"I saw many rooms chatting cross-Straits issues and sensitive issues... and thought this app wouldn't last too long," one Chinese-language user lamented after the app was blocked, referring to the thorny issue of Taiwan. "I'm in a Taiwanese-run room in Clubhouse where 4,000 Mandarin speakers - including Uyghurs and Han Chinese IN CHINA, and outside are talking about... everything," Berlin-based journalist Melissa Chan tweeted. "From surveillance, to friends who've left re-educations camps, to normal stuff. "But analysts had warned that it was likely Beijing would prevent access to the app before long. "The window for listening in on frank Clubhouse conversations about politics in Chinese is already closing," said Fergus Ryan, at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's International Cyber Policy Centre, ahead of the ban.

Source: Economic Times February 09, 2021 03:16 UTC