Yeah, or the West would have reacted accordingly already in 2014.

That’s true. I corrected that now, thanks.

As an addition to the article: Douyin, the Chinese version of the Western TikTok, might work in a different way. As a study regarding visual propaganda of Douyin accounts of Chinese central and local news agencies on China’s Douyin found in May 2024:

The results [of the research] delineate a divergence in focus between central and local news agencies: while the former prioritizes content related to the military, police, and firefighting, the latter emphasizes “livelihood warmth” topics. Central agencies predominantly feature soldiers, police officers, and firefighters, whereas local agencies portray individuals devoid of explicit political affiliations alongside other influencers. Emotional scrutiny unveils a contrast in strategies, with central agencies predominantly evoking emotions such as anger, disgust, fear, and intolerance, while local agencies employ anticipation, acceptance, and respect. This investigation underscores the profound influence of political authority within China’s propaganda framework, shaping both the substance and emotional resonance of political short videos within a hierarchical paradigm […]

Owing to their distinct positions within the hierarchical framework and their varying areas of jurisdiction, local government media at each level exhibit more pronounced hierarchical disparities in their propaganda compared to the central government. In general, the closer the themes and visual characteristics are to “Military, the police, and firefighting”, the less distinguishable they are from central media. Conversely, the more they focus on “People’s livelihood and warmth”, the more likely local governments are to adopt innovative promotional strategies concerning “points” while emphasizing regional characteristics. Although the local news agencies more actively produced content on Douyin than did the central news agencies, the central news agencies received more attention from the public.

That’s fair, it doesn’t make China’s behavior better in any way, though.

Yes, I know of the OMEMO issues. Most users would probably find that too difficult (although it isn’t imo). It’s very hard to convince people of more secure, non-mainstream tools, unfortunately.

XMPP maybe?

I also tink SimpleX Chat is a good alternative.

I wouldn’t recommend Signal (only the client is open source, the server is from Amazon, and you have to provide your phone number).

The European Commission has issued a “retention order” to TikTok under its DSA, ordering the platform to freeze and preserve data related to actual or foreseeable systemic risks its service could pose on electoral processes and civic discourse in the EU “in the context of the ongoing Romanian elections”.

Commission, online platforms and civil society increase monitoring during Romanian elections

TikTok must preserve internal documents and information regarding the design and functioning of its recommender systems, as well as the way it addresses the risk of intentional manipulation through coordinated inauthentic use of the service. The Commission is ordering preservation of documents and information regarding any systematic infringement of TikTok’s terms of service prohibiting the use of monetisation features for the promotion of political content on the service. The retention order concerns national elections in the European Union between 24 November 2024 until 31 March 2025.

Yes, I would also have a nitpick for the authorities (and journalists who report on the issue) in that China didn’t hack the providers, it hacked the U.S. Wiretap system. This is an important detail. There is no such thing as a ‘backdoor only for the good guys’.

India seems more and more following China on the path towards autocrcay.