China's Censors Can Now Erase Images Mid-Transmission (wsj.com)

Eva Dou, reporting for WSJ: China's already formidable internet censors have demonstrated a new strength -- the ability to delete images in one-on-one chats as they are being transmitted, making them disappear before receivers see them. The ability is part of a broader technology push by Beijing's censors to step up surveillance and get ahead of activists and others communicating online in China (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source). Displays of this new image-filtering capability kicked into high gear last week as Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo lay dying from liver cancer and politically minded Chinese tried to pay tribute to him, according to activists and a new research report. Wu Yangwei, a friend of the long-jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said he used popular messaging app WeChat to send friends a photo of a haggard Mr. Liu embracing his wife. Mr. Wu believed the transmissions were successful, but he said his friends never saw them. "Sometimes you can get around censors by rotating the photo," said Mr. Wu, a writer better known by his pen name, Ye Du. "But that doesn't always work." There were disruptions on Tuesday to another popular messaging app, Facebook's WhatsApp, with many China-based users saying they were unable to send photos and videos without the use of software that circumvents Chinese internet controls. Text messages appeared to be largely unaffected.

Comments

Re:Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you trolling, or do you really believe that nonsense you just posted? Memo to alleged 'conservatives': Nobody is going to start censoring your stuff -- and if someone did, it would be so-called 'conservatives', not so-called 'liberals'.

Let's take stock, briefly, of what the so-called 'right wing', which tends to be 'Christian', likes to do:
o Anything with swear words in it is strongly frowned upon
o Anything sexy is banned
o Violence? Smoking? Ribald humor? Can't have that, those aren't 'family values', everything has to be kid-safe!
o Blacks? Mexicans? Asians? Minorities of any kind? Anyone who isn't WASP? Viewed with suspicion, as is anything they like, do, or say.

Oh and by the way? Your boy Trump, and his ENTIRE CABINET, are TRAITORS and should be put up against a wall and SHOT -- and YOU MORONS VOTED FOR HIM. Go move to Russia, see how you like it there, idiots.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

...guess it won't be long before this comes to the UK.

For the children, don't you know?

steganography?

[roc97007]

I'm curious if they've tried steganography to get around censorship? Hiding the photo inside another photo or document?

Or maybe they *are* doing that, and the reason we're not hearing about it is because it's working.

So... never mind...