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Chinese Social Websites Go Under "Maintenance"
Shastri writes "After blocking several prominent social websites like Twitter, Youtube ahead of Tiananmen anniversary, by the great firewall of China, some popular social sites in China have also gone under 'maintenance'. While it is anybody's guess as to whether these events are related or purely coincidental, the announced maintenance come mostly unscheduled and last for several days might give a hint. A spreadsheet (in Chinese) is being maintained enumerating the sites that have gone down for a maintenance."
They don't want any organised protests.
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
After blocking several prominent social websites like Twitter
Thank you!
Freedom is so overrated.
What do you mean? Nothing happened there 20 years ago. There was no protest and there were no tanks.
I don't know where you are getting your information from, but the Chinese government ensures me that nothing of note has ever taken place in Tianamen square.
This "maintenance' was done by the webmasters themselves. When you look at the spreadsheet most websites are not that popular and created by hobbyists. Furthermore they stated that they participated voluntarily. Some of the messages are really interesting:
thequietsnow.com:
Due to a reason we all know this site is presently under maintenannce.
The site will be under non-technical maintenance from 3. Juin to 6. Juin
[...]
For a harmonious environment, to make an appeal to create a harmonious sociaty, I advice all webmasters and internet users to do the following during maintenance period;
1. Go out for a walk, get some fresh air, due to the hot weather, please wear a white t-shirt
2. Since the current internet is extremely unharmonious, in order to create a healty and harmonious internet environment, please put all your websites into "maintenance state", in oder to provide a better net environment
3. If you don't want to put your site into "maintenance state", please change your site into black and white colors, in oder to provide a better net environment
4. Please put your site onto the maintenance spreedsheat.
whenn.net:
Long live the harmony~~~
Due to a reason we all know
In order to supress my extremely unharmonious thoughts
this blog voluntarily will go under "technical and non-technical maintenance"
passcd.com
Just says "20" on the page
So really, this "maintenance day" is a good sign. It makes a lot of net users aware of the event, since a lot of young Chinese haven't been confronted with this event a lot. This hopefully makes them to think more...
On xiaonei, many statuses get blocked, too, with the warning not to post "politically sensitive" content. Being in Tsinghua as an international student, I've seen Chinese students testing and changing their statuses with messages like "Democracy, Freedom, CCP, ..." It was shortly after midnight that Xiaonei.com even crashed for a while due to the massive status changes. But it seems to me the young generation sees this testing more as a game and really doesn't grasp the seriousness.
What really striked me was that one status saying "In memory of 8^2 5!/3! years" got deleted on xiaonei... (You math and comp sci nerds can figure the hidden message out ;) )
Another thing I've noted is how pointless it is to talk with Chinese about their politics. They are extremely sensitive and immediately get defensive. A hong kong girl was talking about this event with a mainland student and she became very agitated. The chinese guy was absolutely overwhelmed by the critics, didn't know how to react (he was the only chinese in a group of international students) and immediately started to defend the government's action, saying things like sometimes politics has to use violence to achieve it's goal... (basically implying that they did the right thing)
Anyway, I just hope that, untill China finally faces this event correctly, people in other countries will do all their efforts not to let it become forgotten.
Not.
Chinese internet users aren't stupid, they know what is going on. In many cases, all it does is call attention to the anniversary, perhaps more than would have been paid otherwise.
In any case, most Chinese I know seem fairly cynical about it. A translated conversation from Xiaonei, in response to a blog post by a friend about the economic crisis:
AAA: Well written!! But why can't I share it? (think Facebook sharing, posting a link to it on your own homepage)
BBB: Yeah, I can't share it either. Must be because it's today!
000(the author): Well, I can post it, you guys should be able to share it....
CCC: (a few comments about the actual content of the article)
DDD: I guess Xiaonei is having problems recently. Anything with numbers seems to run into problems.
AAA: Anything with certain numbers runs into problems around this time of year....
EEE: I'm sure this maintenance is perfectly normal, as it is for all other Chinese websites right now.(sarcasm)
BBB: There is no spoon~~! (this in English)
FFF: Wow, nice word choice guys.
Bad translation, there was a good pun or two in there I couldn't figure out how to translate. In any case, they're masters at not using any words censors would find suspicious. But they're all at least aware of it, even if its a minor annoyance.
And it will probably remain just that: A minor annoyance for most, perhaps making them remember, but they don't care that much. The ones that really want to protest will just use text messages or IM anyway, and even they hardcore democracy types know where the line is drawn. For the most part, it seems really unnecessary. If they really wanted to organize protests, they'd have been organized long before the 3 days before the anniversary, and then use texting or cells or IM to expand. I doubt there will be any protests to speak of anyway- the Chinese sort of have a silent agreement here, they know where to draw the line.