china is not known for being the most Censorship-free country in the world, but it looks like things are not going to get better for the Chinese people, considering the fact that their government is making maneuvers to further censor the world wide web. This time, they are getting help from an unlikely source -- the American technology giant, Apple.
How do the Chinese bypass censorship?
The Chinese people have found a way to bypass internet censorship and the government has finally caught up to them. The Chinese were using VPN software (virtual private networks -- tools that allow users to hide and spoof their IP address) to access the "forbidden" parts of the web freely.
Countless VPN apps were available on Apple's app store, but all of them have since been removed.
One company, named ExpressVPN, posted a letter from Apple in which the American company stated that their app has been taken down “because it includes content that is illegal in China," the New York Times reports. Another company tweeted that all the VPN apps were removed from the Chinese app store, even though some users paid for annual service:
We just received notice that @Apple removing all the @VPN apps from the @China app store.
— Star VPN (@star_vpn) July 29, 2017
A powerful signal
The removal of VPN software from Apple's app store is a powerful signal. To put things into context, the Chinese government began a partial block of one of the most popular instant messaging apps in the world -- WhatsApp -- earlier this month.
The fact that huge corporations like Apple are working together with governments to promote censorship and invade privacy is more than enough of a reason for concern. What does the future hold? Is the world wide web as we know it going extinct? Will all of us be forced to break the law using different software to access the internet?
Who knows? But, one thing is for sure: This will not end well for the people, no matter where they live.
Governments and corporations know very well how important the internet is and this is why they're trying to take it away from us and turn it into an entity they can control, just like they are able to control the media. What will we have left, if they manage to do that?
Nothing.
Similar things are happening all over the world, so this is most definitely not a coincidence. Putin recently announced that VPN software will be banned in Russia and even in the West, in countries such as the United States, our privacy is being invaded and our liberties taken away. Censorship-free internet might become a thing of the past for all of us -- sooner than we think.
