Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail, Others Blocked In China

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."

Comments

Like Facebook in Iran During Elections

[eldavojohn]

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!"

Re:Like Facebook in Iran During Elections

[poetmatt]

Yup. There are plenty of proxies out there too, so what exactly is this going to do? Not to mention every app just mentioned can easily be run on most china phones, so it's not like people have to be in net cafes in China to do said activities.

Re:Like Facebook in Iran During Elections

[rob1980]

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.

Re:Like Facebook in Iran During Elections

[maxume]

The majority in China don't even have computers.

Retaliation

[siloko]

That's it, I'm going to block China

and nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish the US would block Twitter too.

Re:and nothing of value was lost

[gnick]

I don't know about blocking Twitter, but my faith in humanity would take a big step up if it went under because everyone decided to ignore it.

In fact, I'm so frustrated over the matter that I'm going to go blog about it on my MySpace and Facebook profiles!

What are we doing?

[L4t3r4lu5]

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.

Re:What are we doing?

[Darkness404]

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.

Re:What are we doing?

[sesshomaru]

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!"

Unintended consequences

[harmonise]

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.

Re:Unintended consequences

[kohaku]

There were 13 casualties in the Kent State shootings, 4 of which were fatal. The Tiananmen square numbers are (officially) 241 deaths, which is probably far smaller than the real number (There have been reports of up to 2400 deaths). I think it's disingenuous to compare Tiananmen and Kent State. Perhaps 9/11 would be a closer analogue? In any case, there was lots of media created about Kent State, and it _IS_ taught in schools.

Re:People must notice the block.

[SchizoStatic]

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.

Re:Psychics?

[twidarkling]

Yeah, there are multiple editorial failures in this summary. And in honour of the story being about China, I vote that the punishment be summary excecution!

Editors, please!

[curmudgeous]

"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.

Not High Profile in China....

[vampire_baozi]

Seriously, almost no Chinese use those sites. Twitter doesn't even have a Chinese language version, and has barely begun to grow in China (though it may, there are already several Chinese clonewares out). Nobody ANYWHERE in the world uses Bing, and the Chinese use QQ, Sohu, Xinlang, or other IM/Portal/Blogging services instead of Live/Blogspot. Flickr is the only one Chinese might even notice, and there are plenty of alternatives.

The only Chinese that use these (now blocked) services are educated, and probably have decent English, and know how to get around these blocks. The vast majority of Chinese users use other websites, or have alternatives. The contrversial stuff has always been hosted on non-Chinese websites for obvious reasons, and people who want to see it are well aware of how to get around the blocks.

Far more telling was the 7 hours of downtime Xiaonei went through yesterday for maintanence. They've already been shutting down certain Xiaonei groups and blocking users for doing political stuff, I wonder if the maintanence included any updates to help with censorship?

Re:People must notice the block.

[rynthetyn]

Youtube is already blocked

Selective Memories

[VShael]

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.