Clubhouse, the recently popular online voice platform, is alleged to have Chinese technology and servers behind it, so Chinese netizens who go over the wall to chat here may be at risk of being convicted for their words. Experts warn people to beware.
Clubhouse is a multi-person online voice chat social platform software released by Alpha Exploration Co. in April 2020. It has more than 2 million users as of February 2021.
Users of the platform can open public or private voice chat “rooms” (virtual rooms); however, no video or text can be sent within the rooms, and there is no recording playback function.
According to Wikipedia, Clubhouse says the software developer behind it is the U.S. company Alpha Exploration, but mainland Chinese media outlet TechWeb noted on Feb. 1 that Clubhouse’s live voice chat technology is based on Agora, which is based in Shanghai.
The Central News Agency (CNA) said on February 21 that although Clubhouse was blocked by China, many Chinese netizens still scanned the wall to express their opinions. But U.S. experts warned that Clubhouse uses Chinese-made servers and that the content transmitted is at risk of being intercepted, so it is not recommended to post sensitive conversations on this software.
The National Intelligence Law of the People’s Republic of China, introduced by Beijing in 2017, requires all Chinese nationals and business entities to cooperate with authorities in gathering intelligence.
Clubhouse requires users to provide their cell phone numbers when they sign up and authorizes the software developer to review the list of contacts in the user’s address book, meaning all of the user’s contacts are recorded and stored on the developer’s servers.
According to the Voice of America, Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory and former chief security officer of Facebook, tweeted that researchers found that servers produced by Chinese technology companies were used to process Clubhouse’s user voice conversation data.
The expert believes it is likely that SoundNet had access to Clubhouse users’ raw voice data and could have transferred that access to government agencies. Clubhouse allegedly used servers manufactured by “Guangzhou Longbridge Visions Communication Technology Co.
Stamos noted that Soundnet’s technology is “fundamental to the operation” of Clubhouse’s features. This is not limited to Chinese users, but also involves U.S. users. Therefore, individuals who may be disadvantaged by China’s Internet security operations are not advised to use Clubhouse for sensitive conversations.
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