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China's Firewall Stymies Google; Users Confused

Posted by kdawson on from the death-by-a-thousand-disruptions dept.

eldavojohn writes "Massive confusion occurred last night for Google's Chinese search engine and ad services when Google's automated reporting system claimed that everything was blocked in China. The problem was that most users experienced no outage despite Google's reports and Google has backpedaled on those reports. Google explained that their tool for detecting blockage is not 'real-time': 'Because of the way we measure accessibility in China, it's possible that our machines could overestimate the level of blockage. That seems to be what happened last night when there was a relatively small blockage. It appears now that users in China are accessing our properties normally.' The WSJ blogger notes, 'Beijing may not need to cancel Google's license. Death by a thousand disruptions could be just as effective.'"

2 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This is bad for China. by tokul · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Even worse, the jingoistic nationalism which pervades any discussion of international events--the official media's constant portrayal of the Western powers led by the USA as the evil imperialists of the 19th Century,

    Some American said "But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." Don't judge or condemn political structure used in other country. After all only democrats used a-bomb in anger and last American military campaigns toppled governments of two independent countries.

  2. Re:This is bad for China. by russotto · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Some American said "But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." Don't judge or condemn political structure used in other country.

    Tyranny is tyranny, and deserves condemnation whether the tyrant is named George, Kim, or Wu. Your quote speaks to toleration of religious belief by another individual, not cultural relativism.

    and last American military campaigns toppled governments of two independent countries.

    That was, after all, one of their objectives.