WeChat is censoring photos from Hong Kong’s Occupy Central protests

As Hong Kong’s Occupy Central protests continue to gather momentum and attention, Hong Kong’s denizens are sharing photos of the moment on social media. But apparently, photos of the protests posted to WeChat by Hong Kong-based users are being censored, and are not visible for WeChat users in mainland China.

@kinablog @WLYeung @westmoon Noticed this a few days ago. None of my images are getting through to Mainland contacts.

— Cam MacMurchy (@zhongnanhai) October 1, 2014

For example, Hong Kong-based blogger Cam MacMurchy shared the screenshots below with Tech in Asia. On the left is an image from Hong Kong he posted to WeChat on September 30th. On the right, a conversation with a Beijing-based friend, who tells him that none of the images he’s posted since September 28th are visible (“now” is a typo of the word “no”).

As is probably apparent, Tencent is practicing a form of “hidden” censorship that’s also common on other Chinese social media sites like Weibo. Users can post whatever content they like, and it will always appear in their own feed, uncensored. But any friends they might have in China won’t be able to see or comment on the censored content, and it will appear to them as though nothing has been posted.

It’s no surprise that WeChat is censored in mainland China, of course. But it will be interesting to see whether this move affects WeChat’s user base in Hong Kong in the long run.

Although WeChat is always censored in China, it generally isn’t in Hong Kong. This is likely many Hong Kong-based WeChat users’s first direct experience with having their posts blocked in China. Being censored is never fun, and it could push Hong Kong’s mobile users towards other messaging platforms once they discover their WeChat posts aren’t being seen by friends in China.

(See more: Foreigner’s anti-protest Weibo post about Occupy Central goes viral in China)

(h/t to @kinablog and @zhongnanhai)