WhatsApp has strangely been working on some devices in China for two weeks, despite the long-standing government ban on messaging services.
The government's initiative is part of a broad blockage of foreign internet platforms (including Signal and Instagram), unofficially dubbed the "Great Chinese Firewall."
WhatsApp is not as popular in China as the local social network WeChat, which has more than a billion users. According to some estimates, several million people use the Meta messenger - although this requires connecting to virtual private networks. Like most foreign messaging platforms, WhatsApp messages are encrypted and difficult to control.
Despite this, some residents of Beijing and Shanghai have had free access to the messenger for over two weeks, as reported by Bloomberg - and interestingly, this happened at the same time Apple removed WhatsApp and other social media services, including Threads and Signal, from its Chinese app store in response to Beijing's order to close additional loopholes in the internet firewall.
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