Brief: China’s censors may be blocking WhatsApp

Photo by Microsiervos Geek Crew.

The news:

• WhatsApp users in China have been reporting outages of the messaging app since the start of this week.
• In particular, it seems that media messages – such as pictures and audio clips, which are a popular form of messaging in the country – are not being delivered to their intended recipients, though simple text messages are still getting through.
• Bloomberg reports that WhatsApp is not responsible for the outages, quoting a person familiar with the matter. It suggests that it is likely the Chinese government is blocking the app.

Why it matters:

• Chinese authorities have been notching up censorship of social media channels of late, particularly in the wake of politically sensitive events like the death of human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s transition from British to Chinese rule, and the upcoming 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.
• WhatsApp is nowhere near as popular among Chinese mobile users as Tencent’s WeChat, but there are many who prefer it due to a perception that it is less closely monitored by the Chinese state.
• WhatsApp owner Facebook is banned outright in China, but has continued to seek ways of gaining government approval.

Source: Bloomberg.