WeChat keyboard protects personal privacy: it just takes up too much storage space on your phone

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WeChat, as a social software, is widely popular and has a huge user base. It is undoubtedly a national-level application software.

According to Tencent's second quarter 2022 financial report, as of June 30, 2022, WeChat and WeChat had 1.299 billion monthly active users, a year-on-year increase of 3.8%. This data is among the best among all social software, which shows the great influence of WeChat on users.

With such a huge user base, every iteration of WeChat will naturally attract much attention. When WeChat decided to develop its own input method and launched the "WeChat Keyboard" for testing, topics related to "WeChat Input Method" and "WeChat Keyboard" also remained popular.

However, there are also many controversies that come with it, among which "WeChat input method takes up 524MB of memory" has become a key topic of controversy.

Why does WeChat need to develop an input method?

Perhaps in your daily use of your phone, you will find that after you discuss a certain product with your friends on WeChat, you will receive precise advertising push notifications after opening the e-commerce app. According to normal logic, you will feel that WeChat seems to be monitoring your chat history and your privacy has been violated.

In fact, it is not entirely due to WeChat. The biggest possibility is related to the input method used in the mobile phone. At present, there are many input methods in the application market. Users may change different mobile phones, but due to habitual problems, they may always use the same input method.

Since the same account can be logged in across platforms, most input methods will learn and store users' input habits and commonly used vocabulary. Users can achieve a seamless experience across different devices, which increases their dependence on input methods. This is exactly what it means: "Even if you forget, the input method will help you remember."

Today’s smartphones are so practical and functional that a large amount of vocabulary data can be generated simply through social chatting on WeChat.

Most input methods analyze the frequency of users' daily word input and deliver precise advertisements, under the pretext of "helping users get a better integrated experience." However, they do not set a clear switch to control this conversion mechanism, which results in users' privacy information not being protected.

It is precisely based on the protection of user privacy information that WeChat decided to develop its own input method to further strengthen WeChat's security. However, is it really that simple? Doesn't WeChat input method have other uses?

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Privacy protection, at the cost of memory consumption

Judging from the overall design and functions of the current WeChat keyboard, it is undeniable that the WeChat input method can indeed prevent the leakage of user privacy information and ensure that the information generated by users through social networking will not easily spread out of WeChat. However, the large amount of memory occupied by the WeChat keyboard and the possible flow of user input words within the WeChat platform are also issues that cannot be ignored.

Recently, on the Weibo hot search list, there is a topic "WeChat input method takes up 524MB of memory" which has caused heated discussion. @机智猫数码博客主 posted a photo of the WeChat keyboard installation package of 155.5MB. After installation, it occupies as much as 524MB of memory, which is far from the memory occupied by other input methods.

For example: Sogou input method installation package is 60MB, occupying 111MB of space; Baidu input method installation package is 73MB, occupying 163MB of space, etc. The memory required is basically lower than that of WeChat keyboard.

It is naturally unacceptable to protect users' privacy information at the cost of consuming memory. Nowadays, mobile phone software functions are becoming more and more complete and larger, and the demand for mobile phone memory is also becoming stronger. Many flagships on the market provide 1TB of large memory options, which is enough to illustrate the public's "memory anxiety" problem.

If the user's memory is consumed in order to better protect the user's privacy information, it will actually be a burden for the user, and this seems to be a practice of putting the cart before the horse.

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The mutual transformation of social and content builds a new line of defense

On the other hand, WeChat has developed a lot of content through user social interaction, such as official accounts, mini-programs, video accounts, etc. It is a typical application software that generates content through social interaction, which also establishes WeChat's dominant position in the social circle.

However, the content generated through social networking has not been fully converted within the platform, but has been lost to other platforms. The most important reason for this is that WeChat has not converted the content generated by social networking back into social networking again, forming a closed loop.

The rise of TikTok is essentially a new way of socializing incubated by content. Users complete socializing by watching, liking, and reposting short videos, which makes up for the communication between people based on content. This is what WeChat lacks and is also the dilemma that its social relationship chain faces.

To this end, WeChat has been trying to break through this dilemma. For example, it launched the video account. The video account and the Moments can both have their own topics for publishing, realizing the linkage between the Moments, official accounts, and video accounts. Users can skip complicated steps and share directly to meet their social needs.

In short, WeChat is gradually trying to transform social interaction and content into each other to build a new line of defense, and WeChat input method is a key step.

The accumulation of personal databases generated through the WeChat input method can not only optimize the user's chat experience, but more importantly, it can deepen the understanding of what users want to talk about, thereby incubating more platform content to meet their needs, thereby resisting attacks from content platforms such as Douyin.

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Final Thoughts

If WeChat wants to survive for a long time, social interaction and content are the two key elements. WeChat has achieved the goal of generating content through social interaction, but the reverse transformation is still being attempted. Whether for privacy protection or to form a closed-loop layout, the birth of WeChat input method is obviously necessary.

However, the author does not agree that high memory consumption should be regarded as a cost. After all, privacy protection is the most basic requirement of social software.

Of course, the WeChat input method is still in the testing phase, and it may be improved in the future, with new features derived, which may bring a different and interesting experience.