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Beijing appeared to have doubled down on its crackdown of the internet in China, with news emerging that over the weekend, Apple pulled several virtual private network (VPN) services from the local version of the App Store.

Multiple VPN service providers, affected by the decision, slammed the move online, calling it a "dangerous precedent" set by Apple, which governments in other countries may follow.

VPN service providers received notification from Apple on July 29 that their apps were removed from the China App Store for including "content that is illegal" in the mainland, according to a screenshot posted by ExpressVPN.

VPNs let users in China bypass the country's famous "Great Firewall" that heavily restricts internet access to foreign sites. It also allows for privacy by hiding browsing activities from internet service providers.

Manjunath Bhat, a research director at Gartner, told CNBC that a VPN could circumvent government censorship.

"VPN creates a private tunnel between you (the user) and the service you want to consume," Bhat said, explaining that such a connection escapes government censorship, hiding a user's true origin. It also encrypts communications so that users can be confident others aren't reading their information when connected to public internet services.

Data on GreatFire.org, a site that monitors censorship activity in the mainland, showed 167 of the top 1000 domains are blocked in China. Those include YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google and Instagram among others.

Golden Frog said its VyprVPN service is still accessible in China, despite the app's removal from the App Store. ExpressVPN said users can stay connected to the open internet with the company's apps for Windows, Mac, Android and other platforms.

Apple has recently stepped up business efforts in China. Earlier this month, the company announced the appointment of Isabel Ge Mahe in a new role of vice president and managing director of Greater China to provide leadership and coordination across Apple's China-based team. Apple is also setting up its first data center in the mainland by partnering with a local company, in order to comply with tougher cybersecurity laws in China.

In a blog post, ExpressVPN said it was "disappointed" with Apple's decision. It "represents the most drastic measure the Chinese government has taken to block the use of VPNs to date, and we are troubled to see Apple aiding China's censorship efforts," the post read.

Golden Frog also said in a blog post that it was "extremely disappointed" in Apple's decision. It added, "If Apple views accessibility as a human right, we would hope Apple will likewise recognize internet access as a human right (the UN has even ruled it as such) and would choose human rights over profits."

The move was also criticized by others, including U.S. whistle-blower Edward Snowden in a tweet.

"Earlier this year China's (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) announced that all developers offering VPNs must obtain a license from the government," an Apple spokesperson told CNBC. "We have been required to remove some VPN apps in China that do not meet the new regulations. These apps remain available in all other markets where they do business."

On Tuesday, during Apple's earnings call, CEO Tim Cook added, "We would obviously rather not remove the apps, but like we do in other countries we follow the law wherever we do business. We strongly believe participating in markets and bringing benefits to customers is in the best interest of the folks there and in other countries as well."

Apple's decision to remove the apps comes at a time when businesses and individuals inside the mainland are finding it harder to connect to the so-called open internet outside China via VPN. A business executive told CNBC that connecting through VPN in cities like Hangzhou is becoming far more difficult, as compared to bigger places such as Beijing and Shanghai. People using an international SIM card or apps downloaded from App Stores outside China are still able to use VPNs on the mainland, according to the executive.

Some of the remaining VPN companies that have yet to face Beijing's crackdown could end up collaborating with the authorities, according to Martin Johnson (a pseudonym) from GreatFire.org. He told CNBC that some of those companies may hand over user data when requested and be allowed to operate without restrictions. "Those that protect their users security will be removed."

Johnson added, "Apple is now an integral part of China's censorship apparatus, helping the government expand it's control to a global scale."

To be sure, Apple's removal of those apps is not the first time Beijing's cyber regulators have gone after VPN providers. Recent reports said two popular providers GreenVPN and Haibei VPN stopped their services following a notice from the regulators. In fact, a number of VPN apps are still available on the local App Store as of Monday.

In January, the MIIT embarked on a 14-month campaign to "clean up" China's internet connections by March 31, 2018. In a notice, the ministry said that, while China's internet access service market is facing "a rare opportunity for development," there are also signs of "disorderly development" needing to be rectified.

Among other services, the move also affected VPNs: The Ministry said those connections cannot be created without the approval of the relevant telecommunications authorities.

State-owned news outlet Global Times reported that a spokesperson for MIIT said at a press conference last week that foreign companies or multinational corporations that need to use VPN for business purposes could rent special lines from telecom providers that legally provide such services.

Previously, the Ministry had denied a Bloomberg report that it ordered major telco operators China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom to block individuals' access to all VPNs by February 1, 2018.

Johnson said the authorities would "prefer to divide users such that businesses can continue to access the global internet, while ordinary users can only access the filtered internet."

"The Chinese government does not care at all about freedom of speech, but they do care very much about economic growth and China's economy continues to be very dependent on the outside world. Apple should use this leverage and stand up for the principle. Sadly they don't," he said.

CNBC's Barry Huang contributed to this report.

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Apple removes VPN apps in China as Beijing doubles down on censorship - CNBC

Tech giant Facebook has issued an apology to a Black activist and writer who claims the social media site suspended her account for bringing attention to racism, reports USA Today.

According to the outlet, Ijeoma Oluos visit to Cracker Barrel with her two children sparked the controversy. During her visit, she jokingly tweeted At Cracker Barrel 4 the 1st time. Looking at the sea of white folk in cowboy hats & wondering will they let my black ass walk out of here?'

Her tweet prompted several racist attacks on both Twitter and Facebook. Twitter swiftly removed the hateful posts and suspended the accounts associated with them, the outlet reports. After Oluo posted images of the derogatory tweets on her Facebook page, her account was suspended.

I write and speak about race in America because I already see this hate every day, Oluo wrote, according to USA Today. Its the complicity of one of the few platforms that people of color have to speak out about this hate that gets me.

Facebook issued a statement extending an apology to Oluo; claiming that suspending her account was a mistake and that they are working on ways to maneuver through these important issues. According to the outlet, an apology wasnt enough for Oluo who claims that her online incident wasnt isolated and that shes witnessed other Black activists have their accounts suspended for calling out racism.

The only reason my ban was reversed was because of the outrage it generated, but so many other marginalized people in similar situations are simply forced out, she said.

The censorship of Blacks has been an ongoing issue on the social platform. USA Today reports that civil rights groups have called out Facebook for being racially biased with their targeting and removing posts and temporarily suspending the accounts of Black activists like Shaun King.

According to the outlet, the social networking site removes thousands of posts that evoke hate each week.

SOURCE: USA Today

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Facebook Apologizes To Black Activist For Censorship - News One

Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc.David Paul MorrisBloomberg via Getty Images

Apple CEO Tim Cook has been a staunch advocate for civil rights, and even keeps a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. in his office. So it's probably not surprising that Cook is a little defensive about a recent decision by Apple to go along with a repressive computer policy in China.

In recent days, Apple pulled a number of apps from its app store in China that could be used to circumvent China's Internet censorship laws. Known as virtual private network, or VPN, apps, the programs let iPhone and iPad users mask their origins from the "Great Firewall of China" and thereby access sites banned by the government and better shield their communications from surveillance.

On Tuesday, Cook said Apple had no choice but to remove the VPN apps.

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"We would obviously rather not remove the apps, but like we do in other countries, we follow the law wherever we do business," Cook said on a call with analysts to discuss quarterly financial results. "We strongly believe in participating in markets and bringing benefits to customers is the best interest of the folks there and in other countries as well."

In a column published earlier on Tuesday, New York Times tech columnist Farhad Manjoo called out Apple for caving to the Chinese censorship demands. Conceding that Apple was probably forced to remove the VPN apps, Manjoo concluded that "Apples quiet capitulation to tightening censorship in one of its largest markets is still a dangerous precedent."

Cook also went on to explain why he thought the situation in China was quite different from the standoff between Apple and the FBI last year over decrypting information on an iPhone used by a terrorist in San Bernardino.

"Some folks have tried to link it to the U.S. situation last yearthey're very different," Cook said on the analyst call. "In the case of the U.S., the law in the U.S. supported us. It was very clear. In the case of China, the law is very clear there."

But Apple ( aapl ) did state its point of view in China "in the appropriate way," Cook added. That has not, at least so far, included any public criticism of the Chinese demand, or even more drastically, pulling out the country in protest.

Link:
Apple CEO Cook Defends Move to Censor Chinese Apps - Fortune

The shift which could affect a swath of users from researchers to businesses suggests that China is increasingly worried about the power of the internet, experts said.

It does appear the crackdown is becoming more intense, but the internet is also more powerful than it has ever been, said Emily Parker, author of Now I Know Who My Comrades Are, a book about the power of the internet in China, Cuba, and Russia. Beijings crackdown on the internet is commensurate with the power of the internet in China.

China still has not clamped down to its full ability, the experts said, and in many cases the cat-and-mouse game continues. One day after Apples move last week, people on Chinese social media began circulating a way to gain access to those tools that was so easy that even a non-techie could use it. (It involved registering a persons app store to another country where VPN apps were still available.)

Still, Thursdays test demonstrates that China wants the ability to change the game in favor of the cat.

A number of Chinese internet service providers said on their social media accounts, websites, or in emails on Thursday that Chinese security officials would test a new way to find the internet addresses of services hosting or using illegal content. Once found, these companies said, the authorities would ask internet service providers to tell their clients to stop. If the clients persisted, they said, the service providers and Chinese officials would cut their connection in a matter of minutes.

The Ministry of Public Security did not respond to a faxed request for comment.

Studies suggest that anywhere from tens of millions to well over a hundred million Chinese people use VPNs and other types of software to get around the Great Firewall. While the blocks on foreign television shows and pornography ward off many people, they often pose only minor challenges to Chinas huge population of web-savvy internet users.

Chinas president, Xi Jinping, has presided over years of new internet controls, but he has also singled out technology and the internet as critical to Chinas future economic development. As cyberspace has become more central to everything that happens in China, government controls have evolved.

It is difficult to figure out the extent of the new efforts, since many users and businesses will not discuss them publicly for fear of getting on the bad side with the Chinese government. But some frequent users said that getting around the restrictions had become increasingly difficult.

One student, who has been studying in the United States and was back in China for summer vacation, said that her local VPN was blocked. She said she had taken the period as a sort of meditation away from social media and left a note on Facebook to warn her friends why she was a gone girl.

A doctoral student in environmental engineering in at a university in China said it had become harder to do research without Google, though his university had found alternative publications so that students did not always need the internet. He has since found a new way to get around the Great Firewall, the student said, without disclosing what it was.

Close observers of the Chinese internet said some VPNs still work and that China could still do a lot more to intensify its crackdown.

We do think that if the government has decided to do so, it could have shut down much more VPN usage right now, said a spokesman for VPNDada, a website created in 2015 to help Chinese users find VPNs that work.

If the government had sent more cats, the mice would have a tougher time, said the spokesman, who declined to be named because of sensitivities around the groups work in China. I guess they didnt do so because they need to give some air for people or businesses to breathe.

Chinas online crackdowns are often cyclical. The current climate is in part the result of the lead-up to a key Chinese Communist Party meeting, the 19th Party Congress this autumn. Five years ago, ahead of a similar meeting, VPNs were hit by then-unprecedented disruptions.

Much like economic policy or foreign affairs, censorship in China is part of a complicated and often imperfect political process. Government ministries feel pressure ahead of the party congress to show they are effective or can step in if a problem appears, analysts said.

So its definitely not an apocalypse for VPNs, said Paul Triolo, head of global technology at Eurasia Group, a consultancy.

Just a more complex environment for users to navigate, and new capabilities and approaches give China better ability to shut off some delta of VPN use at a time and place of Beijings choosing, he said.

Chinas population is learning to deal with those difficulties at a younger age. Earlier this summer, Chinas internet giant Tencent began limiting the time that people under 18 were allowed to play the popular online game Honor of Kings to an hour a day for those under 12, and two hours for those age 12 to 18.

So Chinese youths have taken to an age-old solution: getting a fake ID.

Your Honor of Kings being limited? Interested in getting an over-18 identification? read a recent advertisement on Chinese social media. No problem. Get in touch for a low-price ID.

Carolyn Zhang contributed research from Shanghai. Adam Wu contributed research from Beijing.

A version of this article appears in print on August 4, 2017, on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Chinas Internet Censors Test a New Way to Shut Down Access.

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China's Internet Censors Play a Tougher Game of Cat and Mouse - New York Times

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