Should Tibetans Stop Using WeChat?

By Tenzin Samten / June 23, 2020;

China’s multifaceted mobile app WeChat has started blocking the contacts of influential Tibetans who live in exile and are in contact with their families and friends in Tibet. This comes amid the Wuhan-originated Coronavirus pandemic, reports United Kingdom based nongovernment organisation Free Tibet’s research partner, Tibet Watch. Tibetans across the world use this app to keep in touch with their families and friends in Tibet as Wechat is the only app that is commonly available.

The report said that Tibetan religious leaders in exile are targeted and their accounts are being blocked. This action has resulted from a request from the Chinese government in their effort to curb communication between Tibetans inside Tibet and the outside world, particularly during the global pandemic.

Wechat is multipurpose social media platform for messaging, video calls and mobile payments and is owned by the Chinese corporation Tencent.

Use of social media apps such as Facebook and Whatsapp are banned in Chinese-administered Tibet which makes Wechat the only mode of communication between Tibetans inside Tibet and the outside world. Despite the Chinese government’s close monitoring of the app, Tibetans in exile are using this app to keep in touch.

There have been reports of Tibetans being arrested for sharing Tibet’s exile leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s photo on Wechat.

A previous report by Free Tibet said that since April this year, Chinese officials have investigated about 5,000 Tibetan households in connection with their family ties in Nepal and India. During the investigation, Tibetans in Dingri County in Shigatse city in the Tibet Autonomous Region were forced to register their names and share their Wechat identification
numbers if they have contacts outside Tibet.

Tibetans in exile and right groups see this action as another of China’s tactics to restrict freedom of speech inside Tibet. In May this year, they initiated a campaign to ban the use of any Chinese app, including Wechat. There were some who disagreed with this as it disconnects the information flow from inside Tibet to the outside world: now China is blocking contacts and thus spearing the exile groups’ discussion on whether or not to ban.