While the United States has long argued for an open global internet, Mr. Trump’s bans against foreign services like WeChat and TikTok have begun to reverse that trend. His moves echo earlier actions by China, which has long banned American services like Twitter and Facebook that it cannot censor directly.
Other people said they were scrambling to find alternatives to WeChat. Sirui Hua, 29, a resident of Jersey City, N.J., told family and friends in China to sign up for QQ, a messaging app also owned by Tencent. He is also planning to use Apple’s FaceTime to video chat with
“What they collect are data on locality, data on what you are streaming toward, what your preferences are, what you are referencing, every bit of behavior that the American side is indulging in becomes available to whoever is watching on the other side,” he said. “That’s what we’re trying to
WASHINGTON — China and the United States once acted like opposites when it came to governing the internet.
Beijing imposed a heavy state hand. It blocked major foreign websites, sheltered Chinese tech firms as they developed alternatives to Western rivals and kept a tight grip on what people said online.
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s sudden decision late Thursday to restrict two popular Chinese social media services from the United States has created confusion about how broad the bans on doing business with China could ultimately be.
That confusion may be part of the point.
Citing national security concerns, the Trump
Some of her friends, she said, had already begun posting links to Line, a messaging app popular in Japan, in case they were forced to switch. To Ms. Han, the order seemed un-American.
“Trump is violating our rights to connect with our families and friends. If WeChat is really banned,
