B. Allen-Ebrahimian
Follow @BethanyAllenEbr

15 hours ago, 8 tweets, 2 min read

My WeChat & Tiananmen: A thread.

I have long had the same WeChat account, opened in the US with a US number.

Recently, I decided to change the password. Never one to miss an opportunity to test boundaries, I used the most CCP-offensive password I could think of:

F*ckCCP89

Without the asterisk, of course.

Now to be clear, this is not something I go around saying or thinking or promoting. I just wanted to make this a test.

What would happen? Would my WeChat account, opening in the US, with a US number, somehow be affected? https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1268611996007559168?s=20

B. Allen-Ebrahimian (@BethanyAllenEbr) 已推文：Well.

Within 45 SECONDS of me changing the password, my WeChat account was permanently closed.

Forever.

Not suspended. No appeal process. Closed. https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1268612238610518016?s=20

B. Allen-Ebrahimian (@BethanyAllenEbr) 已推文：This is interesting. This isn't exactly a case of "censorship" per se. No one would ever publicly see my password (though clearly WeChat has access to it!).

So what's the point? https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1268612804556328961?s=20

B. Allen-Ebrahimian (@BethanyAllenEbr) 已推文：Now for me, losing my WeChat account is slightly annoying, but that's all. But what if I used it the way many Chinese people do now? As THE single platform through which I talk to my family and my boss, pay my bills, pay at restaurants, apply for small loans (I think?), etc https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1268614795168628748?s=20

B. Allen-Ebrahimian (@BethanyAllenEbr) 已推文：Of course, if I needed WeChat to function in my daily life, I would never have tried this at all.

And I think that is the point. That everywhere around, in places hidden and open, known and unknown, there is the hand of the state, waiting to punish every small infraction. https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1268615209452580864?s=20

B. Allen-Ebrahimian (@BethanyAllenEbr) 已推文：It's another way of creating & enforcing an environment of total self-censorship, so that you learn to flag every CCP-unfriendly thought before it finds external expression.

So you can keep on being able to hail a cab with your phone, or run your e-commerce small business. https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1268615842914160646?s=20

B. Allen-Ebrahimian (@BethanyAllenEbr) 已推文：See, this is the advantage of reporting on China from outside of China (as a person without family ties to China either).

The stakes for my probing are so, so much lower. So I can do so rather boldly. https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1268617907023441921?s=20

转者:
这个人改微信密码，密码用了敏感词，然后因此账户被永久停用了
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