When the Trump administration issued executive orders on Aug. 6 that would essentially ban the Chinese apps WeChat and TikTok over national security concerns, executives at TikTok were quick to distance themselves from any user anxiety over the social media phenomenon’s relationship with the mother country and authorities there. WeChat was less quick to push back. That’s because Tencent Holdings Ltd., the company that owns WeChat, has for years worked to keep the app aligned with the values...

The most popular Chinese-owned social media from WeChat to TikTok are increasingly censoring content in the U.S. and elsewhere, taking practices honed for years behind the Great Firewall to an international audience. ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok often buries or hides words that reflect political movements, gender and sexual orientation or religion in most countries where it operates, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said in a report released Tuesday. Most of the content censored on WeChat...

Reuters The most popular Chinese-owned social media from WeChat to TikTok are increasingly censoring content in the U.S. and elsewhere, taking practices honed for years behind the Great Firewall to an international audience. ByteDance’s TikTok often buries or hides words that reflect political movements, gender and sexual orientation or religion in most countries where it operates, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said in a report released Tuesday. Most of the content censored on...

A Swedish firm that supplies law enforcement and government agencies with technology to extract data from mobile phones said it has pulled its business from Hong Kong. The decision by Stockholm-based Micro Systemation AB came after a White House executive order on July 14 stripped Hong Kong of its special trading status, said Mike Dickinson, deputy executive officer. That status had granted Hong Kong more favorable treatment than China. Dickinson said in an email that his company, known as...

LISTEN TO ARTICLE 4:51 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email Photographer: Kyle Lam/Bloomberg As Hong Kong sees life change rapidly under a new security law, protesters have quickly learned that actions that weren’t worthy of police attention a little more than a week ago could now warrant an arrest, DNA sample and search of their home -- in addition to the possibility of jail time. Hong Kong police made their first arrests last week under a sweeping new security law imposed by China,...