The Quick Normalisation of VPNs

Hasan seeks to set the temperature of the trip very early with his foray into the state firewall and his usage of VPNs.

AT&T automatically routes your phone through Hong Kong when you’re in China. It just has a built‑in VPN.

U.S. carriers roaming in China do sometimes backhaul traffic through Hong Kong or U.S. gateways so your IP appears non‑mainland and apps like YouTube still work. That’s not a “VPN” you control; it’s carrier routing. Hasan is seemingly unaware of this.

It’s also not some secret bypass the Chinese state is unaware of; roaming agreements require cooperation with Chinese carriers and regulators. His “what do you think, China doesn’t know?” line is correct on that narrow point: of course they know. The bigger problem is the entire scenario is setup BECAUSE of the Chinese state which Hasan seems super uncritical of.

Calling it a “built‑in VPN” is technically inaccurate, and more importantly, it lets him gloss over what’s really happening: AT&T and Chinese state‑linked carriers are jointly managing that routing. It is not some privacy shield.

Some of the statements he made are also pretty absurd...

I’ve never used a VPN before, now I have VPN on everything.

He has had VPN sponsors before; this is at best performative, or he's lying to his audience about said VPN sponsors talking points. Something content creators love to do is have their sponsors done under the guise that they actually use it - when they don't. I've been hyper critical of LTT doing this when they don't actively use the software in their business suite.

I will give all of my private information to the Chinese government. I do not care. I want to get a Huawei phone. I want to drive a BYD car. What are they going to do with it? Do whatever you want with it, king.

In the U.S. context, he spends hours on:

• How dangerous it is that American tech companies and the NSA vacuum up your data.

• How harmful facial recognition, geolocation, and ad‑tech surveillance are.

• How bad it is that data end up in the hands of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

In China, he says the quiet part loud: he’s willing to hand everything to that state and mocks people who are wary.

You can argue he’s being hyperbolic for laughs; he clearly is. But given his influence and the political context (he’s streaming live from Beijing, surrounded by minders, about to be distributed on Chinese platforms), this comes off less like edgy joking and more like complacency about a surveillance regime he would absolutely excoriate in the U.S./EU.

If an American influencer said, “I love giving all my data to the NSA, what are they going to do, king?,” he’d roast them for days.