Australia PM Morrison Loses Control of WeChat Chinese Account as Election Looms (reuters.com) 27
A little-known Chinese technology company that took over a WeChat social media account set up for Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday it wanted to buy an account with a large fanbase in Australia, and was unaware it was his. From a report: Australian politicians said Morrison's office lost access to the account on the platform, owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings, several months ago. The politicians claimed the move represented censorship amid growing diplomatic tensions between Canberra and Beijing with a national election to be held in Australia by May. The account, which bore Morrison's photograph and posted information on his policies in Mandarin targeted at Australian voters of Chinese ethnic origin, had 76,000 followers.
The account was renamed 'Australia China New Life' in January by its new Chinese owner, Fuzhou 985 Technology, based in Fujian province, which notified followers the account would instead promote Chinese life in Australia. An employee from Fuzhou 985 Technology, who only gave his surname as Huang, told Reuters by telephone was not aware the account was previously connected to Morrison. He said the transfer of ownership was conducted with a Chinese male national living in Fuzhou, whose identity he declined to disclose. "We thought this account had a large fanbase, so we decided to buy it," said Huang, adding that the company was looking for an account whose target audience was the Chinese community in Australia. He declined to say how much his company had paid to take over the account.
The account was renamed 'Australia China New Life' in January by its new Chinese owner, Fuzhou 985 Technology, based in Fujian province, which notified followers the account would instead promote Chinese life in Australia. An employee from Fuzhou 985 Technology, who only gave his surname as Huang, told Reuters by telephone was not aware the account was previously connected to Morrison. He said the transfer of ownership was conducted with a Chinese male national living in Fuzhou, whose identity he declined to disclose. "We thought this account had a large fanbase, so we decided to buy it," said Huang, adding that the company was looking for an account whose target audience was the Chinese community in Australia. He declined to say how much his company had paid to take over the account.
Car analogy. (Score:3)
An employee from Fuzhou 985 Technology, who only gave his surname as Huang, told Reuters by telephone was not aware the account was previously connected to Morrison.
Like a car, all identification stripped, and serial numbers filed off.
Re: Car analogy. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Seems odd because you can set up a WeChat account side of China. You just need a working phone number to receive an SMS message, the same as many Western services these days. It works world-wide.
My guess is that he was being cheap and didn't want to pay a Mandarin speaking Australian to run the account or translate his posts, so found someone cheaper in China. That person was then approached and offered a sum of money several times the yearly income from Morrison, and decided to cash out.
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Of course the buyer claims they had no idea whatsoever that the numbers had been filed off. They were also shocked that gambling was occuring in their establishment, they don't know how the bag of dope got into their handbag, it's all a big misunderstanding!
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They had a PRC citizen register the account.
That is weird. I have a WeChat account. I set it up the same way as any other social media account: Click on the link, type in a bit of info, verify with an SMS number. Done. It took about one minute and cost nothing. Why would he pay someone else to do it for him?
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Why would he pay someone else to do it for him?
Because he's a politician, wasting taxpayer money is what comes naturally.
We need an other option. (Score:3)
Government Controlled media is bad, because it has be kind to the government in power, and be a propaganda arm for the government.
Corporate Controlled media is bad, because it has to be kind to its source of income, often advertisers, but also political parties and special interest groups with money.
Public media (like PBS and NPR) is sometimes a bit better, however they still have government and corporation (underwriters) help pay their bills. However there is a particular type of person who will fund these stations with their fund drive, who in general tend to be more similarly minded, so they will make sure they cover content that will interest them.
Social Media (which has a lot of the corporate issues), is designed to have echo chambers, vs an intelligent moderated view of the actual facts.
Now being that there is little to no repercussion for posting fake news, the old standby of reading multiple news sources to get the big picture, no longer is practical, because we have one side saying it is X and the other guys are lying, then the other side says it is Y and the other guys are lying as well. Meaning at lest one side is false, and you cannot fully trust that the other side is truthful as well. As both can be lying.
News has became a form of entertainment. I am sorry, but we don't always need to be entertained, but given solid boring facts. We don't need debates in where one person wins or looses, but a free form of information where the complexity of the issues are explained.
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It appears that you are in the wrong echo chambers.
The fact that Covid-19 attacked the lungs was known to a lot of people, The reason why Omicron is less deadly as it attacks the noes vs the lungs. Also how the MRNA Vaccine works is properly explained, where the RNA (not DNA) will cause your cells to produce the protein spikes that look like the Covid vaccine, without actually making the virus, which your immune system can recognize the virus, and fight it off much quicker when it sees it again. The boost
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Yes, there's nanochips and worse things in it - and everyone in power is lying about it, but the the meters and stuff in the nanochips once saved my life, from a suicide attempt, as well. So it's a white lie, of epic proportions.
So if I'm reading this right, you're claiming that:
1) The covid (and other?) vaccine(s) has/have nanochips in it/them?
and
2) At some point the nanochips phoned home and got you help before committing suicide?
Is my understanding correct? Does your psychiatrist know you're experiencing breaks from reality?
Reason to not use WeChat (Score:3)
Seems like a solid reason to never use WeChat. Some Chinese company will just buy it and you can't do anything about it.
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No different to any other social media platform. There have been people who had their account given to some corporation that wanted that particular name, with little to no compensation. I can't remember the name of the YouTube channel it happened to now, one day they logged in to find it was given away and YouTube only offered a few dollars to cover the money they spent on merchandise.
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To my knowledge other large social media companies do not sell accounts specifically for their following. The name thing I understand because they may have trademarked it which is a legal issue. Now, had the name been trademarked by the owner and some company bought it from YouTube then they would have a good chance of getting it back.
I agree that money talks but I do not believe that US or European social media companies engage in this particular behavior.
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WeChat didn't sell it either, the guy they contacted to run the account for them did.
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Oh snap! Doesn't sound like it's a good idea to rely on some Chinese guy/company to run your account.
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That sentence is valid with the word "Chinese" removed.
Hmmm. (Score:3)
If it is possible to "buy an account because it has a large fanbase", and even legitimate or respectable to do so, then we have a serious problem with accountability and authorization. Those users authorized the owner at the time of signing up to send them messages, that's part of the sign-up process. Unless there is something explicit in that sign-up process that authorizes the sale of their information to others AND the bulk sending of messages by those not explicitly authorized to do so, then at best selling an active account is ethically highly dubious and, at worst, just possibly in violation of the TOS of the service provider or the EU's GDPR (the users don't get asked about the sale, so there is no transparency, right to object or disclosure of sharing data with third parties).
Australia China New Life (Score:2)
We will all soon have a China New Life.
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We will all soon have a China New Life.
Morrison has destroyed so many of the freedoms that Australians used to have there is no real difference.
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Yeah. Let's just give up. We can get an "apartment" next to Peng Shuai.
Says the AC who has never written a submission to a standing committee on an act of law.
Serves him right. (Score:2)
It is ludicrous a voter needs to give up his privacy and join commercial sites like Facebook, Twitter and in this case WeChat.
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