It has even extended Beijing's reach beyond its borders. When secret police issue threats abroad, they often do so on WeChat. When military researchers working undercover in the US needed to talk to China's embassies, they used WeChat, according to court documents. The party coordinates via WeChat with members studying overseas.
Though WeChat has different rules for users inside and outside of China, it remains a single, unified social network spanning China's Great Firewall. In that sense, it has helped bring Chinese censorship to the world. A ban would cut dead millions of conversations between family and friends, a reason one group has filed a lawsuit to block the Trump administration's efforts.
Twice she was released, only to be dragged back to the station for fresh interrogation sessions. Ms Li said an officer even insisted China had freedom of speech protections as he questioned her over what she had said online."I didn't say anything," she said.
Built for China's closed world of internet services, WeChat's only failure came outside the Great Firewall. Tencent made a big marketing push overseas, even hiring soccer player Lionel Messi as a spokesperson in some markets. For non-China users, it created a separate set of rules. International accounts would not face direct censorship and data would be stored on servers overseas.
Mr Fang first noticed the limitations of WeChat in 2018 as a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, teaching an online course in media literacy to younger Chinese.
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