Great Firewall of China Blocks Edgecast CDN, Thousands of Websites Affected

An anonymous reader writes: Starting about a week ago, The Great Firewall of China began blocking the Edgecast CDN. This was spurred by Great Fire's Collateral Freedom project, which used CDNs to get around censorship of individual domains. It left China with either letting go of censorship, or breaking significant chunks of the Internet for their population. China chose to do the latter, and now many websites are no longer functional for Chinese users. I just helped a friend diagnose this problem with his company's site, so it's likely many people are still just starting to discover what's happened and the economic impact is yet to be fully realized. Hopefully pressure on China will reverse the decision.

Comments

Re:Yeah right

[donscarletti]

It just amazes me to think that anyone would believe that the same China that is currently blocking Google, Youtube and Facebook would hesitate for a second before blocking Edgecast.

As far as they are concerned, there is no economic damage, in fact there is an economic incentive since anyone wanting their website to be usable in China would now be best hiring a CDN within China.

This is similar to what happened when Facebook was blocked and it allowed buggy local clones, notably Renren and Kaixinwang which were previously maligned by users to surge in popularity. Similar also when Google was mostly blocked, allowing Baidu to fill up the void. The thing is, they have every economic reason to block large foreign online services that compete with domestic ones, it's just they cannot block them on economic grounds, since that would be in violation to the free trade principles they espouse and would lead to retaliatory import sanctions. They can however block whatever they like on political grounds.

I do not disagree with Google's pride and principles in not continuing in their previous manner of following Chinese censorship guidelines. However, the net result to the present date is that users have been forced from a service that follows the guidelines only as far as they must and was allowed a fair bit of leeway in their implementation, to others that take the initiative to censor what _might_ be required to be censored for fear of greater pressure if they don't go far enough. The users are also getting exposed to less worldwide ideas. The feeling amongst former users is that Google has abandoned them because of their pride and they are afforded less and less respect by Chinese netizens.

It seems that this whole project was simply going to isolate Chinese netizens further and push China further towards its own separate Internet. This edgecast block will be faced with far less uproar than the ones that came before it, and those caused very little uproar.

Mistaken Western-centric thinking about China

[DNS-and-BIND]

"It left China with either letting go of censorship, or breaking significant chunks of the Internet for their population."

I love the tiny minds at work here. People who cannot see outside of themselves, nor consider any perspective but their own Western one. As if there were any choice involved! China doesn't block websites because they're evil, they block websites because they are damaging to China's body politic. These overseas actors want to harm China, and like antibodies reacting to bacteria, China's government reacts to block the damage. You can cry censorship all you want, but the fact remains that it's for China's own good that these actions are taken.

I remind everyone that the Chinese Communist Party is made up of the smartest people in China. It is full of scientists and engineers, people with analytical minds, and people who are qualified to make decisions for others. If Slashdot were based in China, the most thoughtful constantly-modded-up users would be mostly CCP members. Think of John Gruber, the MIT economist who helped get the badly needed Affordable Care Act passed despite opposition from lesser minds. There is nothing particularly scandalous about what he did. The seriousness of the deception depends on the extent of the harm done. Getting healthcare for millions of uninsured is the same as China's blocking these harmful websites. A little harm is done, mostly to people who intend harm in the first place, and much good is done to people who badly need it. It is a Faustian bargain, but it is worth it. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

The Western mindset that censorship is automatically bad is outdated and unsuitable for 2014 and beyond. We need to just relax and let the smart people do their thing. We're better off with them in charge rather than the mob. If you disagree, then say so - but don't doubt China's justification for its own point of view, which I doubt anyone, especially those in this "freedumb center", has even taken a moment to think over.