In what could be seen as a conscientious move to use something indigenous, Chinese messaging app WeChat has dumped NASA's famous photo of Earth called Blue Marble from its start screen after using it for years and replaced it with another picture of the planet taken by a Chinese satellite.
The newly introduced photo of Earth on WeChat is taken by China's geostationary meteorological satellite Fengyun 4A (FY-4A) that was launched into space in December 2016 and has been on trial testing for months.
The popular app had earlier used (since 2011) the Blue Marble picture taken by NASA from outer space in 1972. There is not much difference in the old photo and the new one though. Some may find difficult to differentiate between the two images as they not only look similar but also have the silhouette of a human photoshopped into them.
On a closer look, the new picture of Earth taken by FY-4A has China as the centre of the sphere whereas the one by the NASA has Africa.
Justifying the use of picture with China in the centre of the sphere, WeChat has said in a statement that the African continent may be the origin of human civilization but it is important to let millions of its users know the importance of Chinese civilization, according to TechSina.
Popular Chinese social media app WeChat to change loading page pic from NASA's Blue Marble to photo taken by FY-4 pic.twitter.com/1XYfRreT5I
— People's Daily,China (@PDChina) September 25, 2017
Messaging app WeChat dominates Chinese market with about 900 million users. Its popularity is boosted by China's policy of banning foreign competitors like WhatsApp.
