Here, we’ll talk about four of our favorite talk or text apps that let you reconnect with your friends back home while you’re thousands of miles away.

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Tango

A video and texting app with an international fan base, Tango operates on smartphones and tablets, so you can use it wherever you are. One of Tango’s best features is its free group calling that lets you call or text multiple people at once. Additionally, Tango offers fun features like stickers, filters, and in-call games.

WeChat

WeChat might be the most popular messaging system in the world, with over 400 million users across the globe. WeChat is popular because it lets you complete multiple functions on a single platform: users can text, video call, and voice call friends and family directly from the platform. Additionally, WeChat lets you make calls to landline and mobile phones for a low monthly fee.

Skype

Skype, the old video calling standby, is one of the largest and most reliable networks around. You might get lucky calling your friends and family around the globe with Skype since over 300 million users have already downloaded the app. Further, you can call your family and friends without Skype downloaded on their landlines for less than a dollar a month.

WhatsApp

The hugely popular international app WhatsApp is available on all smartphones, so whomever you’re calling is likely to already have the app installed. The app works by requiring your phone number to log in, so it’s more secure than other apps that don’t have a similar verification method. Additionally, the app operates through Wi-Fi, so you don’t have to worry about getting an international phone plan when you go abroad.

International travel is great, but it can sure make you miss your friends and family back home. How do you ward off homesickness when you’re away from home? Let us know in the comments.

The Nature of the WeChat Censorship

WeChat is under a lot of pressure to regulate. Similar to other forms of speech and expression, censorship within the popular app itself came as no surprise to its Chinese users. Messages that “warrant restriction,” so to speak, were met with warnings that their note was blocked from being sent.

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What’s changed is that unbeknownst to the user, a message will be censored without so much as a warning appearing either on their or the recipient’s side. Essentially, the user will think they’ve forwarded a message successfully, but the recipient will have received nothing. The Citizen Lab, who studies information controls, like surveillance and content filtering, especially as it applies to rights and online security, have found close to 200 keywords which trigger censorship. One such phrase, for instance is “ISIS Crisis.” When the server sees these blacklisted keywords, the message that contains them is prevented from going through. Neither the user nor the recipient receives notification of the occurrence, thereby diminishing transparency within the process.

International Accounts

Accounts registered by users abroad are subject to censorship too, though likely not as rigorously. However, for former residents who have used the app in China, but leave the country or switch numbers, as long as the account was originally registered with a China-based number, they’ll experience the same degree of content blocking as China-based users no matter their current location.

This is disconcerting to users of the messaging service who live in a country that honors freedom of speech rights and who are cynical toward information control. Moreover, the Tencent, the company that presides over the app, assures that it is meant to comply with the laws of the country within which it operates. Though the keyword list is more extensive for Chinese users than for those overseas users, it has been shown that international users are censored as well. All the company has managed to do is to further obscure their process by cutting the bare minimum of accountability they provided via warning messages.