Chinese browser Tuber offers a glimpse beyond the Great Firewall — with caveats

guest · Oct 10, 2020

Chinese browser Tuber offers a glimpse beyond the Great Firewall — with caveats
October 9, 2020
https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/09/new-chinese-browser-lets-users-get-around-great-firewall/

China now has a tool that lets users access YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google and other internet services that have otherwise long been banned in the country — selectively.

Called Tuber, the mobile browser debuted on China’s third-party Android stores this week, with an iOS launch in the pipeline. The landing page of the app features a scrolling feed of YouTube videos, with tabs at the bottom that allow users to visit other mainstream Western internet services.
While some celebrate the app as an unprecedented “opening up” of the Chinese internet, such as this state media journalist, others quickly noticed the browser comes with a veil of censorship.
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Using the app also comes with liabilities. Registration requires a Chinese phone number, which is tied to a person’s real identity. The platform could suspend users’ accounts and share their data “with the relevant authorities” if they “actively watch or share” content that breaches the constitution, endangers national security and sovereignty, spreads rumors, disrupts social orders or violates other local laws, according to the app’s terms of service.

Within two days, Tuber has attracted over 5 million downloads just on Huawei’s Android app store. It’s certainly not the first browser in China to claim it can get around the Great Firewall without VPNs, though few have drawn as much attention. A now-banned article introducing the app went viral on WeChat on Friday and seems to have contributed to its overnight success.

It’s unclear whether Beijing granted Qihoo 360 the green light to pursue the browser project.
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As of Saturday afternoon, Tuber has been removed from the Huawei Android store and the downloaded copy stops functioning, leaving users with a message that it is “undergoing a system upgrade.”
The story was updated on October 9 with background information and on October 10 to add the app was removed from the app store.
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guest · Oct 24, 2020

Web browsers hopping the Great Firewall in China suggest a new era of opening up and a new means of control
China allows some web browsers to offer access to blocked websites [...] while still censoring
October 23, 2020
https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-soci...-great-firewall-china-suggest-new-era-opening

Some of these browsers, which let users circumvent the government’s strict online censorship, manage to stick around for a while. But the quick withdrawal of others has led to questions about whether these browsers are really sanctioned by authorities as some companies say.

Tuber was the latest such browser to disappear from app stores, but its fate did not always look so bleak.
When news of the app started spreading online on October 9, it quickly racked up millions of downloads. It appeared to have the right pedigree to put people’s minds at ease. It came from a company that is 70 per cent owned by a subsidiary of Qihoo 360, China’s largest cybersecurity company, TechCrunch reported.
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Another such browser is “Leitu cross-border browser”, which remains available for download on its website and comes from a company named Jiangsu Cuiqi in the eastern city of Nanjing.
When asked why the browser is able to work in China, customer support said it is “absolutely legal” because it cooperates with “relevant departments” and blocks illegal content.

“It’s [made] purely to satisfy ordinary demands, you can’t do anything illegal with it,” they said.

All these browsers offer people in China access to the global web while still allowing authorities to strictly control what people see. A custom web browser is uniquely suited to this task.
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Like the other browsers mentioned, Kuniao also censored content. And like Tuber, Kuniao disappeared soon after attracting widespread social media attention in November last year.

This, however, does not mean that the Chinese government is making the internet more open. Roberts noted that apps like Tuber could more effectively hide censorship.

“What we know from academic research is that awareness of censorship is key to countering it,” she said.
“So if apps are seemingly more open but are actually filtering, this could still have a big impact on access to information and perceptions of the information environment, even if YouTube, Google and Facebook are no longer completely blocked.”
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Chinese browser Tuber offers a glimpse beyond the Great Firewall — with caveats

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