Apple's AirDrop restriction in China deprives protesters of a key communication tool
Protests have intensified in recent days over government's harsh COVID-19 measures
Anti-government demonstrations In China appear to have quietened as some people who attended weekend protests have been contacted by police,
Whilst the main symbol of the protests were blank pieces of white paper, deployed as a visual metaphor for goverment censorship, the use of another more technical tool which could have been helpful to protestors was also curtailed in advance of the protests. People in China reported being unable to fully use their iPhone's AirDrop file sharing feature, which has been used to circumvent the "Great Firewall of China," and spread information about protests.
AirDrop is a file-sharing feature that allows users to share files, such as photos, documents, or videos, with other Apple devices. Using direct connections between phones, AirDrop creates a local network of iPhones that can interact with one another without need of the internet.
People may choose to receive AirDrop content from anybody else in the vicinity who also has an iPhone.
In the past, protesters in many authoritarian nations have been able to use AirDrop to circumvent government censorship restrictions. However, Apple restricted the use of AirDrop feature in China earlier this month ahead of the recent anti-government demonstrations.
With the most recent software update, iOS 16.1.1, iPhone users in China may only use AirDrop to receive files from other non-contacts for ten minutes. When the 10-minute window expires, AirDrop immediately switches back to contacts only mode.
9to5Mac first reported the new limitations on November 9, when Apple released the update.
There was no mention from the company about certain features being made inaccessible, and Apple told Bloomberg earlier this month that it had plans to roll out the setting globally to restrict unwanted file sharing.
However, for now, the changes remain exclusive to China, and some people believe they may have made information sharing more difficult in the light of the widespread demonstrations against China's zero-COVID policy.
Protests became more intense last weekend after a residential building fire on Thursday killed 10 people in the Urumqi city.
Social media videos appeared to show victims trapped inside their flats, with first responders being prevented from reaching them because of tight lockdown.
China has maintained its zero-COVID policy and kept stringent restrictions in place to stop the virus' spread at the time when the rest of the world has relaxed such restrictions. The combination of poor vaccine efficacy and tight lockdowns means that population level immunity to Covid in China is not comparable to other countries who have vaccinated more successfully, relaxed restrictions and essentially learned to live with the virus.
When it comes to AirDrop, it's not quite clear why Apple chose to restrict the usage of the feature in China.
In the past, Apple has been accused of appeasing the Chinese government. One example of this is the company's decision to remove the app for the business website Quartz from its store in China due to 'content concerns' during the protests in Hong Kong in 2019.
'Apple has repeatedly helped China control dissent, mostly by removing apps that protestors have used to coordinate, communicate, or gather information,' Quartz said in its report.
'By hobbling the functionality of AirDrop in China, Apple is once again coming to the government's aid.'
Just a few weeks before to Apple's latest update, reports in the foreign media claimed that some Chinese citizens were using AirDrop to distribute leaflets and photographs that echoed slogans of a rare protest against Chinese leader Xi Jinping on October 13.
Two banners protesting against Xi's zero-Covid policy and authoritarian leadership were hoisted on an overpass on a major road in the northwest of Beijing on that day, just before Xi won a record-breaking third term.