| Hi all, this is Zheping in Hong Kong. I spent a lot of time on Clubhouse during this Lunar New Year break, because what else is there to do in the midst of a pandemic shutdown? The viral audio app is rich on enlightening discussions in Mandarin -- such as why Chinese people love Japanese anime, how to deal with a difficult boss and the distinctions between liberals and leftists, to name a few.
That's despite the fact that Clubhouse is banned in China.
The government blocked access to the app shortly after it gained traction among social media users, making it the latest in a long line of banned foreign internet services including Twitter, Gmail and Facebook. But, like those others, Clubhouse can still be accessed by disguising one's location with the help of a VPN, and many of the speakers I stumble across in the app's chatrooms today identify themselves as based in cities like Beijing and Shenzhen. Chinese residents motivated to go the extra step do so for the rare virtual forum where they can talk politics and other sensitive topics -- oftentimes with Mandarin-speaking communities around the world -- free from the interference of state actors. In one virtual gathering, users from the mainland and Taiwan debated the prospects of unification. In another, a woman who identified as Han Chinese said she'd never previously had a chance to mingle with ethnic minorities like Tibetans and Uighurs as she did on Clubhouse. But that doesn't mean they're entirely beyond the reach of authorities. Clubhouse is powered by Shanghai-based software startup Agora Inc., which handles the back-end infrastructure. That means any unencrypted Clubhouse data that passes through it could potentially be accessible to the Chinese government, Bloomberg News reported and researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory affirmed. Agora provides developers the tools and support to build real-time video and audio functions within their applications: a template known as a software development kit. The researchers found that user metadata like Clubhouse IDs are transmitted to Agora's back end in plaintext and Agora would likely have access to users' raw audio. Both issues are potential privacy vulnerabilities that the Chinese government could use to eavesdrop on conversations in the app and ultimately punish its citizens.
Clubhouse says it's reviewing its data security practices and will prevent transmitting data through Chinese servers. In response to a Bloomberg News query, Agora declined to comment on its relationship with the social media hit. "Agora does not have access to share or store personally identifiable end-user data," it said in an emailed statement. "Voice or video traffic from non-China based users -- including U.S. users -- is never routed through China."
The budding controversy around Clubhouse's Chinese partner highlights the vague fear that surrounds the country's internet companies, from big names like TikTok owner ByteDance to newly emerging outfits. People outside and within China worry that Beijing has the power to not only demand service providers hand over data but to also compel them to spy on its behalf. As China's tech industry expands globally, it'll have to go a long way to shake off that distrust. Investors, at least, don't seem to be discouraged. Agora is now worth more than $10 billion, having spiked in value by nearly 180% since mid-January thanks to its association with Clubhouse, which is held by a private startup. | 
Post a Comment