Comment by narrator | Hacker News Reader

Comment by narrator | Hacker News Reader

"On WeChat, for example, group chats are discovered entirely by word-of-mouth or QR code—there is no global search option. The QR code is automatically disabled once a group reaches 100 members. Once the group grows to that size, users can only join if invited by a friend; groups are capped at 500. This means that even large group chats have a built-in social filter, since anyone who joins the group is likely the friend of at least one other existing group member. As a result, every group feels like a secret, known only to other members."

I couldn't imagine Facebook limiting group size. It seems like mass groupings and mass trends are kind of the bread and butter of western culture. I am reminded of how anti "Sorcery of the Spectacle" this is.

* The paranoia about mass action in china has created a new kind of artificial collectivism/individualism hybrid: The capped size group. * We are seeing a new form of social organziation! People, this is momentus! Seriously, go read "Sorcery of the Spectacle" again and think deeply about what this means. It's practically a re-conquering by the proletariat of the social sphere!

The no global search thing is crazy. You actually have to know people who tell you about things? How absurdly 1990s! The whole thing reminds me a bit of the mailing list culture of the late 90s. That all got eaten by Facebook groups, but it could have been something different.

"Cultivating a sense of safety is key. Unlike WhatsApp and Signal, which reveal users’ private cell phone numbers to the group– or the now-defunct chats within Facebook Groups, which exposed users’ real identities–WeChat allows its users to adopt aliases. Those anonymous usernames act as a privacy shield, giving users control over how their identities are displayed. (Though it’s hidden from other group users, WeChat does require a phone number and real-name verification to sign up, which curtails anonymous troll abuse.)"

So they've learned from 4chan!

Group size caps don't do a lot to limit mass trends. Once a group hits the cap, the administrator will simply open a new one and tell everyone to join that instead. People in only one of the groups obviously can't speak to those in the others, but the administrators can make announcements in all groups, which is enough e.g. for organizing a large event.

Even requiring invitations past 100 members doesn't mean you need some kind of personal connection. Instead of the group QR code, organizers can post their personal one and then add everyone to the group who messages them. It might slow down spammers who constantly try to join random groups, because they won't know whom to ask for an invite.

Lack of global search for groups also isn't much of a hurdle, since you can still globally search for posts inviting people to join a group. It does mean that there's a niche for companies who create groups and assign members to them based on some criteria, as described in the article.

And regarding usernames and anonymity: they work a bit differently than you might expect. Every WeChat user has a unique identifier which is random by default, but can be set to something intelligible if you want to make it easier for others to add you by searching. Then there's a global username, which is shown to your contacts and in groups by default. Per-group aliases don't completely override that; you can still find out someone's global username by looking at their profile. So most people set their alias to their real name in groups that require it and stay pseudonymous otherwise. You can also set aliases for your own contacts, which helps recognize people who constantly change their name and avatar.

I hope that clears things up a bit.

The group size thing is of course easily bypass. It was not intended to be a preventive measure, but a reminder from Big brother that we are watching you. People are required to use real name and other personal information to register and law enforcement can freely read those information. It was not unheard that people would raid by police for their online activity.

So, the group size cap is just a rule to say if your group was not over the cap, you will be fine. If you bypass that somehow, you enter a grey area where the government may or may not inference you depending on the nature of the event.

I remember there is law punish people spreading false information, it starts with 500 people.

Oh, and messages are reviewed by the Chinese government for extra security too. You are totally safe.

Do you mean "Society of the Spectacle"? That groups are dehumanizing, the product becomes the relationship? I think it's more as if they've rediscovered AOL chatrooms, with AOL style aliases and rooms. People naturally enjoy talking with each other, just shooting the breeze, but I can see how these groups would be a real help towards making a purchase decision. (In the West, advertising (which IS "spectacular") is supposed to tip the balance and make our purchase decisions for us.) I don't see how putting a cap on group size is sinister. AOL chatrooms with only 20 users produced so much text it was often hard to keep up or to engage in anything like a conversation, so 500 people typing all at once would be impossible to comprehend. I'd mainly be worried about product shills, less so about outright fraud.

Yeah I meant "Society of the Spectacle". Whoops. There's a great subreddit devoted to the book called "Sorcery of the Spectacle" that confused me.

It’s a good idea to cap group chats at a reasonable size—they get unruly long before 500. Global search is appropriate for an asynchronous medium, I think, but this is the correct way to manage group chats, in my opinion. It’s how they work on other platforms as well.

> Cultivating a sense of safety is key.

That is ludicrous.

"Cultivating a false sense of safety is key" might have been more accurate.

Does anyone here believe that the commies cannot ready any and all WeChat messages?

This isn't about safety from the government, it is about safety from non-government harassers.

China WANTS to disable all mass groupings as they endanger the government and political stability.

Who is China in that claim? Of course the chinese central government has stake in big tech (and the economy at large), but simply claiming that "China wants this" is extremely reductionist. Tencent was privately founded and funded, and is internationally owned.

There are most certainly close ties to the central government, and they won't go against core demands of the PCR. But they are regularly picking fights and mending the borders of what is considered appropriate.

There is no official rule against having bigger group chat sizes, in fact it exists on other social media. - It might have been an inofficial directive from some ministry, it might have other reasons. From what I can spot, there's not a whole lot of users complaining about the chat restrictions anyway.

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