The “Learn Strong Country” app, which promotes the Chinese Communist government, has been the subject of much debate among Chinese netizens, and sources close to the situation say that the app was created by Alibaba.
The app, which is run by the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda ministry, has been the subject of another scandal, targeting single women with hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. The app, which is used by the Communist Party for political propaganda, is widely used on a mandatory basis across the mainland and has been the subject of several scams.
Recent scams targeting single women have been perpetrated by people claiming to be CCP soldiers or civil servants. On May 12, Zhejiang’s Yuyao Political and Legal Committee’s WeChat public number “Ping An Yuyao Release” posted an article saying that criminals were posing as soldiers and civil servants, but did not elaborate on the perpetrators.
A 36-year-old single woman, Xiaomin (a pseudonym), showed that the fraudster introduced himself as the head of the message section of a military unit, showed his military officer card, and added friends to each other on the “Learning Strong” app. The “Learning Power”, a common software for government agencies, increased Xiaomin’s trust in each other, and the two sides established a romantic relationship.
Then one day in late April, the man to identity sensitive reason, let Xiaomin on behalf of the operation of investment finance, a few days later let Xiaomin join the investment together. From the end of April to the beginning of May, Xiaomin took out all her savings and borrowed money from friends and relatives to invest 1.46 million yuan (RMB, the same below), but when she wanted to withdraw a large amount, she found that the software suddenly “malfunctioned” and lost a total of 1.44 million yuan.
Another single woman, Lili (a pseudonym), also had a similar experience, the other side also showed an officer’s license, and in the “Learning Power” software to add as a friend, the victim was cheated 200,000 yuan.
“The app, which was launched in early 2019 under the supervision of the Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department and features Xi Jinping’s comments, quickly became the most downloaded app on the mainland, with netizens quoted on the BBC Chinese website at the time saying the app was too formal and the content was hollow and a waste of time. “It’s purely a political task”; one Shan Dongfang Daily user said, “You must get 66 points every day.” This takes about two hours, according to a screenshot she posted of her study log.
In late April, Radio Free Asia quoted an active Clubhouse user, “Two Moons for a Friend,” as saying that the Chinese Communist Party requires real-name authentication for many software programs, but that the real-name authentication for “Learning Power” is not strict.
Similar fraudulent incidents have occurred before.
In February and April of this year, there were cases in Mianyang, Sichuan Province, and Urumqi, Xinjiang Province, in which women were scammed after they were friended by men claiming to be active-duty military personnel on “Learn Strong” and then induced to invest.
On April 24 of this year, the Public Security Bureau of Nanchong City, Sichuan Province, issued an announcement on its official microblogging site that fraudsters use real-name registration to gain the trust of others and then induce friends in the platform to participate in fake investments or gambling, and that victims are immediately blacked out when they realize they have been cheated. However, the announcement also did not specify the identity details of the fraudsters.
In an article published on United Press, commentator Wu Jiesheng said that Chinese journalists, civil servants, employees of state-owned enterprises, public school teachers, and members of the Communist Party must download “Learn to be Strong”, a torturous “digital version of Mao’s quotations” that appears to be a massive political brainwashing and vicious manipulation. This torturous “digital version of Mao’s quotations” is like a massive political brainwashing and malicious manipulation that many Chinese people are too upset to speak out.
According to a study conducted by the Open Tech Fund (OTF) and the German information security company Cure53, the “learning powerhouse” has hidden a “super backdoor” for surveillance, allowing the Chinese Communist authorities to monitor up to The study found that Learning Power had a hidden surveillance “super backdoor” that allowed the Chinese Communist authorities to monitor hundreds of millions of users’ data.
According to Wu, “This ‘innovative exploration’, which exposes the CCP’s serious insecurity and sense of national collapse, is also a testament to the CCP’s totalitarian power of digital surveillance.”
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