{"id":505071,"date":"2026-05-27T11:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T11:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/505071\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T11:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T11:44:13","slug":"controversial-china-dead-or-alive-app-transforms-into-valuable-personal-safety-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/505071\/","title":{"rendered":"Controversial China \u2018dead or alive\u2019 app transforms into valuable personal safety tool"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">A controversial Chinese app with the allegedly offensive name \u201cdead or alive\u201d has been transformed into a government-backed safety tool.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The app, called Sileme, or \u201cAre you dead?\u201d, went viral in January because of its straightforward name that challenged the traditional taboo notions about death.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Its function was extremely simple.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The sign-in app features a giant green button on the screen. A person only needs to touch the button every day to confirm their \u201calive\u201d status. If they fail to check in for two days in a row, it will send a message to the emergency contact person.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">It costs eight yuan (US$1.2) in the app store. Some people said it was not worth paying for.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The sileme app, pictured above, was originally sold bearing a name some people thought was offensive. Photo: Handout\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/771337f4-a514-4088-8faf-60df0f29ef07_a1224722.jpg\" title=\"The sileme app, pictured above, was originally sold bearing a name some people thought was offensive. Photo: Handout\"\/>The sileme app, pictured above, was originally sold bearing a name some people thought was offensive. Photo: Handout<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">But young people liked it, finding it entertaining and meeting the needs of the country\u2019s increasing number of solo users.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A controversial Chinese app with the allegedly offensive name \u201cdead or alive\u201d has been transformed into a government-backed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[257],"tags":[219350,5392,291,219345,2472,289,1128,219344,10389,36559,3914,381,5214,2006,219351,3718,67364,93680,26521,868,164,366,11160,18,5321,687,219347,1652,73566,1330,110511,219352,4350,3428,10952,2422,219356,2598,19,50997,17,157321,3503,3255,83934,6669,117247,14611,279,219354,27023,90125,76766,1601,12421,4119,172,523,1057,14614,1220,10522,219355,219349,1999,6158,11532,23544,219348,934,219346,219353,1691,219343,82,391,1147,67378,43780,13563,107,5448,72197],"class_list":["post-505071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-accidental","tag-ageing","tag-ai","tag-alivce","tag-app","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-australia","tag-button","tag-cardiologist","tag-characters","tag-children","tag-china","tag-chinese","tag-company","tag-complicated","tag-concerns","tag-contact","tag-controversial","tag-dead","tag-dementia","tag-depression","tag-design","tag-developers","tag-eire","tag-elderly","tag-emergency","tag-entertaining","tag-family","tag-fired","tag-friends","tag-function","tag-geriatric","tag-giant","tag-government","tag-green","tag-hangzhou","tag-health-times","tag-home","tag-ie","tag-insecurity","tag-ireland","tag-isolation","tag-job","tag-life","tag-location","tag-loneliness","tag-lu","tag-message","tag-mobile","tag-nanxing","tag-need","tag-offensive","tag-original","tag-person","tag-population","tag-public","tag-research","tag-risk","tag-safety","tag-screen","tag-sharing","tag-shenzhen","tag-sileme","tag-simplified","tag-singapore","tag-small","tag-solo","tag-sos","tag-stalked","tag-startup","tag-status","tag-suffer","tag-surprise","tag-taboo","tag-technology","tag-thailand","tag-tool","tag-touch","tag-trial","tag-university","tag-us","tag-viral","tag-zhejiang"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}