"Have no choice" is false. Fortunately, email still works. As does any messenger through a VPN. Using Wechat is simply being complicit with censorship out of laziness.
You could maybe try registering your own server, but do you want to have the possibility of questionable messages being saved on a server that you own when dealing with Chinese authorities? Any "oops, sorry" goes out the window when they think you're actively dodging filtering to that extent.
> most major domains outside of China are blocked
I don't think this is true; GFW works in a disallow-list fashion and domains have to be explicitly blocked (which is why people do keyword attacks[0]).
But I believe that GitHub is not blocked yet just because it is not "major" enough because it is used almost exclusively only by programmers.
If non-programmers started to use it more, I believe it will get banned.
If you're inside China and care about your safety, you would think twice about sending "questionable" messages even on the most secure channel because you're still physically vulnerable to rubber hose cryptanalysis.
If anybody messages you or your family/friends receives something suspicious something and the Party suspects you're intentionally avoiding their watchful eye with a custom mail server, I think you might end up worse off. All it takes is one goofball finding a vulnerability in your system and dropping a joke image or bit of text to royally screw you.
Furthermore, while it's nice in theory to deploy your own servers and get all of your friends and family to exclusively chat through your homemade application, it's very unlikely. WeChat is basically an OS all its own these days. It's a social network, chat app, payment app, shop, and more. People are incredibly reluctant to give up convenience unless they're very motivated and technologically inclined. And for people inside of China, getting a VPN or non-Chinese messenger is quite difficult thanks to locked down app stores and most people communicating only through phones.
I don't use Facebook and won't budge on that issue. My parents won't use anything that's not Facebook. If they won't take 10 seconds to register for anything else, then they certainly won't want to deal with anything I'd try to scrap together. The end result is that I make a VOIP call to their phone about once a month and they ask me to just give up and use Facebook at some point. It's probably a similar situation with most people wanting to leave XYZ terrible messenger.
On big CCP reunions (next one at the end of may), they somehow block most of the VPN for several days, so they have the capacity to do it. But it never last so long, I feel they use it a bit like a pressure cooker, to release pressure when people are getting upset.
Except VPNs are illegal in china. If a site is banned in china. Using a VPN to circumvent the law is breaking the law.
Email is not secure.
So what if email is insecure, neither is Wechat. And encrypted email is still a thing.
There is a big difference between countries with independent judicial systems, and China where judges are below the local party secretary.
Chinese laws are decoration. What actually counts is what the party decides.
Just because there isn't "the party" making decisions in the US doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of flexibility in when and how the law is applied. It just gets left up to the local sheriff or prosecutors.
But that doesn't mean that the legal system in the facist dicatorship of China is comparable in any way to a proper democratic judiciary.
Chinas system is an unconstitutional state by definition.
people downvoting you are morons downvoting for technicality, while you are right
It's also worth noting that a cellular connection that is roaming is not generally subject to the restrictions the firewall imposes.
The government opening up businesses to connect to services such as facebook or twitter to promote china businesses and so on is just the government giving permissions.
But for the every-day citizen, the use of a VPN is technically illegal as it circumvents the law.