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The World's Largest Phone Network China Mobile Censors Content -- Even in the United States (washingtonpost.com)
Isaac Stone Fish, reporting for The Washington Post: On Monday, the U.S. Department of Commerce recommended the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) deny a license to China Mobile, the state-run company that is the world's largest phone network by subscribers. (It reaches more people than Verizon and AT&T combined.) The Commerce Department suggested the move because of the national security risk China Mobile poses. Indeed, because China Mobile is an arm of the Chinese state, there are legitimate concerns that Beijing could use it to gather data on American citizens. There is, however, a previously unreported concern with China Mobile that adds to worries about the company's suitability in the United States.
According to several interviews with frequent Chinese travelers to the United States, those with China Mobile as their carrier are often unable to access American websites and apps that are banned in China. A Chinese journalist who regularly travels to the United States for work, and who asked to speak anonymously, said she couldn't access Facebook or the New York Times in the United States with her China Mobile number. Even Google Maps is banned, leading to some frustrating travel experiences. When she was visiting a friend in Brooklyn, the Chinese journalist said, "it took me a long time to find her place because my VPN failed me and I couldn't use Google Maps." She was referring to a Virtual Private Network, a method that some Chinese use to circumvent the Chinese censorship apparatus.
According to several interviews with frequent Chinese travelers to the United States, those with China Mobile as their carrier are often unable to access American websites and apps that are banned in China. A Chinese journalist who regularly travels to the United States for work, and who asked to speak anonymously, said she couldn't access Facebook or the New York Times in the United States with her China Mobile number. Even Google Maps is banned, leading to some frustrating travel experiences. When she was visiting a friend in Brooklyn, the Chinese journalist said, "it took me a long time to find her place because my VPN failed me and I couldn't use Google Maps." She was referring to a Virtual Private Network, a method that some Chinese use to circumvent the Chinese censorship apparatus.
We know this. Why not just ban all companies that are arms of the Chinese state? We know they're not to be trusted under any circumstances, so why allow them? Let them meet our standards or go fuck themselves full of rice.
if they had started to route the traffic directly through wherever they're roaming, that would be news.
it works as if they were in china. that's how it's supposed to work. how on earth a journalist doesn't know this by now? they never travel?
this is literally not news at all since this is just how it works. their data gets routed back to china and out from there. THATS HOW IT WORKS, the ping times go to fuck of course.
also, it's usually prohibitely expensive anyways so.. eh. just look for wifi will you? or you want to pay thousands for 10 minutes of downloading updates? you wouldn't be doing that unless you had chinese government footing your mobile bill anyways.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.