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China's WeChat Denies Storing User Chats (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the he-said-she-said dept.

WeChat, China's most popular messenger app, on Tuesday denied storing users' chat histories, after a top businessman was quoted in media reports as saying he believed Tencent was monitoring everyone's account. From a report: " WeChat does not store any users' chat history. That is only stored in users' mobiles, computers and other terminals," WeChat said in a post on the social media platform. "WeChat will not use any content from user chats for big data analysis. Because of WeChat's technical model that does not store or analyse user chats, the rumour that 'we are watching your WeChat everyday' is pure misunderstanding." More than 900 million people use WeChat.

7 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. Riiiiiiight...... by Ritz_Just_Ritz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't believe that denial for a millisecond. Coming from the government that was able to get a screen shot of what anyone in a public internet cafe was doing in real time 10 years ago....

    1. Re:Riiiiiiight...... by Kiuas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Coming from the government that was able to get a screen shot of what anyone in a public internet cafe was doing in real time 10 years ago.

      This is not coming from the government. This is coming from the company.

      It's perfectly possible that everything they've said is accurate, they only stated that they themselves are not monitoring the chats, they never claimed that they've not given the government access to the data for them to be able to do monitoring, which is certainly happening.

      --
      "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
    2. Re:Riiiiiiight...... by Ritz_Just_Ritz · · Score: 3, Informative

      Heh. Do you think for a second that a company of that scale operating in China doesn't have an ownership roster that reads like a who's who of the communist party in China (and close family relatives). Don't kid yourself.

    3. Re:Riiiiiiight...... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There is another thing people forget. Chinese companies have to have government officials from their military and intel branches on their boards of directors. Similar, where Chinese ventures with foreign companies have to be 51% owned by China (and this are actively controlled by their government), having chats "accidentally" log is not surprising. At least in the US or Europe, if you want something made on their soil, you don't have to have an officer from MI5 or the CIA actively vote and decide what happens as a company.

    4. Re:Riiiiiiight...... by currently_awake · · Score: 2

      Logically, the government needs the chats sent to them immediately so they can look for "problems", and logically the government will want to record everything so they can make comparisons to older chats, and logically the company doesn't want the expense of logging stuff if they don't have to- so I expect the company really doesn't record those chats.

  2. Confirm nothing deny everything by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

    *Never Believe Anything Until It Is Officially Denied*

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  3. Re:wrong by crimson+tsunami · · Score: 2
    There is usually little point arguing with people who's hatred of China is part of their religious belief system. Especially if they are AC. So you get the rebuttal instead.

    From the Chinese government perspective, companies that are 25% or more controlled by foreign investors is a Foreign Invested Enterprise (FIE).The most common FIE is the Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise (WFOE), which is a limited liability company. The original intent of the WFOE structure was to encourage the export of technology-driven manufacturing activities. However, in practice, it has primarily been used to set up management and consulting services for foreign companies looking to get a quick start in the Chinese economy.

    You or the idiot who modded him up could have easily gone to google and stuck in 'how to start a business in china' and found the truth.
    People who think 'it's bad' + it's about China' = true, are not the kind of people who are swayed by facts or evidence, they are a lost cause already. They already believe what they want to believe.
    Did you believe it, did you check, or did you just add an even more useless post. Attempting to provide some credibility to an obvious anti China troll.