<ul class="summary-list"><li>Frozan Safi, a well-known <keyword id="11909189" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="womens-rights" source="Orion">women's rights</keyword> defender, was found dead this month in Mazar-e Sharif, a city in northern <keyword id="11892774" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="afghanistan" source="Orion">Afghanistan</keyword>.</li><li>A widely-seen security warning that spread over messaging apps was probably a hoax but contributed to the unease. </li></ul><p>In early November, Frozan Safi, a well-known activist and economics lecturer, and three other people were found dead in Mazar-e-Sharif, one of Afghanistan's biggest cities. According to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/05/womens-rights-activist-shot-dead-in-northern-afghanistan">one report</a>, Safi, who was 29, might have been tricked into thinking she was going to a safe house as she waited for her asylum application to be approved.  </p><p>At around the same time, a message labeled "Important security alert" was spreading on WhatsApp among the city's English speakers. It claimed that a "death squad is posing as a Western <keyword id="11941416" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="human-rights" source="Orion">human rights</keyword> and rescue organization" and, using English, "summoning people in hiding to meet then executing them." The message linked this supposed squad to the killings in Mazar.</p><p>The message was very likely a hoax, but it seemed to confirm people's worst fears. </p><p>Whatever the source, the warning text fed into a sense of acute unease in Mazar, which has served as one of the hubs for people looking to leave the country since the <keyword id="11892778" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="taliban" source="Orion">Taliban</keyword> took control of Afghanistan on Aug. 15. Multiple evacuation flights have left from the city's airport, bringing Afghan journalists, military interpreters, and others here from the capital, Kabul, and other provinces.</p><p>Journalists, lawyers, NGO and security workers, and English speakers say there's a sense that danger could come from anywhere – mafia groups, a rogue Taliban fighter, or a common criminal who feels emboldened to act out on personal grudge – and it's not clear where to turn for help. </p><p>"Mazar is a small place. It doesn't take a lot of time for people to figure out who you are, what you do," said Qudsia Shojazada, a local activist and journalist who helped organize women's protests during the first weeks of Taliban rule. </p><h2><strong>'You worked with the foreigners to split up families'</strong></h2><p>The Taliban reached Mazar, one of Afghanistan's economic and cultural hubs, on Aug. 13. Two days later, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, and, two weeks after that, the US military completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan and ended its 20-year war. </p><p>Since then, Zainab, a Mazar resident in her 20s, has been extra cautious when she goes out in the city. Before leaving the house, she makes sure to put on her sunglasses, cover as much of her body as she can, and wear minimal makeup – all to avoid being recognized.</p><p>Though many of the other women and girls who venture out into the city dress largely as they used to before the <keyword id="11657939" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="taliban-takeover" source="Orion">Taliban takeover</keyword>, Zainab says the years she spent working with lawyers on family law cases make her a target. (Insider is using a pseudonym.) </p><div type="image" title="Taliban are seen entering a building with a facade of blue tiles." height="3280" width="4920" msid="87786686" hostid="261"></div><p>Zainab was among those who saw the frightening message. Regardless of its source, things like that have increased her sense of unease. </p><p>"There are a lot of people with resentment and grudges against us," she said. "Eventually they will find out that I worked on cases involving domestic abuse and divorce. What if they say to me, 'You were part of the problem, you worked with the foreigners to split up families.'"</p><p>Zainab says both men and women who had worked with legal, human rights and Western-funded agencies are going to great lengths to remain "as anonymous as possible" in the city. </p><p>"I saw one female lawyer who had worked on divorce cases, you could tell she was trying so hard to change her appearance," Zainab said. </p><p>"People who were active in society don't feel safe and comfortable anymore."</p><h2><strong>A rare, confirmed killing</strong></h2><p>In Mazar, as in other Afghan cities, there have been multiple reports of abuse and intimidation of journalists, protesters, and professionals linked to US forces by the Taliban's foot soldiers. </p><p>A former resident of Mazar, who has since relocated to Canada and spoke to Insider on condition of anonymity, has heard from relatives and friends that targeted killings in Mazar have increased over the last three weeks.</p><p>But with the country's once-vibrant media largely extinguished, it's difficult to know what's really happening in the country, and such rumors are difficult to confirm. </p><p>Local media has struggled under the Taliban's intimidation and a lack of funding since, like many Afghan institutions, it was heavily reliant on financial support from the West. The country is also facing a cash crunch since the US and international bodies like the World Bank and the IMF cut off access to $9.5 billion in assets and loans. </p><p>In a statement issued last month, the Afghan Journalists Safety Committee (AJSC) said that 70 percent of media outlets across the country have closed. "Media reporting quality has reached to its lowest level in the last 20 years," it said. </p><p>The murder of Safi and the three others – they have still not been publicly identified – was the rare case that the Taliban confirmed, and with that came a wave of press attention. </p><p>In a video statement posted online, a spokesman for the Taliban's Ministry of Interior, Qari Saeed Khosti, said the victims had been "invited to the house" by the alleged killers. He didn't name the assailants, but said they had been detained. </p><p>Zabihullah Noorani, the Head of the Taliban's Cultural Commission in Balkh province, said in an interview that the killings were the result of a "personal issue" and had nothing to do with politics.</p><p>Addressing more general security fears, the Taliban's Supreme Leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, said in a statement issued last week that there may be "unknown" entities among their ranks who are "working against the will of the government," and that these individuals will be punished.</p><h2><strong>'Farming onions in hiding'</strong></h2><p>On the streets of Mazar, the Taliban are much less visible compared to Kabul and Jalalabad, another major city. But their presence is felt. </p><p>Male shopkeepers, students, and taxi drivers in the city told Insider they feel comfortable in the city and that petty <keyword id="11893298" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="crime" source="Orion">crime</keyword> has come to a near halt in Mazar. But those who were involved in social and political matters do not share that same sense of ease.</p><div type="image" title="A cluster of girls, their bodies mostly covered, walk along a dirt pathway." height="2777" width="4166" msid="87786689" hostid="261"></div><p>"The day after the Taliban took Mazar, we went to the office and turned in whatever was still in our possession," said a former security worker in Mazar, who described himself as a desk worker who was mostly "behind a computer" and had little direct involvement in operations.  </p><p>His attempt to appease the group was of little use, even though Taliban officials declared a general amnesty when they took over the country, He said he still receives calls from the Taliban saying he has yet to turn over weapons and vehicles belonging to the government, a claim he denies. </p><p>Patricia Gossman, Associate Asia Director for Human Rights Watch, said the security worker's case is in line with other accounts she's heard from the provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Kunduz, Paktia, Nangarhar, and Ghazni. Gossman said HRW is still awaiting the Taliban's response to the cases the rights group has documented.</p><p>Fearing abuse and retaliation, the 36-year-old has since left the city and moved to his family's home in a district more than 40 kilometers away. He says he feels robbed of everything he worked for. </p><p>"I went to college and earned a degree and now I'm just farming potatoes and onions in hiding," he said.  </p><h2><strong>Too scared to speak up</strong></h2><p>In the immediate aftermath of the Taliban taking power, women-led protests were held in Mazar and other major cities. But by September, they had largely stopped. </p><p>Shojazada, the local activist who helped organize the demonstrations in Mazar, said she has been in hiding ever since and has changed where she lives several times. </p><div type="image" title="A sweeper is seen on the decl surrounding the tiled facade of the Blue Mosque." height="1500" width="2248" msid="87786690" hostid="261"></div><p>She said that several fellow activists have been detained simply for their previous work, and she has received reports of targeted killings and disappearances in the city. The Taliban's intelligence in Mazar is "very powerful," she said.  </p><p>Shojazada knows this even from the experience of her own family. </p><p>Over the summer, one of Shojazada's brothers joined the government-sponsored People's Uprising movement to fight off the Taliban's fast-moving advances. He was detained shortly after the Taliban took power despite the promised amnesty. As she relays the story, Shojazada is cautious not to reveal too much for fear of inspiring further retaliation against their family. </p><p>A short while later, when a friend of hers was arrested and held for 20 days after taking part in a protest in September, Shojazada said the family resisted help to avoid angering the Taliban. </p><p>"They didn't want anyone to know that their son had been arrested," Shojazada told Insider. "We had to work so hard to gain their trust just so we could try and help them however we could."  </p><p>"People in Mazar are terrified to speak up," she said.</p>

An Afghan women's rights activist might have been tricked into going to a safe house and then found dead. Others hoping to escape or live freely in the country worry they could be next

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Some airlines are being less than forthcoming with refunds despite a record number of cancellations during the <keyword id="8763838" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="covid-19">COVID-19</keyword> pandemic. </li><li>Dwindling cash reserves and decreased revenues have made airlines more conservative in how they handle money, putting the burden on the consumer to fight for their money back, in some cases. </li><li>The US Department of <keyword id="34991" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="transportation">Transportation</keyword> ruled that if a flight that touches the US is canceled, customers are entitled to refunds. </li><li>Customers can request refunds via phone or, in some cases, social media or text. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>Airlines have lost billions since the beginning of March as they've been forced to cancel flights and largely suspend operations while still incurring the astronomic expenses associated with the operation. </p><p>Lufthansa, one of the world's largest airlines, is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/german-state-bailing-lufthansa-out-of-bankruptcy-with-10-billion-2020-4">reporting losses of around $1 million per hour as it prepares to accept a government bailout</a> and US airlines are no different. United Airlines reported losses of around $100 million per day in March, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2020/04/20/united-airlines-first-quarter-loss/">Forbes</a> reported.</p><p>Rapidly declining incoming cash flow combined with dwindling coffers have made airliners more conservative with how they distribute funds, even when consumers are entitled to their money back. Just because a flight is canceled, airlines aren't jumping to hit the refund button and it will often take a phone call or other customer-initiated procedure to secure the funds. </p><p>Here's why airlines aren't automatically refunding passengers and what you can do to resolve potential issues. </p><h2>Airlines in the US are required to issue refunds when a flight a canceled.</h2><p><div type="image" title="Flight canceled" height="2500" width="3333" msid="75661655" hostid="261"></div></p><p>The US Department of Transportation has said that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dot-airlines-refunds-cancel-flights-coronavirus-2020-4">customers with a canceled flight are entitled to refunds</a>, even with the current situation surrounding the airline industry. The government felt the need to remind airlines of the policy after it received complaints from passengers not getting their money back after a flight cancellation. </p><p>Every country is different but if the flight touched a US point, it's subject to Department of Transportation rules. Foreign airlines with canceled flights to the US may try to claim otherwise but they can be held to account by filing a claim with the federal department.</p><h2>A flight also doesn't have to be canceled in order to get a refund.</h2><p><div type="image" title="Delta Elite Status Day Trip" height="1334" width="1778" msid="75661656" hostid="261"></div></p><p>If the airline makes a change to a booking before the flight departs, not including day of departure delays, a passenger can request a refund for what's known as a schedule change. Every airline is different but if the delay is severe enough, they can make the case for a refund.</p><p>Here's a list of requirements for a schedule change refund at some airlines: </p><ul><li><a href="https://saleslink.aa.com/en-US/documents/Archives/AgencyRef/Schedule_Change_plus_240_Refunds.pdf">American Airlines</a> (for tickets issued after April 8, 2020): More than four hours.</li><li><a href="https://pro.delta.com/content/agency/us/en/policy-library/schedule-change-and-irregular-operations/schedule-change-and-ticket-revalidation-policy.html">Delta Air Lines</a>: "An arrival delay of 90 minutes or more."</li><li><a href="https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/help/faq/schedule-changes.html">United Airlines</a>: "The scheduled departure or arrival time changes significantly."</li><li><a href="https://www.jetblue.com/travel-agents/schedule-change">JetBlue Airways</a>: 120 minutes or more.</li></ul><p>Airlines are continually changing their schedule change policies as the <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword> pandemic has caused many to rethink their flying plans as demand hasn't justified their typical number of routes and frequencies. United Airlines has made multiple changes to its policy since the start of the pandemic, generating a backlash among customers with flights delayed by hours. </p><h2>Even if a flight is canceled, the burden is on the customer to retrieve the refund from an airline.</h2><p><div type="image" title="delta ticket counter airport" height="1998" width="2664" msid="75661659" hostid="261"></div></p><p>While it may seem obvious in the current pandemic that customers with canceled flights would want a refund, the customer is still required to actually request the funds be returned. </p><p>f an airline was to automatically issue a refund for every canceled flight without passenger input, they'd be doing a disservice to those who would prefer to rebook instead of receiving a refund. </p><p>Whether it be essential workers or stranded <keyword id="6354692" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Travel">travel</keyword>ers, there still is some demand for travel and not everybody with a canceled flight wants a refund. Immediately issuing a refund would deplete the booking of any value that could be transferred to a new flight and trap funds in a refund process that typically takes a few business days. </p><h2>This process can be done over the phone for most airlines, with some of the more technologically advanced allowing the process to be done on a website or on social media.</h2><p><div type="image" title="FILE PHOTO: A Delta Airlines ticketing agent assists a passenger after the airlines computer systems crashed leaving passengers stranded as flights were grounded globally at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, U.S., August 8, 2016.      REUTERS/Joshua Roberts    " height="3361" width="4481" msid="75661662" hostid="261"></div></p><p>The era of multi-hour hold times for airlines is no more as the influx of cancellation requests has subsided. Once a customer manages to get through to an agent, the process only lasts a few minutes for most. </p><p>Some airlines will also allow passengers to make the request over social media channels including Twitter and others, including Spirit Airlines, which will let you do it over text with WhatsApp. Airlines have had to process so many refunds in recent months that it's become mundane. </p><h2>So, why the headache just to get a refund when most planes are grounded?</h2><p><div type="image" title="Grounded planes Lufthansa" height="2666" width="3555" msid="75661665" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Airline tickets are basically interest-free loans passengers give to airlines that are only repaid at the time of the actual flight.</p><p>The money brought in by the pre-purchase of tickets helps keep an airline's business going by funding payroll, aircraft purchases, day-to-day operations, and expansion. March 2020 not only saw the tap turn off with no new bookings but customers wanting all their money back at once. </p><p>"The airlines are trying to preserve their cash flow," Henry Harteveldt, airline industry analyst and co-founder of Atmosphere Research Group, said in a March interview with Business Insider when asked <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-airlines-not-offering-refunds-on-banned-travel-to-europe-2020-3">why airlines might not be quick to offer refunds</a>.</p><p>Instead of being generous with refunds, airlines are hoping that customers will take a voucher, the equivalent of store credit, instead. Offering a voucher allows airlines to keep the money that's been paid while extending the repayment date on their end. </p><p>"[The airlines are] hoping that once conditions normalize or return closer to normal, people will take the trip that they are planning," Harteveldt explained. </p><h2>For those airlines still refusing refunds for canceled flights, there are two avenues for resolution.</h2><p><div type="image" title="Elaine Chao" height="1667" width="2223" msid="75661667" hostid="261"></div></p><p>The Department of Transportation allows for consumers to file a complaint if they feel the airline is violating federal rules. The process is lengthy and requires a manual review process in which the airline can present evidence in its defense but can help customers get the desired outcome and may result in the airline being issued a violation.</p><h2>Another option is for the customer to dispute the charge with their credit card company.</h2><p><div type="image" title="Credit Card" height="728" width="971" msid="75661670" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Another option is for the customer to dispute the charge with their credit card company. In that case, both parties submit evidence to support a claim and if the airline doesn't respond within the allotted time period, usually 60 days, the cardholder wins by default, and the credit is made permanent. </p><p>While the claim is being investigated, most credit card companies will also issue a credit that can be used in the interim. If the case is lost by the cardholder, the credit is reversed. </p>Read the original article on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-airlines-dont-refund-customers-after-canceled-flights-2020-5">Business Insider</a>

Don't expect an automatic refund from airlines: Here's why they don't refund customers even after a flight is canceled.

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">An illustration showing the logos of internet companies in front of an ISIS flag.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>The UKs security minister said tech firms must do more against extremism.</strong></li><li><strong>Ben Wallace criticised companies who provide encrypted messaging.</strong></li><li><strong>He also attacked "inaction" on removing terrorist content.</strong></li><li><strong>Wallace suggested increased taxes to fund expensive counter-terror agencies.</strong></li><li><strong>This could reportedly take the form of a one-off "windfall tax."</strong></li></ul><p><br />The UK government is considering new taxes on large tech firms like Facebook and Google because of their alleged inaction against extremist groups.</p><p>Ben Wallace, the UK's security minister, described tech companies as "ruthless profiteers" who were doing too little to help the government combat terrorists who often take advantage of their platforms.</p><p>In <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/facebook-google-and-whatsapp-among-tech-titans-told-to-join-fight-against-terror-or-face-tax-blitz-plv9778nv">an interview with The Sunday Times newspaper</a>, Wallace said that law enforcement and security services were being forced to spend hundreds of millions of pounds extra to keep Britain safe because of what he characterised as an insufficient response from the tech sector.</p><p>He said:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Because of encryption and because of radicalisation, the cost... is heaped on law enforcement agencies.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"I have to have more human surveil­lance. It's costing hundreds of millions of pounds. If they continue to be less than co-operative, we should look at things like tax as a way of incentivis­ing them or compen­sating for their inaction.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Because content is not taken down as quickly as they could do, we're having to de-radicalise people who have been radicalised. That's costing millions. They can't get away with that and we should look at all options, including tax."</p><p>The Sunday Times suggested that the most likely way for the government to get any extra money from the tech industry would be via a one-off "windfall tax," a method used by Tony Blair's government in the 1990s to extract cash from the gas, electricity, telecoms and rail industries.</p><p>Wallace criticised the companies for their lack of co-operation with government authorities, and described their business model as "ruthless".</p><p>He said: "We should stop pretending that because they sit on beanbags in T-shirts they are not ruthless profiteers. They will ruthlessly sell our details to loans and soft-porn companies but not give it to our democratically elected government."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>UK Parliament</span></p><p class="caption">UK security minister Ben Wallace</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Wallace did not name any companies directly, but his criticism of poorly policed radical content is a clear reference to Google (which owns YouTube) and Facebook.</p><p>The criticism of encrypted messaging is also hard to interpret as anything except a reference to WhatsApp.</p><p>Wallace's boss, Home Secretary Amber Rudd, is already in <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/home-secretary-amber-rudd-real-people-dont-need-end-to-end-encryption-terrorists-2017-8">a longstanding feud</a> with Facebook over WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption, which has reportedly seen <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/whatsapp-refused-encryption-backdoor-uk-government-report-2017-9">Facebook refuse point-blank to give the government backdoor access to the service</a>.</p><p>Elsewhere in the interview, Wallace said the threat from extremism is especially pressing now because ISIS's defeat in the Middle East means it will now shift its focus to terror attacks on Western countries.</p><p class="tagline">Get the latest Google stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/GOOG-Quote"> here.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/area-51-american-conspiracy-theories-aliens-history-animation-video-2017-7">How Area 51 became the center of alien conspiracy theories</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

UK threatens to tax 'ruthless profiteers' Facebook and Google if they don't do more to combat extremism

Check out the more than 50 pitch decks fintechs used to raise millions in funding from top investors

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Chinese people give money to street musicians and panhandlers with their phones.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Mark Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-big-terrifying-dream-wechat-communication-backbone-western-world-2019-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has laid out a vision of how Facebook services</a> will become the backbone for the way people live online, Business Insider's Shona Ghosh writes.</li><li>Zuckerberg's vision for Facebook is uncannily similar to how the WeChat app dominates modern life in China, serving a variety of functions from messaging, social networking, and e-commerce to taxi-hailing, bike-sharing and <keyword id="6354692" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Travel">travel</keyword> booking.</li><li>Over six weeks in China, I saw WeChat's ubiquity firsthand, where to get anything done - from paying for a coffee to making plans with business acquaintances to buying a train ticket - life is infinitely easier with the app.</li><li>If Zuckerberg follows through with the WeChat model, it's about getting more user data, not less. Because of how many services Chinese tech companies offer to their customers, they have wildly detailed profiles of each user, which they monetize, often directly in the app.</li></ul><p>Imagine this: you are walking down Fifth Avenue in New York City and you spot a hip coffee shop. It's cold so you decide to pop in for a hot chocolate.</p><p>As you wait in line, you notice that no one is pulling out their wallet to pay. Instead they tap their phone and voila, there's their macchiato. You realize the app everyone is using to pay is Facebook.</p><p>But you deactivated your Facebook account months ago. They don't accept cash. No hot chocolate for you.</p><p>A week later, you're at lunch with a friend and she tells you all of your friends went to a club last weekend. You ask her why she didn't invite you. She says she forgot. You don't use WhatsApp, which Facebook owns, and that's where they made the plans.</p><p>The bill comes and you two decide to split it. She pays with Facebook on her phone. When it comes time to give her your share, you fumble. You don't use Facebook anymore and can't use its built-in "Bill Splitter." Now you have to go to the ATM to get cash.</p><p>You head to the train station to catch the commuter rail to your parents' house. Everyone is walking directly onto the train, swiping the ticket they bought on Facebook. You get into the long line to buy one from the only agent still working the station and nearly miss the train.</p><p>If it sounds far-fetched that an app could be this ubiquitous and essential to daily life, think again. It already exists in China.</p><p>WeChat, or Weixin as its known in Chinese, has been described by The New York Times, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/technology/100000004574648/china-internet-wechat.html">in a video about Western firms copying Chinese apps</a>, as a "Swiss Army knife."</p><p>Over the course of six weeks in China last spring, I saw firsthand how essential WeChat is to modern Chinese life.</p><p>Each of those scenarios I just described actually happened to me in China.</p><h2>China's 'Swiss Army Knife' app is everywhere</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs/">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p><p class="caption">A typical QR code to purchase fruit using WeChat.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>As one Chinese person described it to me, everyone uses WeChat. It's more than an app or service, it <em>is</em> modern life. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/wechat-has-hit-1-billion-monthly-active-users-2018-3">More than 1 billion people</a> use the app, and it has been <a href="https://technode.com/2018/01/17/china-top-1000-apps/">China's most popular</a> for some time.</p><p>While WeChat is first and foremost parent company Tencent's messaging service, the app serves a variety of functions from messaging, social networking, and e-commerce to taxi-hailing, bike-sharing and travel booking.</p><p>If you want to talk to someone in China - for work or personal - you don't use e-mail, you don't call their phone, you send them a message on WeChat.</p><p>When I first started reporting in China, I found it impossible to find e-mail addresses and, even when I did, I often didn't get responses. Then I downloaded WeChat and suddenly found myself in direct contact with every source I could want.</p><p>It was like being able to see after spending a week blind.</p><p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alipay-wechat-pay-china-mobile-payments-street-vendors-musicians-2018-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">One photo shows that China is already in a cashless future</a></em></p><p>What's amazing is how many people use WeChat's various services - not just young tech-savvy millennials.</p><p>My partner's grandmother, who is Chinese, doesn't know how to use the internet, but she has WeChat on her phone and she's an expert at it. When you meet someone at a business meeting in China, no one asks for your phone number or hands out a business card; you scan each other's QR codes so you can trade WeChat IDs.</p><p>When you wander through a city, busking musicians and panhandlers don't ask for coins or cash; they have signs with their <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alipay-wechat-pay-china-mobile-payments-street-vendors-musicians-2018-5">WeChat Pay QR code</a> on it.</p><p>I remember <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alipay-wechat-pay-china-mobile-payments-street-vendors-musicians-2018-5">the first time I saw this phenomenon</a> play out. I was standing in front of the ancient city walls of Xi'an, a city of 13 million in northwestern China, when I happened upon a group of Chinese students gathered to listen to a few musicians sing on a Saturday night.</p><p>The musicians had no open guitar case to take tips. But every couple of songs, one of their friends held up two cards printed with QR codes - one for Alipay, WeChat Pay's competitor, and the other for WeChat Pay. Dozens of the attendees lifted up their phones and, in seconds, had scanned the QR code and sent a few yuan to the performers.</p><h2>Mark Zuckerberg's dream also means getting more user data</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at Facebook Inc's annual F8 developers conference in San Jose</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>This is the kind of ubiquity Mark Zuckerberg seemed to be alluding to in his most recent blog post on Facebook's future. As BI's Shona Ghosh wrote, Zuckerberg "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-big-terrifying-dream-wechat-communication-backbone-western-world-2019-3">appears to be envisaging a future</a> where people touch a Facebook-owned service for every aspect of their daily lives, just like WeChat in China."</p><p>Make no mistake, despite Zuckerberg's recent overtures to protect user privacy, this kind of business plan is about getting more invasive user data, not less.</p><p>The Chinese tech industry's greatest innovation <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-things-silicon-valley-misunderstands-china-top-alibaba-exec-2018-5">is the mass adoption of ecosystem-based technology platforms</a>, including WeChat and Alibaba.</p><p>Most often likened to the Amazon of China, Alibaba began as an e-commerce platform but has expanded into travel booking, movie tickets, social networking, live-streaming, food delivery, and entertainment. Alipay's data and services deeply are integrated into its main app, linking accounts to a money market fund, loan products, and a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/16/china-social-credit-system-ant-financials-sesame-credit-and-others-give-scores-that-go-beyond-fico.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">credit-scoring business</a>.</p><p>The consumer data from these services is used to build detailed profiles of each user, which companies can then monetize for marketing purposes directly within their apps in ways that even Facebook and Google would salivate over.</p><p>One Chinese tech exec told me how consumer data they'd gathered was so targeted and specific that they were helping brands determine what products they should be building or selling in the future and what consumers to target, not just how to advertise right now.</p><p>That kind of data is the long play that it sounds like Facebook has in mind.</p><p>In China, many Chinese are okay with the ubiquity of apps like WeChat because it comes down to a trade-off between <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-china-chinese-people-dont-care-about-privacy-2018-6">convenience and privacy</a>. Chinese internet services have developed rapidly through widespread access to the user data generated by mobile payments, food deliveries, ride-hailing, messaging, and other services.</p><p>It's made people's lives easier. With <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-china-chinese-people-dont-care-about-privacy-2018-6">little history of privacy in Chinese culture</a>, many Chinese have shrugged at WeChat's ubiquity.</p><p>Whether America's tech industry follows the same path will likely come down to whether Americans make the same choice.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-hq2-canceled-plans-new-york-city-headquarters-2019-2">Why Amazon canceled HQ2 in New York City and what it means for everyone involved</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Mark Zuckerberg's vision for Facebook sounds a lot like China, where I couldn't buy a cup of coffee without the app that dominates people's lives there

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo</span></p><p class="caption">Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes a drink of water as he testifies before a House Energy and Commerce hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 11, 2018, about the use of Facebook data to target American voters in the 2016 election and data privacy.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>No, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/facebook">Facebook</a> should not be allowed to have its own currency.</li><li>The company can't be trusted with the power it has, no sane regulator should give it more.</li><li>As one Senator said, Facebook has allowed "flagrant displays of bull----' on its platform - how can we trust that it will not allow 'flagrant displays of bull----' in its financial transactions?</li><li><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.</a></strong></li></ul><p>The United States government shouldn't even be entertaining the idea that Facebook be allowed to create its own currency and financial services arm - Libra and Calibra. The company has done nothing but demonstrate that it cannot be trusted with global financial transactions.</p><p>In June Facebook announced that it - along with companies like Spotify and Visa - would create a convertible virtual currency (CVC) called Libra to be used on its platform. Facebook would also create a financial services arm called Calibra which would initially offer a digital wallet for Libra and then expand to other banking services like savings and loans. These entities are to be headquartered in Switzerland through a non-profit called the Libra Association.</p><p>This matter has been a subject in Congressional hearings for a couple of weeks now. But that should all just be a formality - an opportunity for Facebook to make its case to the public, after which a bipartisan group of legislators, the US Treasury Secretary, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and every other regulator who has examined this issue can come together and give Facebook the answer it deserves: No.</p><p>Because of Facebook's size and reach this currency would instantly become "systemic" as they say in the world of banking. That means the platform will immediately have to grapple with all the darkest corners of the financial system, like terrorist financing and money laundering. These are difficult for even developed, sovereign nations.</p><p>For smaller countries where the currency is weak and limited, there are even more obvious challenges because of Facebook's size. Citizens might turn so much of their currency into Libra that it forces their currency down, for example.</p><p>"Monetary policy might end up being set for areas all over the world by a board of largely Western companies located in California with a pot of hard currency-denominated assets in a potentially unregulated Swiss reserve, rather than by democratically accountable sovereign governments," wrote Matt Stoller, a researcher at anti-monopoly thinktank <a href="https://openmarketsinstitute.org/releases/open-markets-submits-brief-congress-facebook-libra-currency-risks-calls-congress-block-libra/">The Open Markets Institute.</a></p><p>On Tuesday Facebook's Head of Calibra, David Marcus, testified before the Senate Banking Committee to assuage Washington's fears about what Silicon Valley could do with all this power. He assured Senators that Libra would comply with anti-money laundering statutes, that it would be regulated by Swiss entities, and that the Calibra wallet would comply with the Bank Secrecy Act.</p><p>None of that matters - none of Marcus' promises or clarifications or assurances mean anything. Facebook's word is no good. Opposition to Libra has nothing to do with innovation, this is about working with people you can trust.</p><p>And we know we can't trust Facebook, a few examples:</p><ul><li>There's that time Facebook <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/1/30/18203803/facebook-research-vpn-minors-data-access-apple">sold third party platforms access to minors' data.</a></li><li>That time it leaked <a href="https://t.co/evfse50KcE">four million users' data.</a></li><li>There are the teens who are suing the company <a href="https://t.co/vsW9hDYcCJ">for profiting from data used to sell them into sex slavery.</a></li><li>There's the <a href="https://t.co/8iQHW1WwiH">horrible way Facebook and its contractors</a> treat the people who are paid to patrol violence and misconduct on the platform.</li><li>And of course, even though Facebook knew that Russian agents had used its platform to spread misinformation during the 2016 election in 2016, it did not admit to the depth and breadth of the problem until 2017.</li></ul><p>I wouldn't let Facebook water my plants, let alone monitor my banking transactions.</p><h1>'Flagrant displays of bull----'</h1><p>During the hearing Marcus kept trying to point out that other companies were also involved in this project. Yes, they gave Facebook $10 million to start the project, but Calibra itself will be wholly owned by Facebook and most of this activity - like almost all social media activity - will take place on Facebook, Instagram or Whatsapp.</p><p>And if other companies care so much about Libra, why aren't they in Washington taking the heat from just about everyone in town, Democrat or Republican?</p><p>"<span>Libra raises many serious concerns, privacy, money laundering, consumer protection and financial stability," Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in testimony before the House Banking Committee last week.</span></p><p><span>And in a rare, almost freakish show of civility and bipartisanship for 2019's Washington, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the chair of the committee, looked at him with something like satisfaction.</span></p><p><span>The bipartisan lovefest went along the same lines in the Senate on Tuesday as well. They brought up Libra and Calibra's potential to put national security at risk:</span></p><p><span>"This is a new day and age when it comes... carrying around a briefcase of cash, transnational criminals and terrorists don't do that anymore," Senator Cathrine Cortez-Masto (D-NV) told Marcus. "What you're creating right now is an opportunity for them to engage in more money laundering and criminal activity, so know that. To say you're going to comply with AML (anti-money laundering) is one thing, I need to see the specifics." </span></p><p>And they discussed Facebook's track record as a platform for bad actors:</p><p>"60% of <span>your users say they get news from Facebook as their primary source," said Senator John Kennedy (R-TX). "Isn't it true, and I really want your <keyword id="6356002" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="opinion">opinion</keyword>, that Facebook has chosen to advance a set of values in which truthful reporting has been displaced by flagrant displays of bulls---... Facebook now wants to control the money supply. What could possibly go wrong?"</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>C-SPAN</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p>Marcus tried to tell Senator Kennedy that Facebook acknowledges that it worked too slowly to counter bad actors in the past, but that was really all he could say and it wasn't good enough. When transactions are done in a split second there is no time for a company to be slow, not even once.</p><p>And Marcus' answers don't actually matter anyway. As Senator Martha McSally (R-AZ) pointed out, Facebook has told the world that it would change its behavior before and it has violated those promises time and time again.</p><p>So to Marcus' statements about Libra and Calibra's data sharing constraints, McSally said: "How do we know this isn't going to change and how do we know you're actually going to do that based on your track record of failing, violating and deceiving in the past?"</p><p>We don't. So while this has been an interesting exercise - and the bipartisanship in Washington is truly refreshing - no one should be seriously entertaining a Facebook currency. It's can't be trusted.</p><p class="tagline">This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author(s).</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-cleaning-robot-review-cleaned-roomba-mop-vacuum-robots-2019-7">I cleaned my entire apartment with 4 of Amazon's highest-rated cleaning robots, but I could've done a much better job myself</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

It's absurd that we're even entertaining Facebook's Libra currency idea

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewa11/">Andrew A/Flickr</a></span></p><p class="caption">The Golden Gate Bridge has long been a popular place for suicide attempts.</p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>My colleague Jim Edwards <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-low-interest-rates-tech-bubble-2014-3">reports</a> that a growing number of VC investors are beginning to fret that low interest rates are causing another bubble in technology.</p>
<p>On the surface, it's not hard to see why people are telling this story.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Startups are increasingly commanding valuations of several billion dollars without much profit to show for it. The most famous of these right now is WhatsApp, </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/price-per-user-for-whatsapp-2014-2">which just got Facebook to cough up $19 billion for it</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, despite the business side being negligible. AirBNB (the site where you can rent out your house to travelers), meanwhile, is reportedly raising money at a $10 billion valuation, which would make it <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-raising-at-10-billion-valuation-2014-3">more valuable than Hyatt Hotels</a>. Examples of breathtaking valuations abound.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">On the flipside, nominal interest rates are famously quite low. Also, the Fed for years has been buying up bonds in an attempt to decrease interest rates even further and make the system more liquid. One way this Fed activity theoretically works is through the substitution effect. If the Fed is removing Treasuries from the system, then would-be Treasury holders have to put their money somewhere else if they want a return. So maybe they go invest in riskier areas, like mortgage lending or car loans.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The story being told by the people screaming bubble is essentially that the substitution effect is spilling dramatically into startups, that the Fed is pumping all this money into the system, and it doesn't have many places to go, so it's driving up the valuations of your Pinterests, Snapchats, AirBNBs, and so forth.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But the data doesn't back up this story. And the easiest way to see this is to look outside tech. It stands to reason that if the tech boom were about a tidal wave of cash looking for risky companies to invest in, then the boom wouldn't be limited to just tech. All manners of industries would be seeing the rush of cash.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So let's take a look.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/MTPublic/ns/nav.jsp?page=historical">PriceWaterHouse Coopers MoneyTree Report</a> has a great website tracking total VC investment by sectors historically.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Here's a quarterly look at software industry dealflow. You can see that over the past 10 years there's been a pretty steady increase in investment amounts (excluding, of course, the 2008-2009 crash). The dollar number represents total amount invested in that quarter. The second number represents what that represents as a % of total VC investment that quarter. And the third column represents total deals.</span></p>
<p><strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Ok, so here's VC investment in software ...</span></strong></p>
<h3><strong style="font-size: 1.17em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/MTPublic/ns/nav.jsp?page=historical">PWC MoneyTree</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></span></strong></h3>
<p><strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But now let's look at healthcare... there's really no trend at all. While Q4 2013 was pretty huge, it was actually down for Q4 2012.</span></strong></p>
<p><strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/MTPublic/ns/nav.jsp?page=historical">PWC Moneytree</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div><br /></span></strong></p>
<p><strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Here's biotech (which is a hot sector in the stock market). Again, nothing unusual in terms of growth.</span></strong></p>
<p><strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/MTPublic/ns/nav.jsp?page=historical">PWC MoneyTree</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div><br /></span></strong></p>
<p><strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Here's financial services. Nothing special going on.</span></strong></p>
<p><strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/MTPublic/ns/nav.jsp?page=historical">PWC MoneyTree</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div><br /></span></strong></p>
<p><strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">You can play around with the data more here, but it seems pretty clear that the only industry <a href="https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/MTPublic/ns/nav.jsp?page=historical">that's seeing a huge rush of investment cash is tech</a> (specifically software).</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This alone is pretty devastating to the argument that the Fed is causing a new tech bubble because the Fed argument relies on the idea that cash is being pushed into the market and creating a insane appetite for risk. But if that were the big story, we'd be seeing that cash pop up in all sectors, not just tech.</span></p>
<p>The above data forces us to look for an alternative explanation of what's going on. Why is software seeing this gigantic boom while other VC sectors are not? I'd argue that the answer lies in the ridiculous speed at which companies with minimal cash needs can become world-changing behemoths or cash faucets.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Say what you will about WhatsApp, but you can't not be astounded that a company founded only in 2009 with just a handful of employees has surpassed in volume <a href="http://bgr.com/2014/01/20/whatsapp-message-volume-36-billion-sms/">the entire size of the text messaging industry</a>. </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">That's a story that's got nothing to do with the Fed.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Or take Candy Crush. Look how quickly the company has gone from virtually zero in revenue to a run rate of over $2 billion.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1580732/000119312514056089/d564433df1.htm">SEC</a></span></p></div><p></p></div><br /></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> Again, that's not the Fed's doing.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This week it was reported that Apax, the one company that invested in Candy Crush, is <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-18/apax-poised-to-score-10-000-gain-on-candy-crush-maker-s-ipo.html">poised to see a 10,000% return on their investment</a>.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Why does this matter?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The VC game has always been having a few number of big winners cancel out the majority of losers. In tech right now, we're seeing those big winners reach dizzying heights extraordinarily quickly. The dynamics aren't really the same in other industries. Healthcare and biotech, as exciting as they are, don't have the same winner-take-all effects that help a company like WhatsApp become such a big thing. Financial services is an area that's ripe for "disruption" but it's hard to imagine a path from zero to billions in an industry so filled with regulation.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So tech is unique in that winners (which are always rare) can become gargantuan in a short period.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Of course, none of this means that current levels of investment spending in tech is sustainable. A lot of it will end in tears. There will be inevitably too much copy-cat investment trying to repeat Candy Crush that will end up being money flushed down the toilet. And of course there are and will be companies in the red-hot "messaging" space that offer perfectly fine services that go nowhere just because they didn't catch the network effects just right.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The point though is that there are way more compelling and interesting dynamics than the Fed.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Fed argument just fails on so many levels. It fails to explain why cash isn't flying into non-tech speculative areas. And it's not consistent with how people invest. Sorry, but if you're looking at trying to get the next Candy Crush, and you know that the last investor made 10,000% on their money, do you care whether interest rates are 0%, 2%, or even 10%? No, you don't. That's not to say the Fed can't change investor behavior, but it makes much more sense that it would change the calculus of an investor looking at whether a mortgage bond yielding 6% is compelling or not. At these levels a tiny change in rates might make a big difference. For tech? Not so much.</span></p>

Here's Why It's Ridiculous To Say That The Fed Is Causing A Tech Bubble

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div><p><span>Imagine selling a $14 million New York City apartment&#xa0;entirely through Twitter or SnapChat.</span>&#xa0;</p><p>Emma Hao, an agent for luxury-home broker Douglas Elliman has done it.</p><p>Well...that's not <em>quite</em> true. Hao brokered the sale through WeChat, China's most popular instant messaging app. She does this a lot, and she's not alone.</p><p><span>"I'll put up a floor plan and say that a new property is good on the blog and the location is great. Then people will say 'I'm interested' and buy," she said. "It's really something else."</span></p><h2>An unexpected use</h2><p><span></span><span>Chinese Internet and gaming giant Tencent launched WeChat in 2011 as a voice messaging app with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-kik-like-apps-at-a-glance-2011-8">location services</a>. But it's grown </span><span>into a seamless one-stop shop for common apps: users can watch movies, call cabs, share photos, buy clothes, play games, and</span> <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wechat-webank-and-we-more---tencent-holdings-analyst-report-issued-by-brokerbank-securities-inc-300080722.html">even offer personal loans</a>.</p><p><span>Lately, it's turned into something of a real-estate sales platform - specifically connecting Chinese buyers with agents in the U.S.</span></p><p>Chinese nationals are the largest group of foreign buyers of U.S. real estate. Looking for a safer place to park their assets and diversify their holdings, they're also willing to<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-chinese-super-rich-are-about-to-flood-the-us-real-estate-market-2015-8"> pay&#xa0;more than all other nationalities</a>, according&#xa0;to the National Realtors Association. <br><br>And there are 650 million &#xa0;- largely Chinese - users on WeChat. That's more than double the US population.<br><br>"I would pay $100 a month to use WeChat," said Jing Wang, a 36-year-old real estate agent for Lin Pan Realty Group in New York.&#xa0;"It would be much harder to be introduced and reach Chinese clients because many of the social websites, like Facebook, are blocked in China - that's a lot of time and money."</br></br></br></br></p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Wang, who specializes in serving Chinese buyers&#xa0;only joined WeChat after becoming a real-estate agent.&#xa0;All of his Chinese clients communicate with him via the app. He says he's sold properties up to $5 million, with the buyer in China through the entire process.<p><span>Tours are given via video and photos, and n</span>egotiations are completed solely through the chatting app. A legal representative cements the deal on the brokers end, and an electronic version of the contract makes its way to the new owners. Payments however, are still done by cash.</p><p>For the buyers seeking investment properties, the prospect of a&#xa0;15-hour flight from the east coast of China to New York&#xa0;is reason enough to rely on WeChat.</p><p>"WeChat has become essential to consumers' daily lives," Xiaofeng Wang, an&#xa0;analysts at Forrester Research in Beijing wrote in a July note. "Marketers the world over must take account of WeChat, which has become so ubiquitous that it has changed Chinese consumers' mobile behaviors in profound ways."</p><p>Real estate agent Wang advertises his listings via a free blog and leaves voice recordings with clients, so negotiations can be done over days rather than late at night.</p><p>But there's also the issue of trust. Buying a multi-million dollar investment from someone you've never met before seems reckless.</p><p>But users such as Hao use their apps as a personal blog: she&#xa0;posts&#xa0;photos and write about her food, clothes, makeup and lifestyle - and that fosters an online personality.</p><p>"I say what I want to say so they know exactly who I am, and I update my daily life - and people like it. You show you have a personality - that's what makes a sale," she said. "Maybe they never&#xa0;comment on anything, and suddenly they'll send you a message."</p><h2><strong>Tencent's strategy: Appeal to marketers</strong></h2><p>It's certain that the property deals are only a tiny portion of activity on WeChat, but they're an unexpected area of growth for the app that&#xa0;has been struggling to gain traction in the West. Owned by Chinese Internet giant Tencent, WeChat earlier this year stopped advertising in the West as user growth plateaued.</p><p>Overseas user acquisition "has sort of come to an end," said Tencent President Martin Lau Chi-ping during&#xa0;a <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=4&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CDUQFjADahUKEwjCmuiQ6I3JAhUBeT4KHZ01AXU&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scmp.com%2Flifestyle%2Farticle%2F1741792%2Ftencent-scraps-wechat-global-expansion-plans-despite-strong-profits&amp;usg=AFQjCNHELwd4C2h2OGuIibbrTBo8F8unCQ">press conference in March</a>.</p><p>Tencent released third quarter earnings Tuesday, reporting a 32% increase in profits to $1.2 billion - beating analysts expectations. WeChat alone reported an increase to&#xa0;roughly 650 million active monthly users, up 39% since last year.<br><br>The agents don't pay anything right now to use WeChat, even if they're able to sell an apartment. If the real-estate firms were to seek a formal presence on the platform, like some luxury brands have, they'd have to pay for that.</br></br></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Tencent didn't respond to Business Insider's request for comment. We'll update this post if we hear back</span></p><p>Instead of trying to gain more users overseas, Tencent has turned its attention to expanding WeChat's&#xa0;already vast ecosystem within China and South East Asia - cementing a&#xa0;pool of extremely loyal users that spend on average&#xa0;<span>more than half their time on </span><span>mobile</span><span> using WeChat, according to Forrester Research.</span>&#xa0;</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Grata.co" title_caption="WeChat's estimate of how the app has affected spending in lifestyle and entertainment." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5638dbde9dd7cc10008c6d69-960/wechat-impact-report-14-1024.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></div><p></p></div></div><p>For Tencent, increased O2O activity helps boost their nascent payment service, Weixin Pay, and heightens&#xa0;the chances&#xa0;of more advertising revenue from companies - which is becoming a increasingly important portion of Tencent's business.</p><h2>No broader U.S. surge expected</h2><p>Tencent shouldn't expect the unexpected usage by brokers to turn into an overall surge in the U.S., though, because&#xa0;people separate their personal and professional lives, independent analyst Bryan Wang said.</p><p>While Westerners may use the platform to reach Chinese customers, few will&#xa0;use it at home.</p><p>"In our opinion, WeChat is likely to focus more in establishing a strong ecosystem in China as the competitive landscape in the West seems to be much more challenging," said John Choi, executive director of&#xa0;at Daiwa Capital Markets. "The user interface of the Asian messaging apps tend to appeal more to Asian users."</p><p>Still, the brokers aren't deterred.</p><p>&#xa0;Maurice Owen-Michanne, 34, is another New York City based agen who who has sold a property worth $4 million over WeChat. The client had a legal&#xa0;representative&#xa0;who viewed the property, while the buyer relied on&#xa0;photos, blueprints and videos. He speaks almost no Chinese.</p><p>"It's helped tremendously break down the traditional barriers and strengthen my relationship with my clients," he said.&#xa0;</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cop-pulls-clever-move-to-save-a-man-from-suicide-2015-10">Cop pulls a clever move to save a man from suicide</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="Fva2IxeDo_F1XueEXgAq2Q4PjLqva1_D" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Chinese nationals are buying multi-million dollar US homes using the country's most popular instant messaging app

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>It is now common for companies with no revenue, or negligible revenue, to be valued in the billions of dollars. Snapchat. WhatsApp. Instagram. Tumblr. Pinterest. All have been sold or valued at over $1 billion.</p>
<p>None have declared revenues that in any way justify those prices.</p>
<p>They might in the future. But they haven't yet. So if you're looking for evidence that tech is at the top of a peak, you're in the right place. This is a boom, and we're at the highest point of it since 2000.</p>
<p>But if you believe this boom is also a <em>bubble</em> - assets with values literally inflated out of thin air, as they were with web sites in 2000 and real estate in 2007 - then the jury is still out. Parts of the tech sector do look bubblicious. But we're not seeing an exact repeat of 2000 ...</p>
<p>... Yet. Behind Snapchat and Tumblr is a new crop of tech startups with <em>no revenue whatsoever</em>:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2014/10/01/houzz-tops-2-billion-valuation-opens-million-item-marketplace/">Houzz, a home design web site, is valued at $2 billion</a> even though it has no revenue (it's planning to add an e-commerce function).</li>
<li>Ello, the social network that has promised it will not show ads, just got $5.5 million in venture funding even though its founders have <a href="http://recode.net/2014/10/23/ello-raises-5-5-million-to-grow-its-ad-free-social-network/">promised in writing to never sell ads or user data</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>None of this is a coincidence. There are specific reasons why we're seeing a massive in-rush of money into the tech sector.</p>
<p>So let's look at whether the boom is sustainable or not.</p>
<h3>Interest rates are effectively at 0%, and this explains everything.</h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Fred / Think Progress" title_caption="Click to enlarge." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/527412fbeab8ea105e5941a4-960/fred_funds_rate_1970_now_line-e1364000016225.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/03/23/1765481/how-fed-policy-could-leave-the-country-at-the-mercy-of-another-recession/">Fred / Think Progress</a></span></p><p class="caption">Click to enlarge.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Before we get into specific evidence that the tech sector is inflated, it's worth restating the macro-economic context: Interest rates are basically at zero and have been for some time. When borrowers are paying close to zero interest on loans, that makes money cheap to get. This chart shows the Fed's target rate for interest since 1970.</p>
<p>People with money generally have a choice: save it in interest-paying, risk-free bank accounts or invest it in riskier assets that may pay more money over time. When interest is at zero, virtually any other kind of investment is likely to pay more because the risk-free alternative is so lousy. So <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/evidence-that-tech-sector-is-in-a-bubble-2013-11">investment asset bubbles get created</a>. Stocks, and other investment assets, tend to go up.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="REUTERS/Caren Firouz " title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/544e7acc6bb3f74f75911e8a-960/rtx15jnw-1.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Caren Firouz </span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3>Total tech investment is now back to where it was in 2000.</h3>
<p>This <a href="https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/HistoricTrends/CustomQueryHistoricTrend">chart from PwC measures the total dollars invested in software firms</a> and the number of those deals. Note that the total investment amount is now back above $6 billion, where it was during the dot com crash of 2000. The number of deals is smaller. That could be a good thing - it might mean that investors are withholding dollars from companies they feel are weak. Or it may be a bad thing - more dollars chasing fewer companies could lead to a situation in which those companies are massively overvalued.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3>The number of deals has eclipsed its 1999 peak.</h3>
<p>This chart uses a different dataset from PwC. In 2014, we're likely to see more than 1,600 venture capital funding deals for software companies. Last year was also a record, there were 1,523 private investments in software tech startups, PwC says. Through Q2 2014, there have already been 877. (In 2000, a record 2,167 deals were done before the dot-com bubble collapsed.)</p>
<p>Most importantly, notice that although we're not quite at the same level as the year 2000, we're already way ahead of the year 1999 - which was the beginning of the end.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3>Tech M&amp;A is also hitting new highs.</h3>
<p>We got this data <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ipo-and-ma-statistics-2014-10#ixzz3FkiwLaMh">from the Jordan Edmiston Group:</a></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The media, information, marketing and technology sectors saw 1,128 transactions worth $94 billion announced in the first three quarters of 2014. Deal volume increased slightly over 2013, but Facebook's $19 billion acquisition of mobile messaging app WhatsApp in Q1 and several other mega transactions drove deal value to more than double 2013's $45 billion ...</p>
<p>Here's the chart. Note that although the total <em>value</em> declined a little in Q3 2014, the total<em> volume</em> is up, and value is also up when you look at the first nine months of the year vs. 2013:<br><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></br></p>
<h3>A majority of IPOs are coming from companies that lose money.</h3>
<p>Tech companies tend to go public on NASDAQ, and that index has once again arrived at <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ipos-with-negative-earnings-and-no-profits-2014-10">a notorious threshold indicating a bubble</a>: The  percentage of companies filing initial public offerings with negative profits is nearly back where it was in 2000, and 2014 isn't even over yet. This data comes from Jay R. Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida:</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3>The S&amp;P peaked just 8 minutes after the Alibaba IPO.</h3>
<p>It's recovered some ground since then - and gone higher still! Nonetheless ... it's tempting to call the <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0f97cc70-4208-11e4-a7b3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3H5HCClS1">world's largest ever stock flotation, at $25 billion,</a> the top of the market. Alibaba is, of course, the Chinese tech online trading giant.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3>The tech hiring market has never been tighter. Salaries just hit a new record.</h3>
<p>We asked Glassdoor to run these numbers for us. Base salaries - that doesn't include bonus - are nearing $100,000. Glassdoor's salary survey is based on 3,600 software engineer salary reports.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3>Some companies are rumored to be offering up to $4 million per engineer.</h3>
<p>We can't verify whether this rumor - seen on the gossip app Secret - is true or not. But it's interesting that all of the commenters seemed to believe it. (Secret is widely read by Silicon Valley types; Dropbox is a super-hot cloud storage company.)</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3>Many companies will not be able to retain those employees if their stock valuations are suddenly corrected - because the incentives on top of those salaries are often in the form of paper equity.</h3>
<p>Hedge-fund manager <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/einhorn-sees-tech-bubble-2014-4">David Einhorn, who runs Greenlight Capital, thinks this is the basis of a bubble</a>. He described the compensation-bubble link in a recent note to investors:</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3>Bill Gurley notes that salary demands and dysfunctional business models have distorted the way employees make career decisions.</h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="YouTube" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/53fdf84feab8eae760a8e7fb-960/bill-gurley-2.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span><a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/venture-capitalist-sounds-alarm-on-silicon-valley-risk-1410740054"></a></a><p class="source"><span>YouTube</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Gurley has invested in Uber, OpenTable, and Zillow. <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/venture-capitalist-sounds-alarm-on-silicon-valley-risk-1410740054">He says</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">There's a phrase that I love: "discounted risk." Do people discount risk? Right now you've got private companies raising $200, $400, $500 million. If you're in a competitive ecosystem and you raise that amount of money, the only way you use it-because these companies are all human-based, they're not like building stores-is to take your burn up.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">And I guarantee you two things: One, the average burn rate at the average venture-backed company in Silicon Valley is at an all-time high since '99 and maybe in many industries higher than in '99. And two, more humans in Silicon Valley are working for money-losing companies than have been in 15 years, and that's a form of discounted risk.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">In '01 or '09, you just wouldn't go take a job at a company that's burning $4 million a month. Today everyone does it without thinking.</p>
<h3>Serious people are now saying out loud that we may be in a tech bubble.</h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Alana Kakoyiannis" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54359cb6ecad04c53a06f095-960/peter-thiel-21.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>Alana Kakoyiannis</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Peter Thiel is best known as the founder of PayPal and a billionaire tech investor. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-qa-interview-2014-9">He thinks we're in a bubble</a>, due to the low interest rate environment we discussed earlier:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">I think we have a bubble in the US in government bonds, because of the quantitative easing and the negative real interest rates, and to some extent, that increases asset values across the board, including in startups.</p>
<h3>Marc Andreessen: "That will not last."</h3>
<p>Andreessen is the legendary investor/partner at Andreessen Horowitz who has backed Netscape, AOL, Reddit (and Business Insider). He notes that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/marc-andreessen-on-startup-burn-rates-worry-2014-9">today's tech CEOs are burning money the same way their counterparts in the bubble did</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">New founders in last 10 years have ONLY been in environment where money is always easy to raise at higher valuations. THAT WILL NOT LAST.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">When the market turns, and it will turn, we will find out who has been swimming without trunks on: many high burn rate co's will VAPORIZE.</p>
<h3>Gurley, again: "An excessive amount of risk right now."</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gurley-silicon-valley-is-taking-on-too-much-risk-2014-9">He's got an eerie feeling right now that we've seen this all before</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Every incremental day that goes past I have this feeling a little bit more. I think that Silicon Valley as a whole or that the venture-capital community or startup community is taking on an excessive amount of risk right now. Unprecedented since ?'99. In some ways less silly than '99 and in other ways more silly than in '99.</p>
<h3>Fred Wilson is fears that too many of today's crop of tech startups are burning money without plans to generate enough revenue to be profitable.</h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Wilson is the founder of Union Square Ventures, which has backed Coinbase and Hailo, Flurry, and Etsy. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fred-wilson-on-startup-burn-rates-2014-9">He says:</a></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Valuations can be fixed. You can do a down round, or three or four flat ones, until you get the price right.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">But burn rates are exactly that. Burning cash. Losing money. Emphasis on the losing.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">And they are indeed sky high all over the US startup sector right now. And our portfolio is not immune to it. We have multiple portfolio companies burning multiple millions of dollars a month. Thankfully its not our entire portfolio. But it is more than I'd like and more than I'm personally comfortable with.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">I've been grumpy for months, possibly for longer than that, about this.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">... I'm really happy that I'm not alone in thinking this way. At some point you have to build a real business, generate real profits, sustain the company without the largess of investor's capital, and start producing value the old fashioned way.</p>
<h3>33 Silicon Valley venture capitalists just said they have less confidence than they used to.</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-venture-capital-confidence-survey-on-tech-boom-2014-10">This survey is taken every quarter</a>. For the first time in two years it recorded a decline.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h3>Yet suddenly, CFOs have an alarming appetite for risk</h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Times have never looked riskier for investors. Ukraine. Islamic State. The Russian economic crisis. The Eurozone crisis. Deflation. They're all bad for people who want risk-free returns.</p>
<p>Yet CFO's are suddenly bullish! According to a survey taken by Deloitte, <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/dfcdd714-4563-11e4-ab86-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz3EgjRsgP2">risk appetite among financial directors has hit a seven-year high:</a></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Nearly three-quarters of the 118 CFOs contacted by Deloitte this month believed now was a good time to take greater risk on to their balance sheets - the highest since the firm launched its quarterly round-up of views in 2007 and up from 54 per cent a year ago.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"What surprises me is that, despite all the news around Ukraine, the Middle East and weakness in the euro area, risk appetite among CFOs has risen," said Ian Stewart, chief economist at Deloitte in London.</p>
<h3>Now put that toxic mix together.</h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/544e793469bedda843911e8c-960/rtr3y08n.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Low interest rates have triggered investment money to seek returns in ever-riskier companies. Investment "exits" - IPO's, acquisitions, etc - are once again approaching their 1999/2000 peak. Hiring is so tight that some investors are saying that compensation requirements for engineers are themselves the cause of the bubble. (Meanwhile, tech's most prominent VCs believe we're at or near the top.)</p>
<p>CFO's, on the other hand, are shouting "Damn the torpedoes!"</p>
<p>To quote Bill Gurley, "<a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/venture-capitalist-sounds-alarm-on-silicon-valley-risk-1410740054">No one's fearful, everyone's greedy, and it will eventually end</a>."</p>

You Searched For "cashe whatsapp loan" and got 10 results

An Afghan women's rights activist might have been tricked into going to a safe house and then found dead. Others hoping to escape or live freely in the country worry they could be next

Ali Latifi

Don't expect an automatic refund from airlines: Here's why they don't refund customers even after a flight is canceled.

Thomas Pallini

UK threatens to tax 'ruthless profiteers' Facebook and Google if they don't do more to combat extremism

Kieran Corcoran

Check out the more than 50 pitch decks fintechs used to raise millions in funding from top investors

Shannen Balogh,Anita Ramaswam…

Mark Zuckerberg's vision for Facebook sounds a lot like China, where I couldn't buy a cup of coffee without the app that dominates people's lives there

Harrison Jacobs

It's absurd that we're even entertaining Facebook's Libra currency idea

Linette Lopez

Here's Why It's Ridiculous To Say That The Fed Is Causing A Tech Bubble

Joe Weisenthal

Chinese nationals are buying multi-million dollar US homes using the country's most popular instant messaging app

Lucinda Shen

Here's The Evidence That The Tech Bubble Is About To Burst

Jim Edwards

Topless dancers, champagne, and David Bowie: Inside the crash of London's $2.7 billion unicorn Powa

Oscar Williams-Grut