The terribly popular social media app WeChat with over 300 million users in China has come under the eyes of the Chinese army. This app, called the Weixin in its Chinese version has been under the news for a lot of things since the beginning of this year. Quite recently, it was reported that the wives of the Army officers’ were warned by the Army about disclosing important information over the social platform.
There were reports of the wives of officials that created a group on WeChat in order to talk about the general topics, their husbands and while discussing sometimes tended to disclose the information regarding their husband’s unit schedules and missions. The army cited this disclosure as a threat and has warned the ladies about creating such groups.
This group was also supposed to be containing the officials themselves along with the service providers and other “outsider” that had no business knowing these schedules. The officials at People’s Liberation Army (PLA) considered discussing anything outside the base as a threat to the operations.
This concern seemed legitimate considering the latest events of hacking media and data on the social platform. A seminar was also organized after this by the commanding brigade of PLA, guiding the wives about internet security and dos and don’ts of the social world. A number of people were seen citing references of the past when the strangers tried to befriend the wives knowing that they belonged to the Army service. The PLA had earlier requested the officers to refrain from joining blogs, forums or any other online chatting groups and also advised them to strictly beware the possible hazards of the internet to the security and privacy of the Army.
The most important aspect of this news is that our everyday life is intensely socialized and whether it is our friend’s birthday or an important secret, we do not fail to express and blurt out everything to our contacts, known and unknown, without thinking of the serious repercussions our talks can have in the future. Well, it is not a threat to the country’s security but it is threat to personal privacy and so these things should be used speculatively.
This news came sometime after China put a harsh censorship on the abusive images and videos and therefore as great the app is, vigilance cannot be compromised.