Headline February 05, 2018/ '' 'CHINA'S -WECHAT- CHATWE ''

'' 'CHINA'S -WECHAT- CHATWE' ''

BY NOW SOME readers must be screaming : ''How about the censorship and government  surveillance on WeChat?''

Sadly, it's just the way of life in China.

I am not trying to make light of the issue. I've been very critical of how the tech companies work with the government to censor and monitor the Chinese public.

But the reality is that ordinary Chinese often feel powerless and fatalistic when it comes to censorship and surveillance.

I've tried to persuade people to get on encrypted messaging apps such as Signal and WhatsApp but haven't had much success.

I also use Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. I used to be an active Weibo user and still have a few million followers there.

But after the government cracked down on Weibo a few years ago and shut down many of the most provocative and influential accounts, I don't use it too often because the conversations are dominated by celebrity news instead of discussions of current affairs.

MANY MANY BILLION REASONS for every person in the world, to be on The World Students Society and-

And to be ''subscribing'' to and reading Sam Daily Times : ''The Voice Of The Voiceless'', the master  global publication of the students of the world.

HOW DO New York Times - The Flagship Honor Publication - journalists  use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives?

Li Yuan, a technology columnist in Hong Kong discussed the tech she's using and continues her specialist observations.

HOW DO people in China use tech differently, compared with people in the United States?

The first thing many visitors to China notice is how mobile the Chinese are. Many Chinese never owned a laptop or a PC, and their first computer was their smartphone.

Email never really took off in China. Some big corporations do use it. But people usually resort to WeChat for a quick response.

Because WeChat's prevalence, few Chinese carry business cards anymore. At many meetings in China, there's a time when everybody takes out his or her phone and scans the WeChat QR codes of others to become ''friends''.

I personally like having contacts on WeChat rather than on business cards. Because it's a a  social media  platform, you learn about your contacts  as individuals beyond their business titles.

Many business people I know have two or more WeChat accounts because WeChat allows only  5,000 contacts for one account. A young venture capitalist told me that it had taken him only two years to reach the limit. I don't know how they manage so many contacts.

Generally, Chinese are more receptive to new things and more tolerant of imperfect products, including mobile apps. Some commentators here say  Facebook  is almost a Chinese company because of its ''move fast and break things'' mantra.

WHY are mobile wallets so popular in China?

When I moved from New York to Beijing in 2008, China was still a cash-based nation. Not many people had credit cards, and I wasn't easy for small businesses to get approval to install the machines.

I used to have to go the A.T.M 's all the time.

Going to the banks, mostly giant state-owned  enterprises ,was tortuously time consuming.Then came WeChat Pay and Alipay, the mobile payment services from Tencent and Alibaba.

Since so many Chinese were already on WeChat  and were trained on the QR codes, it took the two giants only some cash-bonus campaigns at grocery stores to convert people like my mom to mobile payments.

Mobile pay is now available in almost every place I visit in China, including small towns, I've been carrying a 100-yuan [$15] bill in my wallet for months but haven't  found an occasion to use it.

Everybody - hotels, department stores, taxi drivers, noodle stands, takes Alipay or WeChat Pay or both. 

The Honor and Serving of the latest Global Operational Research on Technology and Current Affairs, continues.

With respectful dedication to the peoples of China, Students, Professors and Teachers and then the world.

See Ya all prepare for Great Global Elections and ''register'' on : wssciw.blogspot.com - The World Students Society and Twitter -E-!WOW! - the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Tempests & Technology '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless