chauvinist and an idiot.
Fallacy fallacy. So epic owned. Fucking loser Reddit debate bro. Genuinely impressively arrogant while being so uninformed and apparently genuinely unintelligent.
"I'm actually laughing"
Projection: Rare vance incident, usa.
Wrong, but you keep on keeping on.
Bring it on. Disprove the rare vance incident, or prove your bullshit claims about WeChat. If you can do neither, it's a clear case of projection.
WeChat uses transport encryption but not end to end. This is well known. If you're unwilling to search here's an article.
Here's another.
And another (this one's from citizen lab and a reasonably technical dive).
There's no end to them tbh.
If you can find me anything that says WeChat uses E2E anywhere I'll read it but they don't even claim that themselves so I think you'll be hard pressed.
Here's a list of blocked phrases on WeChat.
I honestly have no idea what you're banging on about with the Vance thing. I'm not from the USA which I assumed was your assertion.
I didn't ask you to prove anything about e2e. I asked you to prove that "something bad happens to you when you use pgp in WeChat"
Read about the rare vance incident, what happened there was pretty much what you were so insistent on would happen in china. That's why I assumed you were projecting.
Maybe you were not projecting, that's ok. Maybe you read it in a fiction book. Or it came to you in a dream. Who knows, you certainly won't tell me.
Ah....I didn't say that something bad happens. I said see what happens. It's an important difference...
I wouldn't be comfortable using PGP encrypted messages sent through WeChat if I were there and communicating with a local (and I have been, many times). I would be very, very concerned about getting them in trouble. End to end encryption is not tolerated in China and using PGP would essentially bring that so I would consider it a significant risk. It's speculative, I'll admit that no problem but as I say I wouldn't do it.
That's my threat model. The fact that end to end doesn't exist in China should tell you everything you need to know about deep rooted state level surveillance there. It does to me but if you think that in general all messaging providers should be able to see your text messages for some reason and think that combined with that, all those blocked phrases are not because the state wants control and oversight then your threat model and view of government surveillance (not just in China) is.... different.
I'm glad I live somewhere that I feel free to text my wife on signal and I'm confident it's not being read by anyone. If the day ever comes that stops being the case I'll fight for it because privacy is important to me. Everyone can fuck off out of private conversations between me and my loved ones. They're boring as shite but they're mine and mine alone.
Yeah I'm not aware of the Vance thing but I'll have a search. If you have a link handy I'd appreciate it as it might be hard to find without more context. (Edit: yeah I'm not finding it.)
That block list makes for interesting reading. Worth a look.
Source: it is known