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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."

7 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 poetmatt · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

  2. Retaliation by siloko · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  3. and nothing of value was lost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wish the US would block Twitter too.

  4. 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.
  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. Not High Profile in China.... by vampire_baozi · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?