How far would this extend to? For example Tencent owns League of Legends, a widely used video game in the US (or even, globally) with a communication tool?
What if WeChat just suddenly gets popular in the US? What should the US do in that situation?
What if WeChat just suddenly gets popular in the US? What should the US do in that situation?
I think the US should pass and aggressively enforce anti-snooping laws. No company allowed to monitor communication of customers over whatever platform that company is selling (unless the product requires it or that IS the service - some sort of Mood Analysis API or whatever). Would also conveniently take care of a key net neutrality point :)
WeChat will not suddenly get popular in the US because it sucks. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have survived in China without the firewall. But assuming it did, I think the correct response is to require it to have end to end encryption.
Claims of end to end encryption are pretty worthless if you don't trust the provider and haven't audited their source code.
Block it (or heavily regulate it), pending a reciprocal opening of their market.
The whole "be open, lead by example, and they'll do the same" hasn't worked with China very well.
Blocking LoL is fine by me. China's blocked Google.
They do block Google and Facebook. By censoring an entire country following that logic the internet as we know it would be a country-by-country intranet. Best case would be a game of "ACCEPT OUR SERVICES OR ELSE"