On May 11, a high school in Liuzhou City in China’s southwest Guangxi Province recommended that students purchase Huawei’s customized mobile phone, claiming that it can manage students’ mobile phone usage, automatically filter bad messages, and record student violations. According to photos that netizens provided, this customized version of the Huawei Nova4 mobile phone has a management platform that Huawei’s Wuhan Research Institute developed.
The phone has several major functions. It can manage students’ time by locking and unlocking the phone at different times, such as class time, lunch break, nightly bedtime, or holidays, so as to avoid students’ excessive usage. The system will also automatically filter 500 million pieces of “bad” website information related to pornography and violence. The school can distribute notices to students via its back-end, and if a student is given a “misconduct” in phone usage, the system will keep a record.
Although the high school’s deputy principal said that this was a recommendation at the request of parents and not a mandatory purchase, the news triggered heated discussion among Mainland netizens. Some people criticized Huawei for launching such a mobile phone at such a sensitive time. Some questioned, “Who gives Huawei the power to monitor the lives of others under the banner of serving the good of students?” Others joked that this is “buying and bringing ‘big brother’ home.”
Source: Central News Agency, May 13, 2019
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201905130106.aspx