Apple removed the apps WhatsApp And Threads from its App Store at the request of the Chinese authorities. The latter explain their request by risks to national security.
Censorship has raged in China for many years, and local authorities are hunting down foreign applications and services. Many online tools, used around the globe such as the Google search engine, are not accessible to China’s billion and a half inhabitants, unless they decide to use a VPN and circumvent the legislation.
Apple must also play a balancing act in this area. The manufacturer cannot do without the Chinese market, which represented nearly $21 billion in turnover in the last quarter of 2023 alone. It must now accommodate local decisions and policies.
WhatsApp and Threads removed by Apple from the App Store at government request
According to the media’s findings Bloomberg, the applications WhatsApp and Threads, the social network attached to Instagram, have been removed from the App Store in China by Apple. Meta confirmed the information, but did not comment further, leaving it to Apple to answer the questions asked by journalists.
The Cupertino company did not wish to comment on the subject either and delivered a terse press release: “We are obliged to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we do not agree. » Apple therefore confirms that the decision is not its own and was imposed on it by the Chinese authorities.
China eliminates apps that compete with local services and bypass censorship
China has asked Apple to remove these two software programs as quickly as possible. “ The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) ordered the removal of these apps due to national security concerns », Indicates Apple in its statement.
The disappearance of WhatsApp should not upset Chinese users more than that. In the territory, WeChat reigns supreme in the instant messaging market. The mobile application is installed on almost all smartphones and offers a multitude of services such as games or mobile payment.
We might think that WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption goes poorly in a country where communications and exchanges can be collected by the authorities. Threads is a competitor to Weibo, the number 1 social network in China.
Facebook, Messenger and Instagram remain available in China for the moment, but the situation could change in the coming weeks.
Source : The world
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