Asia Pacific
In this work, we study how Tencent implements image filtering on WeChat. We found that Tencent implements realtime, automatic censorship of chat images on WeChat based on what text is in an image and based on an image’s visual similarity to those on a blacklist. Tencent facilitates this realtime filtering by maintaining a hash index of MD5 hashes of sensitive image files.
In the days leading up to the 30th anniversary of June 4 1989, YY, a popular live streaming platform in mainland China, updated its keyword blacklists with content focused on Democracy Movement related memorials and activism in Hong Kong.
In the days leading up to the 30th anniversary of June 4 1989, YY, a popular live streaming platform in mainland China, updated its keyword blacklists with content focused on Democracy Movement related memorials and activism in Hong Kong.
In the days leading up to the 30th anniversary of June 4 1989, YY, a popular live streaming platform in mainland China, updated its keyword blacklists with content focused on Democracy Movement related memorials and activism in Hong Kong.
We are writing to ask you to ensure that Google drops Project Dragonfly and any plans to launch a censored search app in China, and to re-affirm the company’s 2010 commitment that it won’t provide censored search services in the country.
The Citizen Lab’s Ron Deibert and Sarah McKune don’t mince words in a recent op-ed for Just Security about Google’s plan to create a search engine that conforms to China’s demand for censorship.
A new paper by the Citizen Lab investigates how Chinese censorship reaches independent developers and reveals that, while developers include censorship lists in open source projects, there is little apparent similarity in these blacklists, raising several questions about their origins.
Citizen Lab research showed that, at the time, WeChat seemed to use a relatively crude comparison between banned images and content uploaded to the site in order to decide what to block.
New Citizen Lab research reveals how China’s most popular app filters sensitive images and suggests techniques for evasion.
This report demonstrates the technical underpinnings of how WeChat image censorship operates and suggests possible evasion strategies.
