I picked up this story a little late: a company called the Global Internet Freedom Consortium offers VPN’s and kindred software to get around China’s net nanny. Then they collect data on their users and sell it for personalized advertising.
Now the obvious risk of this is that the data will find its way to the Chinese government, through a front agency for them or simply by being sold on. In this case, that’s unlikely, since the GIFC is actually a front organization for the Fal*n G*ng cult (see here), who are obviously no friends of Beijing. The wheelies are not exactly all that popular in China or with Chinese people across the diaspora either, including with a lot of the people who might like to use these services, so a nice, friendly, secular sounding front would seem to make sense.
In addition to selling data on users, they’re also apparently after US government democracy promotion funding. Gongers believe that their well being is promoted by an invisible swastika revolving in their stomach (hence wheelies). Apparently the invisible revolving swastika also helps those who help themselves, in this case by gathering together a large centralised store of information on people in whom Beijing’s security organs would be interested in knowing more about.
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