Apple has quietly gone ahead and restricted the use of AirDrop in China, killing a viable and crucial communication tool for protesters in the nation, revealed by a 9to5Mac report.
via 9to5Mac
To the unaware, AirDrop is a file-sharing feature in the Apple ecosystem that has allowed many protestors to evade censorship online by relying on direct connections between phones, forming a mesh network of devices that function without the need of data connectivity.
Basically, one person could AirDrop a file to anyone who has the reception of AirDrop files enabled to receive images, videos files etc with the iPhones or devices in close proximity.
However, this changed in the first week of November, when on November 9, Apple rolled out update 16.1.1. Apple acting coy didn’t reveal that it was limiting the AirDrop to receive messages from everyone for only ten minutes before switching off — the setting to keep ‘everyone’ permanently on no longer existent.
AirDrop has been a crucial medium to reach fellow protestors, and spread messages regarding protests. Per Quartz’s report, it was also a vital tool during Hong Kong protests, especially in spreading the message to tourists.
A report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reveals that the limit for 10 minutes to accept AirDrop from everyone is coming to other nations next year too. And for an ordinary world, that does seem appropriate — no one wants unwanted images or media files from unknown strangers — but Apple decided to do so only for the Chinese market that too without clearly informing them beforehand definitely isn’t the right way to go.
It probably could be since a month ago when Xi Jinping was anointed for the third team as China’s ‘supreme leader’, the nation saw displays of protests, one of them being a ‘Bridge Man’ who lit a fire on a bridge in Beijing while displaying a banner stating, “Go on strike at school and work, remove the dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping.”
Reuters
References to this banner were quickly censored on the Chinese internet however, private channels enabled spread of this protest like wildfire, which according to Vice were being spread on the Shanghai subway via AirDrop.
Apple siding with China to help make things simple for the nation won’t surprise you, considering 16 percent of smartphone users in China owned an iPhone, up from 11 percent just a year ago, according to a Canalys report.
And this wasn’t Apple’s first attempt to help China maintain control — mostly by removing apps used by protesters to communicate under the radar. And ceasing AirDrop’s functionality, it’s coming to the authoritarian government’s aid once again.
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