After placing a ban on the use of VPN early this year in a bid to tighten her "Great Firewall," the Chinese authorities in another move have blocked the use of WhatsApp messaging app.
According to researcher Nadim Kobeissi of Symbolic Software, China began to block the service on Wednesday but fully blocked it on Monday. He told New York Times that China was specifically blocking the encrypted communications only.
The popular messaging app which has over a billion users encrypts messages sent between users in such a way that spies, ISP, hackers, and government agents won't be able to see the conversation since it's encrypted. Now, users privacy is the major problem with China. The Chinese authorities wants to monitor every activities of it's citizens and thus won't tolerate encrypted messengers like WhatsApp.
However, WeChat which is a similar messenger like WhatsApp is left to operate in China freely because they co-operate with the government policy regarding privacy. Messages sent on WeChat are not encrypted and so allows the government pry on whoever that they want to.
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WeChat which has over 969 million active users, at any time answers to the Chinese government when they make demands. This month, WeChat notified it's users that they complied with the government, providing information that was requested.
Other services such as Facebook which is the parent of WhatsApp, Google search, Youtube, Twitter, and other social media services have been blocked in China.