New Delhi: Apple became the latest victim of China’s strict internet censorship laws when it had to remove some features from its News app even before the news service was officially rolled out in the country.
Although the service is currently available only in the US, but phones registered in the US could still utilise Apple News when travelling.
However, users in China are now witnessing a blank Apple News feed and an error message that reads : Can’t refresh right now. News isn’t supported in your current region.
Affected users took to Reddit to highlight the error that shows up even when pre-downloading Apple News content on a device. One user notes “on device censorship is different than having the server block by the Great Firewall or not enabling a feature for customers with certain country iTunes account,” Ars Technica reports.
Apple isn’t the only tech company based in the US which had to withdraw certain service from the strictly guarded Chinese market. Back in 2010, Google left China when it disagreed to censor search results and started redirecting Chinese IP addresses to the Hong Kong Google site. As a result, the Chinese government blocks most Google service in the country.
China has long been criticised for its use of strict online censorship systems which see authorities even using routine web blocks and local shutdowns to impose the laws.
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