Clubhouse, a cell phone App for online audio communication, was quickly blocked by the Chinese Communist government after its rapid rise in popularity.
Clubhouse, a social networking platform, was blocked by the Chinese Communist Party on August 8 after its rapid rise in popularity, but it is still hot outside the walls. Some netizens even discovered that accounts with names like “Cai Ing-wen” and “Xi Jinping” have appeared on the social media platform, raising their curiosity.
Clubhouse is an app that allows multiple people to chat online through the medium of voice, and is played by many politicians, businessmen and celebrities. In Clubhouse, there are several accounts named “Xi Jinping”, “Tsai Ing-wen” and other people. But these accounts may not be set up by themselves.
On the night of February 8, a netizen noticed that an account named “Ing-wen Tsai” (Tsai Ing-wen), whose avatar used a photo of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen wearing a mask, appeared in the “room” he was hosting, and at one point, he even “raised his hand to speak. The “room” was hosted by the DPP’s deputy secretary-general, Lin Heming, and at one point he also “raised his hand to speak” before quickly leaving.
DPP Deputy Secretary General Lin Heming responded that at present Tsai Ing-wen did not apply for an account on Clubhouse, and the one or two accounts now seen using Tsai Ing-wen’s photo are not her own or officially opened, but should be applied for by “enthusiastic netizens” themselves.
As for Xi Jinping’s account, which uses a composite photo of Winnie the Pooh as its avatar, there are all kinds of sensitive words in his profile, which is believed to be a spoof by netizens.
(Web screenshot)
At one point, the Chinese Apple phone users were allowed to log in to the web-based audio communication software, which allegedly allowed them to join chat rooms on any topic they liked, including many sensitive political topics, such as Xinjiang re-Education camps, Hong Kong‘s national security law, Falun Gong, the June 4 incident, and more.
Participation in a number of chat rooms discussing sensitive political topics was very hot. The chat room “Is there a concentration camp in Xinjiang?”, which discussed ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang, was once filled with over 2,000 people. at one point was packed with over 2,000 discussants.
When Alex came out of the chatroom, he tweeted, “I cried a lot on my phone. This is the first Time I’ve had so many friends who speak the same language standing with me, discussing the things I care about most but almost never dare to mention in Chinese. For the first time in a long time, I felt full of warmth and strength. Thank you all.”
At one point, the number of participants in a “Want to know more about Tiananmen” chat room reached a limit of 5,000, and there was a line for those who came after, wanting to learn the facts about the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.
However, the “Elite Club” was banned by the Chinese Communist Party on the night of February 8, after it quickly became popular among Chinese users.
According to Free Asia, netizens in several Chinese cities reported that Elite Club was unavailable that day. In a chat room discussing the blocking of the software, one user said that Shanghai was probably the only city where the software was available. One user reported that Shanghai was blocked at around 5 p.m. and Beijing at around 7 p.m.
According to Digital Times, the technology provider behind the “Elite Club” software is the China-based “VoiceNet” audio technology company. This has alerted many users who are concerned that their conversations are being tracked and their address books copied.
Liu Lipeng, a former content auditor for Sina Weibo who lives in California, said the “Elite Club” software’s use of contacts for invitations already puts users on the mainland at risk. The text messages, verification codes, etc. are all intercepted, making Chinese users extremely vulnerable to exposure.
However, after Elite Club was banned by the Chinese Communist Party, many netizens still joined the Elite Club discussion through VPNs, which are wall climbing tools.
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