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Apple Censoring Tibetan Information in China

Submitted by charlie on Mon, Jun 10, 2019

Apple has a long history of censorship when it comes to information about Tibet. In 2009, it was revealed that several apps related to the Dalai Lama were not available in the China App Store. The developers of these apps were not notified that their apps were removed. When confronted with these instances of censorship, an Apple spokesperson simply said that the company “continues to comply with local laws”.

In December, 2017, at a conference in China, when asked about working with the Chinese authorities to censor the Apple App Store, Tim Cook proclaimed:

"Your choice is: do you participate, or do you stand on the sideline and yell at how things should be. And my own view very strongly is you show up and you participate, you get in the arena because nothing ever changes from the sideline."

In the ten years since Apple was first criticized for working with the Chinese authorities to silence already marginalized voices, what has changed? Apple continues to strictly follow the censorship orders of the Chinese authorities. When does Tim Cook expect that his company will help to bring about positive change in China?

Based on data generated from https://applecensorship.com, Apple has now censored 29 popular Tibetan mobile applications in the China App Store. Tibetan-themed apps dealing with news, religious study, tourism, and even games are being censored by Apple. A full list of the censored apps appear below.

“Apple’s leadership hides behind the excuse that they censor apps to comply with vague ‘Chinese local laws’, but their actions lack any measure of transparency. By removing Tibetan and numerous other apps from the China App Store, Apple is hindering Tibetans’ ability to access information and freely express themselves, a basic human right under International law,” said Dorjee Phuntsok, Response Coordinator for TibCERT (Tibetan Computer Emergency Readiness Team), who conducted the analysis of the blocked Tibetan apps in collaboration with GreatFire.

In January, 2019 GreatFire launched applecensorship.com. At that time, GreatFire co-founder Martin Johnson noted: “Apple does not share information about App Store censorship in their transparency report - this project forces the transparency. Tim Cook can say whatever he wants about what Apple is or is not doing in China, but applecensorship.com provides the raw data needed to actually see how Apple practices censorship”.

Analysis of the iOS apps censored by Apple in China

There are many apps either made by Tibetans or for Tibetans and Apple is censoring many of these apps in the China App Store. It is important to understand how and why certain apps are blocked and the rationale behind these decisions. To understand this, TibCERT (Tibetan Emergency Readiness Team) conducted an analysis of Tibetan apps being censored in the Chinese App Store. The research was conducted using keywords to search for Tibetan apps and then using the app censorship platform provided by GreatFire.

TibCERT analyzed 119, Tibetan-themed, iOS apps. The apps listed below were found when searching the Apple App Store using keywords such as ‘Tibet’, ‘Tibetans’, ‘Dalai Lama’, ‘Buddhism’, ‘bhoe’, and ‘Tibetan Buddhism’. The apps have been categorized into five general categories: “Religious or Cultural”, “Media/Political”, “Entertainment”, “Utilities”, and “Educational”.

All 119 apps were tested on https://applecensorship.com/ to see if they are blocked/censored in China. Of the 119 apps, it has been determined that 29 iOS apps have been censored in China. Among the censored apps, 7 are “Religious or Cultural” in nature and 5 are “Media/Political”.

By looking at which apps have been censored, it is possible to identify some of the censorship criteria. If the name of the app contains the Dalai Lama’s name then the app is likely to be censored. All media apps are censored. The only game that has been censored prominently features the Tibetan National Flag in its logo.

Given Apple’s lack of transparency about which apps it censors, many developers may be unaware that their app is blocked from the China App Store. However, one Tibetan App developer, who wishes to remain anonymous, reported: “I am not allowed to publish apps when I select China. A message appears saying that I have violated the cyber rules of the country (China)”. This vague message offers no explanation for how the developer’s app violates cyber rules, and what those rules are, and offers no option for redress. Given the overall lack of transparency about its censorship policies, it is unclear how many apps Apple prevents from being published in the first place.

Some Tibetan Buddhist-themed apps are censored while others are not, and the reasons for these discrepancies are unclear. TibCERT continues to conduct more analysis to understand why certain apps are available and why certain apps are banned. In some cases, apps may be available in the China App Store (Facebook, for example), but the websites that they rely on to feed information to the apps are blocked in China, rendering the apps useless. The methodology that TibCERT used to find Tibetan apps was through keyword search. However, this methodology has its own limitations and TibCERT is continuing to explore other ways to expand its research in understanding how Apple censors apps related to Tibet.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this blog post, sent as an email newsletter (“Apple Censoring Tibetan Information in China”) on May 31, 2019, incorrectly noted that the VOA Tibetan app was available in Apple’s China app store. VOA Tibetan is not available in the China app store and the VOA Tibetan website is blocked in China.

Tibetan Apps that are being censored by Apple:

Bangchen

BuddhaApps

Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama Quotes

Dharamsala Tourism Guide

Drikung Kagyu Today

Gangjong Tsegzhod Chenmo

GCMGC

Gyalwa Rinpoche

Gyalwa Rinpoche's Books

Kirsan Buddhist Messenger

PotRunner

Radio Free Asia (RFA)

Teachings of His Holiness the Gyalwa Rinpoche

Teachings of Tibetan Buddhism

Tenzin Gyatso Daily Surprise

The Drikung Kagyu Today

Tibet eRadio

Tibet Times

Tibet Travel Phrase

Tibet.net

Tibetan Book of the Dead

Tibetan Buddhism - Pilgrimage to Tibet

Tibetan News

TibetOnline TV

uTalk Classic Learn Tibetan

VOA Tibetan

Voice of Tibet

藏传佛教·课颂集

Comments

China’s New Effort to Achieve Cyber Sovereignty

Submitted by charlie on Mon, Nov 25, 2024

How Real-Name Registration policies create an “ideological firewall” that chills dissent by eliminating user anonymity and selectively restricting transnational access to Chinese social media apps.

Thu, Aug 10, 2023

1.4 million people used FreeBrowser to circumvent the Great Firewall of Turkmenistan

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, Aug 10, 2023

Since 2021, the authorities in Turkmenistan have taken exceptional measures to crack down on the use of circumvention tools. Citizens have been forced to swear on the Koran that they will not use a VPN. Circumvention tool websites have been systematically blocked. Arbitrary searches of mobile devices have also taken place and have even targeted school children and teachers.

The government has also blocked servers hosting VPNs which led to “near complete” internet shutdowns on several occasions in 2022. Current reports indicate that 66 hosting providers, 19 social networks and messaging platforms, and 10 leading content delivery networks (CDNs), are blocked in the country. The government presumably is unconcerned about the negative economic impact that such shutdowns can cause.

Fri, Mar 18, 2022

Well-intentioned decisions have just made it easier for Putin to control the Russian Internet

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, Mar 18, 2022

This article is in large part inspired by a recent article from Meduza (in Russian).

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Russian users have had problems accessing government websites and online banking clients. Browsers began to mark these sites as unsafe and drop the connection. The reason is the revocation of digital security certificates by foreign certificate authorities (either as a direct consequence of sanctions or as an independent, good will move); without them, browsers do not trust sites and “protect” their users from them.

However, these actions, caused - or at least triggered by - a desire to punish Russia for their gruesome actions in Ukraine, will have long-lasting consequences for Russian netizens.

Digital certificates are needed to confirm that the site the user wants to visit is not fraudulent. The certificates contain encryption keys to establish a secure connection between the site and the user. It is very easy to understand whether a page on the Internet is protected by a certificate. One need just look at the address bar of the browser. If the address begins with the https:// prefix, and there is a lock symbol next to the address, the page is protected. By clicking on this lock, you can see the status of the connection, the name of the Certification Authority (CA) that issued the certificate, and its validity period.

There are several dozen commercial and non-commercial organizations in the world that have digital root certificates, but 3/4 of all certificates are issued by only five of the largest companies. Four of them are registered in the USA and one is registered in Belgium.

Mon, Aug 03, 2020

Announcing the Release of GreatFire AppMaker

Submitted by charlie on Mon, Aug 03, 2020

GreatFire (https://en.greatfire.org/), a China-focused censorship monitoring organization, is proud to announce that we have developed and released a new anti-censorship tool that will enable any blocked media outlet, blogger, human rights group, or civil society organization to evade censors and get their content onto the phones of millions of readers and supporters in China and other countries that censor the Internet.

GreatFire has built an Android mobile app creator, called “GreatFire AppMaker”, that can be used by organizations to unblock their content for users in China and other countries. Organizations can visit a website (https://appmaker.greatfire.org/) which will compile an app that is branded with the organization’s own logo and will feature their own, formerly blocked content. The app will also contain a special, censorship-circumventing web browser so that users can access the uncensored World Wide Web. The apps will use multiple strategies, including machine learning, to evade advanced censorship tactics employed by the Chinese authorities. This project will work equally well in other countries that have China-like censorship restrictions. For both organizations and end users, the apps will be free, fast, and extremely easy to use.

This project was inspired by China-based GreatFire’s first-hand experience with our own FreeBrowser app (https://freebrowser.org/en) and desire to help small NGOs who may not have the in-house expertise to circumvent Chinese censorship. GreatFire’s anti-censorship tools have worked in China when others do not. FreeBrowser directs Chinese internet users to normally censored stories from the app’s start page (http://manyvoices.news/).

Fri, Jul 24, 2020

Apple, anticompetition, and censorship

Submitted by charlie on Fri, Jul 24, 2020

On July 20, 2020, GreatFire wrote to all 13 members of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, requesting a thorough examination into Apple’s practice of censorship of its App Store, and an investigation into how the company collaborates with the Chinese authorities to maintain its unique position as one of the few foreign tech companies operating profitably in the Chinese digital market.

This letter was sent a week before Apple CEO TIm Cook will be called for questioning in front of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law. The CEOs of Amazon, Google and Facebook will also be questioned on July 27, as part of the Committee’s ongoing investigation into competition in the digital marketplace.

This hearing offers an opportunity to detail to the Subcommittee how Apple uses its closed operating ecosystem to not only abuse its market position but also to deprive certain users, most notably those in China, of their right to download and use apps related to privacy, secure communication, and censorship circumvention.

We hope that U.S. House representatives agree with our view that Apple should not be allowed to do elsewhere what would be considered as unacceptable in the U.S. Chinese citizens are not second class citizens. Private companies such as Apple compromise themselves and their self-proclaimed values of freedom and privacy when they collaborate with the Chinese government and its censors.

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Apple Censoring Tibetan Information in China

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