Chinese in the US and business owners have reacted with dismay and outrage to the Trump administration's ban on Chinese-owned apps WeChat and TikTok, fearing it could leave them cut off from family, friends and customers in China.
They scrambled to back up messages and contacts and find other messaging apps to use, as news broke on Friday morning of the ban on future downloads of WeChat that takes effect today.
Video-sharing app TikTok will be banned from Nov 12. But the WeChat ban hit harder for many people of Chinese descent in America, particularly fresh immigrants, who depend on the social media app to communicate with loved ones in mainland China, where other apps like WhatsApp and Telegram are banned.
"This isn't just maybe one or two family members that we won't be able to talk to regularly anymore, this is our entire extended family that we're losing contact with," said University of California, Berkeley, undergraduate Michelle Lin in a Twitter thread that went viral.
Ms Lin, whose parents emigrated to the US from China over 20 years ago, said WeChat's arrival in 2011 was the first time she was able to speak to and get to know her cousins and grandparents.
"I'd never even known what it was like to have relatives, I didn't realise how much strength being connected to family out there can give," she wrote.
"My 90-plus-year-old grandfather learnt to use the app to better communicate with us overseas," she said. "He sends me little messages... it literally keeps me going."
American businesses with suppliers and customers in China reeled from the news that WeChat transactions would be banned.
The twin bans are part of a larger clampdown on Chinese technology, including tech giant Huawei's phones and involvement in 5G telecommunications networks, which the White House and lawmakers say poses threats to America's national security.
In response to the backlash in America, WeChat's owner Tencent Holdings has chosen Singapore as its regional hub in Asia, Bloomberg reported last week.
Current WeChat users, of which there are more than 50 million active in the US, will not be immediately affected if they already have the app on their phones.
But WeChat appears headed for a slow death in the US, cut off from updates and security patches via the official app store, as well as from hosting and network services that support the app.
"Since the WeChat ban targets all the network support services that speed communications, network lag could well make it impossible to make voice or video calls between US and China on WeChat," editor-in-chief Graham Webster of the DigiChina project between Stanford University and the New America think-tank tweeted.
"Many families - who can't travel during a pandemic - could have their channels cut," he added.
Some suggested switching to Tencent-owned instant messaging app QQ, which has not been affected by the curbs so far. But Republican lawmaker Marco Rubio, in a letter on Sept 11, urged President Donald Trump to ban it as well.
The US WeChat Users Alliance, a group of Chinese American lawyers unaffiliated with WeChat, has called the move an unconstitutional one that racially targets Chinese in America, pointing out that many also use WeChat to communicate with fellow Chinese in America. It is seeking a preliminary injunction in court to stop the ban.
Technology experts say new security risks could be introduced by users trying to bypass the curbs by installing unverified apps, called sideloading, or by removing restrictions from a phone to allow such apps to be installed, or jailbreaking.
Critics say the ban is akin to censorship and runs counter to American values of freedom of speech.
How the ban affects users
Q: What does this mean for users in the United States?
A: If you have TikTok downloaded on your phone, you are fine - for now. The US Commerce Department will wait until Nov 12 - after the election - to pursue a full ban on TikTok.
However, if you have deleted the TikTok app from your phone, beginning today, you will not be able to download it again, even if you have a TikTok account.
You also will not be able to receive any software updates that fix bugs and add features.
The prohibition is more immediate for WeChat users. Starting today, not only will you not be able to download the WeChat app or software updates from the App Store or Google Play, you also will not be able to send payments to family members or businesses that use WeChat as a payment method.
The ban on the apps only applies to the Apple and Android app stores in the United States. Users in Singapore and other countries are unaffected.
Q: Will the app functions be affected?
A: Yes. WeChat and TikTok are live Internet services that require maintenance, which includes security and bug fixes. If you stop receiving such updates, the apps may eventually cease to work properly.
The situation may be even more dire for WeChat users. Because of the ban on transactions between US businesses and WeChat, the service may begin to degrade today. Sending of messages may begin to slow or even time out.
For TikTok users, that service degradation will not happen unless a full ban takes effect on Nov 12.
Q: What can I do?
A: Nothing practical.
Google Android users may try to "sideload" future versions of the WeChat and TikTok apps onto their devices, a process that involves changing some security settings to download apps from outside Google's official app store.
Apple phones also have methods that let you install unauthorised applications. But sideloading and installing apps through unofficial channels is not practical because it can compromise device security and it is not easy for many people to do.
Apple and Google users can also try to download the apps from foreign app stores by travelling to other countries.
Or they could use a virtual private network, a service that creates a virtual tunnel to shield your browsing information from your Internet service provider, to manipulate their device location. Again, this is impractical.
NYTIMES
