{"id":398441,"date":"2022-01-24T12:28:03","date_gmt":"2022-01-24T09:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/wechat-denies-australia-pms-account-was-hacked\/"},"modified":"2022-01-24T12:28:03","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T09:28:03","slug":"wechat-denies-australia-pms-account-was-hacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wechat-denies-australia-pms-account-was-hacked\/","title":{"rendered":"#WeChat denies Australia PM’s account was hacked"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#WeChat denies Australia PM’s account was hacked<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\n \"Australian
\n Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison opened his WeChat account in 2019 ahead of Australian elections that year.
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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s WeChat account has disapp<\/a>eared, prompting accusations of Chinese “interference” from senior members of his government Monday.<\/p>\n

But Tencent, the Chinese tech giant that owns WeChat, has denied that the prime minister’s account was hacked or removed from its platform.<\/p>\n

“Based on our information, this appears to be a dispute over account ownership\u2014the account in question was originally registered by a PRC individual and was subsequently transferred to its current operator, a technology<\/a> services company,” a Tencent spokesman said.<\/p>\n

Morrison’s account on the Chinese social media<\/a> app, which was launched in February 2019, appears to have been replaced with one titled “Australian Chinese new life.”<\/p>\n

The name was registered by Fuzhou 985 Technology Co., Ltd. on October 28, 2021.<\/p>\n

However the account has posts dating back to February 1, 2019, including Morrison’s first, which reads: “I’m very happy to open my official WeChat account”.<\/p>\n

It’s understood the Australian prime minister had a Weixin account, which needs to be registered by someone in mainland China, rather than a WeChat account, which can be accessed by overseas users.<\/p>\n

Fuzhuo 985’s legal representative Huang Aipeng told SBS on Monday that the purchase of the account was legal.<\/p>\n

There was no immediate comment from Morrison but a senator from his ruling centre-right Liberal Party accused Beijing of being behind the change.<\/p>\n

“What the Chinese government has done by shutting down the prime minister’s account is effectively foreign interference in our democracy,” James Paterson told 2GB radio on Monday.<\/p>\n

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\n \"WeChat
\n WeChat is China’s most-used messaging app and social media platform.
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Paterson called on Australian politicians to boycott WeChat in response.<\/p>\n

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke and Coalition MP Gladys Liu have joined the boycott.<\/p>\n

Morrison first launched his WeChat account to communicate with Australia’s sizable Chinese-Australian community ahead of the country’s last federal election in 2019.<\/p>\n

That year, Morrison was asked by reporters whether there was a risk his account could be censored by the Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n

“We haven’t experienced any such censorship,” he said.<\/p>\n

In December 2020, WeChat removed a post from Morrison that defended Australia’s investigation into allegations of war crimes perpetrated by Australian soldiers.<\/p>\n

The post also criticised Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, who had tweeted a fake image of an Australian soldier holding a knife.<\/p>\n

The last post on the “Australian Chinese new life” account is from July 9, 2021.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph reported Morrison has been locked out of his account since then.<\/p>\n

All of the posts on the “Australian Chinese new life” account relate to Australian government announcements or messages from Morrison.<\/p>\n

Tencent said the company “will continue to look into this matter.”\n <\/p>\n\n

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California WeChat users claim China surveillance in lawsuit\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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\n \u00a9 2022 AFP<\/p>\n

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Citation<\/strong>:
\n WeChat denies Australia PM’s account was hacked (2022, January 24)
\n retrieved 24 January 2022
\n from https:\/\/techxplore.com\/news<\/a>\/2022-01-wechat-denies-australia-pm-account.html<\/p>\n

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\n part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n