WeChat, China’s most popular app, faces an imminent ban in the United States, leaving many of its users in a bind.
Although WeChat has a relatively minor presence in the United States, it remains an important conduit for communications between Chinese citizens living abroad and their friends and family at home. The app has an average of 19 million million daily active users in the US versus more than 1 billion worldwide.
They use it to pay for services, call taxis, go shopping, read the news, chat, and more.
China’s restrictions on foreign technology prohibit obvious substitutes, such as Facebook’s WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google’s Gmail and Gchat, and the Telegram chat app.
While some US-based folks may rush to install WeChat before new downloads are restricted, this is just an interim measure. When updated versions of the WeChat software are released worldwide, US users will not be able to update their applications, leaving them vulnerable to hackers.
VPN and video conferencing
There are other options for people living in China to keep in touch with their relationships abroad. Some may require some technical knowledge, such as installing a VPN, to bypass Chinese censorship.
Other options include video conferencing apps like Zoom, Skype or Houseparty, the latter of which is owned in part by Epic Games, a video game maker owned in part by Tencent.
