Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail, Others Blocked In China

Posted by timothy on from the this-is-for-your-own-good dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Two days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square 'incident,' several high profile Internet sites have been blocked in mainland China. These include Twitter.com, Flickr.com, Live.com, and Bing.com. While Internet blocks are common enough in mainland China, blocking such high-profile sites is unusual. In addition, blog reports suggest even state-owned television broadcasts are suffering multiple instances of muting lasting several seconds (again, not unusual for some foreign stations broadcast over cable, but unusual for local state-owned media) suggesting state security, online or through other technology, has tightened significantly, perhaps in anticipation or discovery of protest plans."

17 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Like Facebook in Iran During Elections by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sounds a lot like Facebook being blocked during the elections in Iran. I wonder if banning sites just long enough to restrict the flow of ideas for the season will become more popular/acceptable than perma-bans?

    "Oops, I can't access social sites today ... must be a "democratic" election coming up!"

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Like Facebook in Iran During Elections by rob1980 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There are plenty of proxies out there too, so what exactly is this going to do?

      Keep the mainstream folks who don't know what a proxy is (let alone how to use one) in check. For the rest, if they become an issue they'll just be labeled enemies of the state or whatever and dealt with accordingly.

    2. Re:Like Facebook in Iran During Elections by maxume · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The majority in China don't even have computers.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  2. What are we doing? by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why are we buying the products of these fascist dictatorships? Why do we continue to support reigimes of tyrrany?

    Oh yeah, because they make shit on the cheap and we're a nation of greedy slobs with a humane streak which lasts up until that $5 is taken from your pay cheque to buy your "morality token" for the month.

    Flamebait or not, if you buy Chinese goods, you support oppression.

    --
    Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    1. Re:What are we doing? by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because if no one buys Chinese products the people magically become not oppressed? Just look at the Cuban embargo, didn't do a stupid thing to strike down communism in fact by isolating themselves they haven't been exposed to non-communist ideas.

      All that would happen if we embargoed China is that the people who live in oppression now will live in oppression while starving.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    2. Re:What are we doing? by causality · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why are we buying the products of these fascist dictatorships? Why do we continue to support reigimes of tyrrany? Oh yeah, because they make shit on the cheap and we're a nation of greedy slobs with a humane streak which lasts up until that $5 is taken from your pay cheque to buy your "morality token" for the month. Flamebait or not, if you buy Chinese goods, you support oppression.

      There's things which are "Flamebait" because they're blatantly false and often deliberate distortions of reality.

      Then there's things which are "Flamebait" because they're completely true and people can't accept that due to a number of character flaws and other shortcomings that render them unable to call things what they are or otherwise to deal with reality. The funny thing is, people get a lot more pissy and upset about this one, and try much harder to shut it down or to shout it down (like the pleasant individuals who can avoid inflicting their personal problems on others that they are) than the first category.

      Which one this is should be an exericise to the reader.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    3. Re:What are we doing? by sesshomaru · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Apparently, after the bankruptcy, GM will be making cars in China...

      I'm not really looking forward to that, I'm not sure why the government decided to waste all our taxpayer money on GM if they knew they were just planning to send most of the jobs to China. But I guess some extremely rich people won't lose as much money as they were going to originally, which makes me feel just swell.

      I guess the people in charge of this, like our car czar, figured that that was what people were concerned about, that some well-heeled bondholders would have to take a haircut. Otherwise, it's kind of baffling from a political standpoint.

      Except in the "after we retire from politics we'll all be rich, rich, rich! And what are you going to do about it, vote Republican, mwahahahaha!"

      --
      "MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
    4. Re:What are we doing? by SteeldrivingJon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We aren't. We're buying products made by businesses in China, which are not the government of China.

      Except when the businesses are owned by the Chinese military or party apparatchiks. Then it gets blurry.

      --
      September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
  3. Unintended consequences by harmonise · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I suspect that this will have unintended consequences like a Streisand effect. Some people who might not think about the Tiananmen Square incident might wonder why they can't get to certain sites. They'll ask a friend about it who will respond "Maybe because it's the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square incident." The listener's memory will be refreshed and the chance of people forgetting about Tiananmen Square and the date the incident occurred will be lessened.

    --
    Cory Doctorow talking about cloud computing makes as much sense as George W Bush talking about electrical engineering.
  4. Re:People must notice the block. by SchizoStatic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But alas remember this is the instant information age now. A few days after the anniversary no one will care about it and move onto the next funny video on youtube of cats stuck in a bag.

    --
    https://www.speakservers.com/
  5. Editors, please! by curmudgeous · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Two days ahead of the Tiananmen Square 'incident'...

    So, slashdot is predicting incidents now? Or should that read, "Two days ahead of the anniversary of..."?

    Yes, I'm picking nits, but the overall quality of journalism seems to be declining on a daily basis. Despite what some here may think, accuracy IS important.

  6. Re:Communism... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "in a communist framework"

    Except that the situation in China has nothing to do with communism.
    Communism = stateless, classless society - see the Communist Manifesto.

    "Although I am against censorship, this is a cultural thing."

    It's a cultural thing only among politicians/big business, not among (Chineese) people.

  7. Good thing the olympics made them promise! by CannonballHead · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Probably "off topic," but it's interesting that they promised quite a bit in order to be allowed to have the Olympics. Makes me wonder about other promises. Makes me glad to live in the US. :)

  8. Selective Memories by VShael · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes, we all think it's terrible that the majority of the youth in China don't even know about the Tianamen Square "incident"

    But within America itself, how many of you know of, or recognise the following incidents?

    1) US Government (ATF/FBI) burns to death 76 people in their homes, and the FBI lies about it for six years, when it finally comes clean. No one is ever held accountable.

    2) 4 plain-clothed officers shoot an unarmed man standing in his doorway. They shoot a total of 41 times. He is hit 19 times. After the officers are convicted, the court orders them re-tried, and the second time around they are all acquitted.

    3) Unarmed students at an anti-war protest, are shot at by the National Guard. 4 die, 9 are injured. Again, no accountability. No convictions.

    1. Re:Selective Memories by FleaPlus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But within America itself, how many of you know of, or recognise the following incidents?

      1) US Government (ATF/FBI) burns to death 76 people in their homes, and the FBI lies about it for six years, when it finally comes clean. No one is ever held accountable.

      2) 4 plain-clothed officers shoot an unarmed man standing in his doorway. They shoot a total of 41 times. He is hit 19 times. After the officers are convicted, the court orders them re-tried, and the second time around they are all acquitted.

      3) Unarmed students at an anti-war protest, are shot at by the National Guard. 4 die, 9 are injured. Again, no accountability. No convictions.

      Um, all three incidents were front page stories on the news (i.e. not suppressed) and the last one has been covered in every American history class I've ever taken.

    2. Re:Selective Memories by owlstead · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The first one is about the Wako Siege, which even all the more informed people here in the Netherlands will remember. It was interesting reading up on it again. I can remember browsing the few US news channels for it when the news was fresh. IMHO, the only reason to leave this little piece of information out was to obscure the fact that people actually do know about this incident. Also, blandly claiming that the lives of these people were all taken by the FBI is taking it way too far.

      For me that's enough of a troll to not look at the others.

  9. Re:most college students dont care about Tiananmen by joggle · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You know, there are some significant differences between those two instances:

    1) I can google 'kent state' and quickly find the relevant wikipedia article from work without risk of reprisal (unless my boss sees me goofing off...) even though I'm using a public, static IP address that could easily be tracked to my computer (at least it could be easily tracked if I was going through the great firewall of China). I'd love to see someone in China be able to google 'Tianamen' and be able to click on the wikipedia article from their job with as much ease and lack of danger as I can here in the US.
    2) Just to get a taste of the difference between cultures, on the wikipedia article for the Kent State shootings the photographer received the biggest prize in journalism for the photo he took of the shooting (the same year the picture was taken, not years after the fact). It's impossible to imagine a Chinese photographer receiving a prestigious Chinese award back in 1989 for publishing a photo of Tianamen Square.
    3) The day after the Kent State shootings (were 4 died and 9 were injured) there was a nationwide protest by millions of students that effectively closed a number of universities. After the initial shooting no further deaths and certainly no executions occurred. After Tienamen Square, captured workers were quickly executed although students were not.
    4) The scale of the Kent State shootings is dwarfed by the Tienaman Square event. The official Chinese estimate of deaths in Tienamen Square was 241 dead with over 7000 injured (other estimates are in the thousands but because everything was handled very secretly by the Chinese government it is impossible for anyone to know for sure). As previously mentioned, Kent State was 4 dead with 9 injured. Also, nobody disappeared in Kent State. Whatever happened to that guy that stood in front of the tank? The last thing anyone ever saw was him being dragged away by the police. It is believed he was executed because the government was never able to produce him to quite the international criticism it was receiving.
    5) Tienamen Square involved the state's army. The Kent State incident involved Ohio's National Guard which is a rather different force. It would be unheard of to use the federal army to suppress a riot or for any civil purpose. The local national guard is a very different force, used to help with natural disasters and, in rare cases, to help with crowd control in riots. One big difference is the national guard doesn't have tanks...
    6) Coverage of Kent State was not suppressed in the American news at the time nor afterward. It still is unacceptable to talk about Tienamen Square on TV or newspapers in China except with great care and few words.