Now on bbc news, click. The uss biggest rival is moving in on social media and communications, and the us is pushing back. Hard. This week we ask, what is going on in china . Hey, welcome. This week were gonna bring you up to date with one of the most important parts of the technology world. This place is a long way away from silicon valley, both geographically and culturally. And that is a place that is now challenging the wests tech dominance. I am of course talking about china. Now, in chinese there is a common phrase. Says phrase. Roughly translated it means a contradiction, like an Unstoppable Force meaning an immovable object. And over the last few years we have seen this in world politics. China, the Unstoppable Force, meeting the usa, the immovable object. This is Tiananmen Square in beijing. When i first went to china nearly 15 years ago, it was already clear that the mighty dragon was awakening, and the next Technology Superpower was rearing its head. Fast forward to 2020, and Chinese Companies have broken into the west in a big way. Probably the best known of these are tiktok and huawei. And theyve both drawn criticism, to say the least. Later in the programme well be looking at tiktok, but the biggest fish here is huawei. It has been in uk telecoms for 20 years or so now, most recently beginning to be a part of the uks 56 network. But injuly, the government here banned it. To understand what is going on now, heres a quick refresher on huawei. It may look like paris, but this is huaweis brand new campus in shenzhen, china. A huge site where employees take a train between office buildings, each of which is modelled on a different european city. Fewjournalists have visited this disney world like project. Very much the brainchild of the companys founder, ren zhengfei. He has been compared to the likes of stevejobs, growing his company from a small workshop to a global tech giant, now employing 180,000 people. Huawei is currently enjoying huge success with revenues last year in excess of 100 billion. But this is also a Company Facing some serious issues. The biggest is that the us is coming for huawei in a big way. Look, we have met the enemy and it is huawei and it is china. Make no doubt about that. Right now, huawei, through access to unlimited capital from the Chinese Communist government, all of this technology, it is built in for cyberspying and cyberespionage, because that is what the chinese do. The problem is that mr ren was once a leader of chinas Peoples Liberation army, which has raised concerns about his links to the Chinese State. And whether it and huawei may have each others backs. America is adamant that huawei is a pawn of the chinese authorities. In 2017, china passed the National Intelligence law, which says that if asked all Chinese Companies and citizens must help the government to assist National Intelligence efforts. China claims this is part of an effort to safeguard its security. But the fear is that if huawei supplies any countrys sg network, the chinese could exploit it. In a future where our entire infrastructure, our economy and our lives are run by computers talking to each other over a 56 network, what would happen if someone shut that network down . If you think about it, the future of warfare is not necessarily going to be using traditional armies in the way we think of like the second world war. The future of warfare will most likely be cyber, so without firing a shot you could take a country out. Its feared that the Chinese State could order huawei to build secret backdoors in a 56 network. These would leave the country vulnerable to a nationwide cyberattack. And that could be catastrophic. So, whats new . Well, in may the Us Government published one short piece of legislation which had a massive impact on global technology. It may look quite dull, but what this means is that if your company uses american tools and software to make stuff for huawei, you will break us law. The us will blacklist you. So this stops most companies from supplying huawei, for fear of angering the us. For example, the chips which huawei use to run its products were manufactured by Companies Like taiwan based tsmc. And tsmc uses some American Software to help design and build the chips. So, under this new rule, tsmc cant make chips for huawei and carry on trading with the us. Which means for many companies, its a choice between china and the us. The way chips are produced is very reliant on some tools and techniques that are owned by a very small number of american companies. And what the American Government has done is basically say, you can no longer use those, the Chinese Companies can no longer use those. So if they carry on using it, it will be done illegally, or they will have to look for alternative sources. And if they find those alternative sources, it starts to become much more like a black box to us, because we have much less of an understanding from a security assurance point of view. And that tips you over into the point where you say i cant be sure enough about this now, so i will have to not use it. Its notjust the uk that is facing a problem, either. Germany, france, in fact almost every nation that was looking to develop sg capacity had begun to use the cheaper, more advanced huawei sg infrastructure. Remember that chinese phrase . America is becoming the immovable object trying to stop Chinese Companies in their tracks. But, before you start to think that this all sounds a bit unfair, it is worth recalling that china has banned almost all western companies, for years, from the chinese market. So, what can be done now . So the short term is for the mobile operators as well as having the additional cost of taking huawei out of their networks, they also have no choice but to sign contracts with nokia and ericsson. Just having two players in a major, major market like that is not really a desirable situation. So varioUs Governments around the world and operators are keen to open in some way the opportunity for another player at least, and several players potentially, to become alternatives to nokia and ericsson. Hello and welcome to the week in tech. This week, the uks court of appeal ruled that south wales polices use of facial Recognition Technology has been unlawful and in violation of human rights. Internet connection and Cellular Service was shut down in belarus amid protests following the contested re election of five time president alexander lukashenko. And, after 35 years on the laptop game, toshiba sold its last share of dynabook, and with it, the companys last stake in the personal computer business. Google announced plans to build the largest earthquake detection network, using your phone the android earthquake alerts system uses tiny accelerometers built into every smartphone and location data to act as a seismometer that can help detect quakes and tremors. Is this the future of photography . Football teams brain and research have developed an ai model to create 3d images of nearly complete scenes using still photographs. The model can even capture lighting changes without compromising the image. And finally, if youre in need of a cuddly friend without a long term commitment, this could be the closest thing to a real life pet cat. Developed by vanguard industries, this is a pet robot powered by ai. It uses sensors and has algorithms so that it can learn and evolve over time. Chinas influence on the world is truly global. Most major cities like here in london have a chinatown, and the us is no different. There are an estimated 5 million Chinese People living in the states. President trumps focus on banning tiktok has stolen most of the headlines, but its his targeting of wechat that could have an even bigger and more profound impact on us china relations. Thats because wechat, that came onto the scene in 2011, has morphed into a colossus. Its less of an app and more like an operating system. Heres kris, a Chinese Student studying in london explaining what it is. You can find out where have hospitals, where have restaurants, anything like that. You can buy movie tickets, you can book restaurants, this one you can book a hotel. If you want to find out a playstation. I have come for business and im selling things on it. Its everything in your life on this app . Wechat has become so big, so much a part of everyday life, it has become totally essential to its more than1 billion users. This is winnie, originally from malaysia, who has lived in london for ten years. How would you describe it to you, how important is it . Its part of my life. Old people like my mum only know how to send a message in whatsapp, but wechat is easy for them. If i didnt have wechat, my mum would cry. It is the family connection, home feeling. If i dont have this, i feel lonely. Tencent, the owner of wechat, wont say how many users it has outside of china, but its thought to run into the tens of millions. It, along with other chinese apps, has got the attention of the us authorities. President trump has mentioned impending action on tiktok, and for good reason. With Parent Companies based in china, apps like tiktok, wechat and others are significant threats to the personal data of american citizens. Tiktok is a very different beast to wechat. To start with, tiktok says it doesnt hold any of its data inside china and it would never give that data to the Chinese Government. Many security experts, though, believe it is wechat that holds a much greater security risk. This is the former chief Security Officer for yahoo and facebook. Alex stamos. Of all the Chinese Companies to worry about tiktok is not in my top ten. Probably. I find tiktok to be a bit ofjust a symbol here, standing in for the entire chinese industry. What i would most worry about is tencent because of wechat, wechat is one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, used by the entire chinese diaspora and people run entire companies on wechat, they have incredibly sensitive communication, they could open them up to blackmail and so those are the apps i would start with before an app like tiktok, which is mostly dancing teens. Wechat has long been criticised for censoring users in china. Then a canadian analytics company, citizen lab, looked into how wechat moderated its users outside of china. We find routinely that topics related to perennial taboo issues like Tiananmen Square, hong kong, falun gong, anything to do with tibet or the dalai lama, those are pretty routinely censored. The people we spoke to, though, did not seem to be too concerned about security issues. The reason why he is saying that he doesnt want it in the us is because he thinks that some of the data from users goes to the Chinese Government. No. This is not true, its not, really. It is, like, very important to the country. So maybe the country, the government control it a little bit, but that is, i think that is the good part for us. Because. If there is no government to control it, it would be something bad would happen. Researchers not only found wechat censoring political content, it was also censoring content related to covid 19. We looked in particular at censorship around covid and found that discussion about the pandemic very early on was censored which is highly significant because of course physicians who were on the front lines, who were warning about the pandemic even before it had a name had their communications censored. Tencent denied this and told bbc click that all content shared among International Users of wechat is private. Data security is not the only reason trump has decided to ban wechat. It is far more political than that. And to be honest it is hard to look past the fact that these Tech Companies have been sucked into a wider geopolitical battle between two superpowers. The battle over social media and especially who owns our personal data, is seen by many as the next big emerging rivalry between china and the us. In march, the chinese owners of internet hook up app grindr sold up for 600 million, they had been forced to sell by the us regulators over National Security concerns relating to the data on the app. In may, Chinese Social Media Company kuaishou launched an app in the us called zynn, which after becoming one of the most popular apps, was removed from both the Google Play Store and apples app store after being accused of plagiarising videos. But tiktok is now under pressure from us regulators and may be banned by the white house. I set a date of around september 15, at which point it will be out of business in the united states. But over in china, social media has been evolving in a different way. Earlier this year, before the pandemic took hold, Stephen Beckett went to beijing to meet some of the Major Players in the chinese social media landscape. When it comes to social media, china is a world away from the west thats in part because of long Term Government blocking of us tech giants like google and facebook, and thats partially why the country has evolved its own completely distinct online ecosystem. Alibaba is a bit like ebay, weibo is similar to twitter, and wechat started life in much the same way as apps like whatsapp and facebook messenger. Perhaps not a surprise, then, but for a time, china had the reputation of a copycat nation. China, with its Huge Population of over 1. 3 billion people has plenty of room for social ideas. And the competition is intense. These are the head offices of kuaishou, theyre one of the Biggest Social Networks here, theyve got over 200 million active users, but unless youre in china, you probably havent heard of it. Kuaishou has made a name for itself by targetting chinas relatively untapped rural population, and thats a lot of people around 40 dont live in cities. And that has led to a platform where the stars arent necessarily what you expect. Kuaishous secret sauce is the options it gives streamers to make their streams pay. Translation im a professional musician. I also give lectures via kuaishou in my spare time, which teach people how to play the chinese sorna. I try to popularise chinese traditional music and knowledge. Between sales of recorded lessons, purchases of virtual gifts during livestreams, he says he makes around £15,000 a month, and that is after kuaishou takes their 25 commission. But kuaishous 200 million users isnt quite so impressive when you compare it to chinas social titan tencent, and their so called mega app wechat. And now wechat is becoming a daily part of life, thanks to something called mini programs. Translation Wechat Miniprograms are an app that doesnt require you to download and install, they are sub applications within the wechat ecosystem, and a new tool developed by wechat. Mini programs allow third parties to add new features to wechat on demand. Its a bit like having the entire app store already on your phone. The idea is that you can pretty much do everything you could ever want on your phone without ever closing wechat. So this Convenient Store is set up on the campus of wechats head office. And the idea is you canjust walk around, pick up whatever you like and then walk out the door, it will get automatically charged to your wechat account. Wechat relies on users handing over big chunks of their personal data and now that now even includes yourface. These vending machines are set up to use wechats new facial pay feature. The idea is you opt into it in the app and once youve done that, you can use your face to buy anything from these machines. It basically links your face to your face to your wechat account and your government id. But, is the convenience with the possible cost to privacy . In 2016, Amnesty International awarded the Parent Company of wechat, tencent, zero out of 100 for their privacy practices. I think theres a common perception that people in china dont care about their privacy, and that perception is completely false. The government over the last few years has been trying to roll out its own cybersecurity regulations and trying to educate consumers about the dangers of data being lost or leaked. Wechats Privacy Policy says it will provide the Chinese Government access to much of what you do in the app when legally required, including the things you type and data like your location. Its hard to deny that social apps in china have taken on a life of their own, if not outpacing, then going in new directions to competitors in the west. The big question is whether more chinese apps can follow tiktok in going global, despite the concerns around privacy and censorship. Or, if not, it could it be the turn of Tech Companies in the west to play copycat themselves . That was Stephen Becketts view of china. And since the explosion of tiktok in the west, other apps have been springing up to try and compete. And chris fox has been looking at some of the alternatives that are available. If you cant get enough of short, hyper edited videos, luckily there are plenty of apps that have cottoned on to the format. This is triller, which i think is fair to say, has taken a bit of inspiration from tiktok. You can record clips with special effects and share them onto an endless scrolling feed of content. Triller seems to have done quite well out of all this uncertainty, at the start of august, it topped the app store charts on both ios and android and has managed to attract some big name tiktok stars and celebrities over to on its platform, including mike tyson and magician dynamo. Another app offering a similar experience is byte, which has also been popping in and out of the App Store Top download charts. Like tiktok, it offers you creative effects for your videos, although it is trailing behind triller, its been downloaded over 1 million times on google play, whereas triller has had more than ten million. Tiktoks biggest competition may come from instagram reels, instagrams newly launched rival. It has Incorporated Many of tiktoks core features, including that endlessly scrolling feed of short videos. Just in the past few weeks, Mark Zuckerberg has appeared at a congressional hearing about big Tech Companies using their power to neutralise the competition. Isnt ripping off tiktok essentially doing that . There is innovation everywhere and people are constantly inspired by what they see. Its no longer a surprise to see a feed in a mobile social product, that wasnt the case until facebook brought that to scale. We brought stories to instagram in 2016. And gave full credit to snap for inventing that format, but evolved it from there. So what is instagram bringing to the table with this format, that makes it different to tiktok . I think the ability to be discovered is unique to reels. I think in instagram, historically, if you had a Large Follower base it was easier to kind of get bigger. This is now a product specifically designed to help creators find an audience. Now, to be fair to tiktok, i think the idea that you never know what video is going to go viral or who get discovered is what draws people to tiktok. Its certainly not unique to instagram reels, but i think companies are seeing tiktok has refined a winning formula and they want a piece of the action. And thats it for this week. Next week, were going to be looking at another hugely important topic the technology being used to fight climate change. Until then, you can keep with us on social media, on youtube, facebook, instagram and twitter bbcclick. Thanks for watching, and well see you soon. Hello. Well, its very cloudy across the uk right now, there are a few scattered downpours as well, we will continue to see these storms over the next couple of days. Really very little change on the weather front. The air has become very stagnant across the uk and quite humid ever since the heatwave ended a few days ago in the south and central areas, and we are seeing the same pattern day on the day. Clouds reform in the south, they come in from the south, moving northwards, and bringing the threat of showers, downpours and thunderstorms. So this is what the picture looks like this evening. You can see whether showers are, some of them are quite small, only a few minutes across, so one minute dry, the next minute, the heavens open, thunder and lightning as well. There will be a tendency for these downpours to drift northwards as we go through the evening and the overnight period. Temperatures overnight period. Temperatures overnight once again will be pretty high, 16 degrees in norwich and london, 1a in belfast, thatsjust an indication how much moisture there is in the atmosphere. We have a lot of moisture in the atmosphere and the temperatures dont fall away much during the night. The weak low pressure still with us on monday, with the threat of showers or showers. They circle around very gently, around this area of low pressure. The rains are so light, not an awful lot to push things out of the way. The winds are so light. We have to wait until the wind ramped up in the atlantic to waft away all the stick clouds and storms. The weather will change in the coming days but not yet. The same weather pattern continues into tuesday, so again, the threat of downpours with some sunshine in between. You will notice that the storms become a little bit more widespread across the north, and when i say storms, i mean downpours, rainstorms and thunderstorms now and then as well. Now, wednesday, we see a change. This area of low pressure, a change. This area of low pressure, a chilly within it, rick stein, has the remnants of Tropical Storm within it, mixed in, has the re m na nts of within it, mixed in, has the remnants of a Tropical Storm. So the weather will be unpredictable in the end of the week, there is the chance that it could formatting the south but overall unpredictable weather and unsettled. It could warm up in the south. Good afternoon. Theres more uncertainty and confusion this lunchtime for hundreds of thousands of a level and gcse students. The exams regulator quual withdrew its advice for those wanting to appeal within hours of making it public. The government has been under fire since thursdays a level grades were awarded with nearly 40 downgraded by quual. Gcse results are due this week having been assessed using the same algorithm as a lkebvels, level grades. Heres our Political Correspondent peter saull
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