Impending WeChat ban worries Chinese students in the United States
International students from China who are studying in the United States may be without their primary method for communicating with friends, family, and colleagues back home if the U.S. government follows through on a threat to ban WeChat, a popular Chinese mega-app similar to Facebook.
“WeChat has an incredibly important role in Chinese culture these days since it has many functions that are used daily by most people in China,” Rui Gao, a native of China who is researching environmental engineering at Utah State University, said in Chinese.
That makes it a good resource for Chinese students far from home. About 19 million people use the app in the United States each day, according to the analytics firm Apptopia.
Among those students is Ruoxi Yang, a native of Beijing who is studying at Brigham Young University.
“It will be sad not to see the moments of my friends,” Yang said.
WeChat moments are usually pictures with captions, much like the most common posts on Instagram which, like Facebook and Twitter, is blocked in China.
The U.S. government has stated the potential ban would be on the grounds of national security, citing risks of data privacy, foreign censorship, and the spread of misinformation through the app. The ban is another step in deteriorating foreign relations between the United States and China following the recent trade war and tensions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ban is set to take place on Sept. 20 but details on how it will be implemented have yet to be released.
“There are other apps out there but none of them are used as widely as WeChat," Gao said. "And who’s to say that other apps won’t be banned in the future? Not just for me, but for my friends and family in trying to contact me, the ban will be a major inconvenience.”