Apple globally censoring this iPhone communication feature deserves renewed scrutiny

Two years ago, Apple effectively censored a core iPhone communication feature. The change was reportedly initially made at the request of the Chinese government. However, Apple quickly implemented the change to all iPhones globally a few months later.

Apple essentially endorsed China’s censorship demands by voluntarily enforcing the limit on all iPhone users, including the United States and every other democratic nation. Despite being controversial at the time, Apple’s decision has not faceted sustained public scrutiny. Instead, user control and a decentralized communication method were lost under the guise of safety.

The feature is called AirDrop. It allows iPhones to wirelessly send files, photos, links, and more to other nearby iPhones. AirDrop arrived on the iPhone in September 2013 as part of iOS 7. Nearly a decade later, Apple made a small change that had a huge impact on how AirDrop could be used.

In November 2022, Apple tweaked how AirDrop worked in China through iOS 16.1.1, a seemingly minor iPhone software update.

Prior to the update, AirDrop had three receiving modes: Everyone, Contacts Only, and Receiving Off. iOS 16.1.1 replaced the Everyone option with Everyone for 10 Minutes for iPhone users in China. This change removed the option to keep AirDrop in receiving mode. Instead, the Contacts Only option was enforced on iPhones after 10 minutes.

Apple never acknowledged that it made the change to AirDrop at the request of the Chinese Communist Party.

However, AirDrop was widely reported to be a useful tool for distributing information among protesters who pushed back against the authoritarian regime. A single iPhone could prompt a file share to dozens of nearby iPhones with AirDrop receiving from anyone enabled — something internet censorship couldn’t stop.

Quartz reported on the off-the-shelf use of AirDrop in 2019:

A protest held yesterday (July 7) in Tsim Sha Tsui, one of Hong Kong’s most popular tourist districts, had a clear aim: to tell people from mainland China about the city’s opposition to a hated extradition bill, which has mobilized millions of people over the past several weeks to multiple protests and presented the most critical challenge to the local government in decades.

But news of the protest has been heavily censored in mainland China, with any mention of the mass movement wiped off the Chinese internet. […]

Hong Kong’s protesters have therefore turned to Apple’s AirDrop feature to get their message across to their mainland Chinese compatriots. […]

“Did you know? Over the past month, Hong Kong has seen three massive rallies, with as many as 2 million people taking to the streets,” read one such AirDropped poster. “Don’t wait until [freedom] is gone to regret its loss. Freedom isn’t god-given; it is fought for by the people.”

“Maybe you’ve heard that Hong Kongers are constantly marching, 1 to 2 million people at a time, to oppose the extradition bill,” read another poster. “We wish you a pleasant journey. Feel the freedom of assembly along the way. This space for freedom is the reason why we fight.” Other AirDropped files explained why there were no “foreign forces” behind Hong Kong’s protests, and how China’s authoritarian system had led to the Tiananmen massacre of 1989.

Apple would argue that it must comply with government requirements in regions where it operates or forfeit the ability to serve customers in those regions. In other words, a partially censored iPhone is better than no iPhone at all.

Perhaps that is what happened to AirDrop in China in 2022. Apple regularly chooses to fight government regulatory battles that it believes it can win. China is no democracy, though, so it’s no surprise that Apple changed AirDrop in the region.

What is surprising is how Apple handled the change to AirDrop. After removing the option to leave AirDrop receiving on in China, Mark Gurman at Bloomberg reported that Apple planned to make the change globally to basically prevent spam.

Apple didn’t comment on why the change was introduced in China, but said that it plans to roll out the new AirDrop setting globally in the coming year. The idea is to mitigate unwanted file sharing, the company said.

A few weeks later, the censored version of AirDrop in China became the shipping version of AirDrop everywhere. Two years on, AirDrop in its altered form has become the norm.

Although the change likely originated as an appeasement to the CCP, Apple’s explanation that it was made to mitigate unwanted file sharing has generally been accepted. It doesn’t help that AirDrop has at times been used as a tool for pranking — especially when prompts included image previews that could be inappropriate or misleading.

Lacking context on how the AirDrop change originated, adding the Everyone for 10 Minutes option is understandably viewed as more user control. Yet censorship is still the right way to frame what happened to AirDrop. Apple didn’t just add the Everyone for 10 Minutes option; it completely removed the ability to leave AirDrop receiving on. That’s fewer choices, not more user control.

Apple is under no obligation to make AirDrop work the way it did for years. Nevertheless, Apple should be scrutinized for breaking a tool used for anonymous, decentralized communication that bothered an authoritarian government, then preemptively damaging the tool for everyone without pressure to do so.

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