Apple has removed Virtual Private Network (VPN) apps from the China App Store in response to Chinese laws which state that any effort to go around their internet firewall is illegal. China’s “Great Firewall” is the country’s effort of using internet filters to block the free flow of information; sites hosting popular foreign television shows, messaging apps such as WhatsApp, and news organizations like the New York Times have fallen victim to the firewall.
This crackdown is something seen from China every five years; however, with the Chinese Communist Party holding congress, there seems to be an even stronger push towards stricter control of the internet.
The crackdown gained attention this year when Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo died on July 13th. In 2009, Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years for co-writing a manifesto that called for democratic reform in China. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 while he was in jail and in June, it was announced that China would grant him medical parole due to terminal liver cancer.
One of the most famous images of Liu’s final days was an image of him standing arm in arm with his wife. While it circulated on Twitter, the Chinese government censored the image on private messaging apps.
One image of dissident #LiuXiaobo #China censors won’t allow even in private chats, Toronto’s @citizenlab finds #CBC https://t.co/Ad0Mp6PHMT pic.twitter.com/lAZzoxZAWc
— Saša Petricic (@sasapetricic) July 18, 2017
On July 16, a report was released by Citizen Lab, which is based out of the University of Toronto, revealing that images of Liu were filtered in private one-on-one chats on Weechat, which is China’s most used chat app. Despite the picture being sent by one user, it would never be received by the other user. This is the first time that researchers found image deletion happening in chats between just two people; the organization found that image filtering mainly happened in group chats when users attempted to use certain keywords.
A VPN allows citizens to go around firewalls to reach the outside world via the internet. Apple came under fire when they appealed to the Chinese government and removed the New York Times app from the apple store in China, but now Apple is taking things a step further by removing VPNs from their store as well.
The first evidence that there was an effort to restrict VPN’s came to light when the Waldorf Astoria in Beijing released a statement that due to government law, they wouldn’t be able to supply their guests with access to VPNs.
When Apple pulled their VPN apps, they received backlash from organizations who had previously supported the company. Sunday Yokubaitis, the president of Golden Frog, a company that makes privacy and security software (including an app pulled by Apple called VyprVPN) explains his disappointment with Apple.
“We gladly filed an amicus brief in support of Apple in their back donor encryption battle with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) so we are extremely disappointed that Apple has bowed to pressure from China to remove VPN apps without citing any Chinese law or regulation that makes VPN illegal.”
He also added, “We view access to internet in China as a human rights issue, and I would expect Apple to value human rights over profit.”
It’s no surprise that Apple is following Chinese guidelines; they are establishing a data centre in Guizhou province to follow the rigid cyber security laws, while at the same time trying to develop one of the country’s poorest areas into a hi-tech hub.
Why does this matter? Without VPNs, businesses in China take a huge hit. Companies around the world are attempting to move their businesses to the cloud, but that’s nearly impossible without access to VPNs. Smaller businesses utilize regular internet access for email or other important business information. Chinese academics and researchers also take a hit. Many aren’t able to do their job as effectively without the tools that Google provides.
The American pro-democracy group Freedom House named China the worst abuser of internet freedoms of the 65 countries it ranked.
At a time when China is taking huge strides in the technical world through things like cloud computing, robotics, and driverless cars, there are questions on how well companies can do their technical jobs without access to internet to allow them to communicate with other innovative minds outside of the country.
The restriction on VPNs is being used as a political safety valve; it is an effort by the government to restrict the communication between citizens that might lead to frustration about other restrictions which might lead to citizens questioning the government.
While some believe Apple is right to appeal to the Chinese government, others think that limiting internet access is a human rights issue. This will become one of the biggest debates of our time as tech increases, and China is left behind due to the heavy weight of communist restriction.
