If you happen to be out of the loop, Xiaomi is currently under fire in Lithuania when the country’s deputy defense minister criticized the company for introducing censorship for its smartphones. The Chinese technology giant denied the allegations and has now hired a third-party firm to investigate Lithuania’s government claims. However, it did not say which company it hired, but it did confirm that it was based in Europe.
According to the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense, Xiaomi is blocking certain search terms such as “free Tibet”, “long live Taiwan’s independence” and “democracy movement”. The minister called for “throwing away” all Chinese phones as soon as possible. Xiaomi said these filters are off for the EU region.
Then again, the Lithuanian government claims that the censorship filter can be reactivated externally at any time. The Chinese company claims that these filters are an industry standard and are usually used to protect users from pornographic content and content that is offensive to local users.
