China Blocks WhatsApp Again, Will It Be Permanent This Time?

In keeping with its long-time tradition of online censorship, China just added WhatsApp on its list of apps that will no longer be tolerated in the country. The red government did this with the chat service before and the ban was lifted a few days afterward. Now, the obvious questions are whether or not this new ban will be permanent and why it was done in the first place.

The reason for banning WhatsApp is largely speculated to involve the upcoming Communist Party shindig that is about to happen in a month’s time, The New York Times reports. The government is stepping up its surveillance efforts and removing messaging apps from the equation would certainly help with that.

While the ban is something that benefits the Chinese government, it’s a huge problem for Mark Zuckerberg who has been trying to re-enter the country’s market. That’s why the Facebook founder has been diving deep into learning China’s language, which might not go as far as he had hoped, now that WhatsApp has been dropped.

As a result, all of Zuckerberg’s products have now been officially banned from one of the largest social media markets in the world. This development also further highlights China’s commitment to blocking all forms of unsanctioned communications, which might even involve the use of new software capable of interfering with end-to-end encryption.

Once the gathering of China’s top dogs is concluded, there is a chance that the ban could be lifted, at least in some capacity. If it is, it could go a long way towards dissuading political dissidents from relying too much on encrypted messaging software. If WhatsApp is permanently banned, it could cause widespread disruption in the business sector where companies using the app are unable to communicate with many of their customers, Tech Crunch points out.