Hacker News Reader

Comment by mullen | Hacker News Reader

If someone in China starts harassing you or threatening you, just start sending messages that the two of you are conspiring to overthrow the Chinese government and the messages will stop real quick. These Chinese mafia types talk tough until you start sending anti-Chinese government copy-pasta to them and they shut up real quick.

View on HN

It's probably best not to declare war upon China in writing. Instead, ask how many students died in the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. That specific phrase should specifically auto-alert the censors to a known forbidden topic, without resorting to threats against China.

How long of a lost phone message can one set, anyways?

This will absolutely work. My friend is from China, but lives here in the US. Most of her friends and family are still back in China. We communicate primarily over iMessage, but also on WeChat. About 2 years ago I sent her a video about the Tiananmen Square protests over WeChat by mistake - I meant to send it over iMessage. The next day she called me, really mad; her WeChat account was shut down, without explanation, and she knew exactly why (my WeChat message). But what's worse is many of her WeChat contacts also had their accounts shut down - not all of them, just her closest or most frequent contacts, like her family and close friends. My account didn't get shut down.

The impacted accounts were magically re-enabled 3 days later. No email. No notification. Nothing. It was a clear message: We're watching, all of you.

> About 2 years ago I sent her a video about the Tiananmen Square protests over WeChat by mistake

Absolutely insane that you would even think to do this to a Chinese national. Good job they are in the US. Could have been far worse for their family back in China. Unbelievable.

Hey, people make mistakes. The correct solution would be to never use wechat in the first place.

Much of Chinese society revolves around WeChat. Chat/phone/payments. I'm told WeChat is pretty much required for one to function in China.

We poke at one another about the Tiananmen Square protests because we have such different perspectives. Like me, she was in high school during that time, and was told the protests were minor, and that they were instigated and largely conducted by outsiders, like the US, seeking to overthrow the Chinese government. The reports of large-scale deaths is Western propaganda. She still more or less believes that story - she's been hearing it her whole life. We sometimes (rarely) exchange articles about the incident. I've always appreciated the back-and-forth because, even though it's a serious topic, we keep it lighthearted.

Anyway, she purchased her iPhone in the US. All her online accounts, except for WeChat, are associated to US-based services. Yeah, I fuucked up; I meant to send the message over iMessage, where we've never had a problem.

Oh so the problem is OP and not the Chinese government then.

> Could have been far worse for their family back in China

what would they do, genuinely, to their family? Googling it only gives results about anything related to Tiananmen Square to be immediately censored, but little on the actual other consequences.

Cant wait till we outlaw encryption in the west, too.

You mean like the EU is trying now?

> The impacted accounts were magically re-enabled 3 days later.

A place I worked would lock your account if (reasons). I remember it happened to me - nonstandard mail client would try to use my old password a bunch of times and my account would lock.

most people would call in and get it unlocked immediately.

I came find out a little-known fact. The account lockout was automated and it would unlock after a certain amount of time. (of course using the wrong password again could lock it again)

"My account didn't get shut down." - But why not yours?

This is a mystery. My guess is that the Chinese censorship system (The Great Firewall) knows my account is not associated to a Chinese National, so they don't care. Or, there could be legal restrictions/complications because I'm a US citizen. Who knows? I wouldn't be surprised if my little fuuck up didn't land me (or my WeChat account) on some sort of list, though.

> It's probably best not to declare war upon China in writing

Why not? Is the Chinese government going to send some people to Canada to disappear me?

They’re a nation-state with an international spy program, so that’s obviously a valid possibility, same as it is for lots of other non-China countries. I don’t have any specific data regarding your presented scenario with Canada and China, though. I do regardless stand by my general advice, but since it now has to be said, I am not your lawyer and this is not legal advice.

No, that’s just India

Or the phrase "Tibet must be a free country"

> That specific phrase should specifically auto-alert the censors to a known forbidden topic

Heck, even get you flagged here, for that matter.

Here is in HN or here is in the "US"?

Not sure what you're suggesting.

I would never write an unqualified "here" in a forum, which assumes that everyone will understand that I'm referring to the country where I'm sitting, which may be different from theirs.

You're effectively asking me whether I'm a complete idiot, or whether I mean here in HackerNews.

They don’t. I have tried this and other similar things such as sending images banned in China (but otherwise totally fine). Perhaps they weren’t in China I suppose.

Serious question: have you tried this or are you theorizing?

This is a well known tactic to do to Chinese scammers or any person you don't want to talk to that is in China or has to go back to China.

aka "I read it online"?

Can’t hurt to try anyway. You lose nothing, but can get some laughs.

In my (limited) experience private one on one messages are not censored. Or at least this was the case several years back... It's possible things are more strict now.

At least in my tests on Wechat you could discuss tiannanmen square or whatever you want with individuals. Some stickers were censored on Wechat and wouldn't show up. I think images as well may be don't get delivered.

Virtually all censorship and cases of people being arrested are when people talk about these things in large group chats (if a group chat has more than X amount of people it needs to be "registered"). My impression was it's a government fear of things going viral and controlling the public sphere and not about creating a panopticon/state-terrorism

Again.. This might be out of date, but this was at least the case for a long long time.

Or try this:

动态网自由门天安門天安门法輪功李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏土伯特唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主言論思想

Reply on news.ycombinator.com