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China Blocks Twitch (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the it-was-fun-while-it-lasted dept.

After becoming the third most popular free app on China's App Store, Twitch is now no longer accessible and the Twitch app has been removed from the country's App Store. Engadget reports: While Twitch was available in China previously, it never gained much traction since its service is much slower than it is elsewhere. But when the country's CCTV state broadcaster chose not to air the Asian Games, those wanting to watch the event's eSports competitions sought coverage from other outlets. Now, with Twitch seemingly blocked in the country, it follows in the footsteps of other banned sites, including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Abacus first reported the news.

72 comments

  1. twitch this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yeah, twitch while u suck my DAMN balls

    1. Re:twitch this by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      'China can Twitch my DAMN balls.'

      Would have been way better.

    2. Re: twitch this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Highdude702 twitches on my DAMN balls

    3. Re: twitch this by TRUMP+IS+IDIOT+(.) · · Score: 1

      Yeah, that's what Stormy said!

    4. Re:twitch this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe if you are into testicular torsion, since that is what your version sounds like.

  2. Whatever happened to... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...that maxim "the internet routes around damage?" Looks like that saying is full of shit.

    1. Re:Whatever happened to... by Luthair · · Score: 1

      Turns out if your an authoritarian regime who controls all the pipes it doesn't.

    2. Re:Whatever happened to... by saloomy · · Score: 1

      No doubt the likes of Weibo or Baidu are concocting a "me too" rip off of the Twitch platform, and in order to ensure its success the govt there helps local services by blocking competition. Welcome to a Communist regime, one step beyond socialism.

    3. Re: Whatever happened to... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's working as designed, routing around damage such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, ...

    4. Re:Whatever happened to... by rtb61 · · Score: 2

      It is logical to favour local internet developments of foreign. It is the sane thing to do, not neccesarily block but certainly deny them all government business but certainly if they want to block they should besides cunts like google offshore the income with claims of massive costs in foreign countries so they pay zero taxes.

      Pay no tax in a country, than why the fuck should they allow you business to operate there, especially an internet business. Honestly with the way those cunts like Google et al behave, they should be blocked in every country where they do not pay tax on the revenue generated there, fuck them.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    5. Re:Whatever happened to... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Twitch may be the damage here, and Chinese internet just routed around it.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    6. Re:Whatever happened to... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tariffs are a form of protectionlism. You better get worried.

    7. Re: Whatever happened to... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or they could impose tariffs.

  3. user-generated content by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    (which is harder to control) is not allowed. free thought is not allowed.

    1. Re: user-generated content by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At this point it's more about intercultural web blending and market exploitation. Not much to do with free speech.

  4. Let China Isolate Itself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They don't have human rights. Their government is woefully authoritarian. Why do we even trade with them, and enable them to grow stronger. China should be isolated until its administrators grow up and act civilly to both its own population and the rest of the world.

    1. Re:Let China Isolate Itself by hjf · · Score: 1

      too late

    2. Re: Let China Isolate Itself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why trade with them? Because MONEY!

    3. Re:Let China Isolate Itself by youngone · · Score: 1

      Thanks A/C, for completely misunderstanding why we trade with China.
      Here's a tip. The people who run your country (and mine) couldn't give a fat rat's ass if the Chinese government kills kittens in its spare time.
      It's not just the Chinese making money.

    4. Re:Let China Isolate Itself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must have missed the bit where I didn't put a question mark. It was rhetorical.

    5. Re:Let China Isolate Itself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Too late, bro. Read it and weep: China’s Sea Control Is a Done Deal, ‘Short of War With the U.S.’

    6. Re: Let China Isolate Itself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Never forget it was Bill Clinton who negotiated and signed the deal to allow China into the WTO...

      https://www.iatp.org/sites/default/files/Full_Text_of_Clintons_Speech_on_China_Trade_Bi.htm

    7. Re: Let China Isolate Itself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nixon.

    8. Re: Let China Isolate Itself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The US and the EU is slowly but steadily becoming a copy of China unfortunatly

    9. Re:Let China Isolate Itself by spth · · Score: 1

      I'd rather say that they tend to value human rights differently than they tend to be valued in the West.

      Let's consider the universal declaration of human rights.

      Surely, people in the West have for quite a while tended to consider the rights in articles 18 to 21 particularly important (though even in the west there is quite some difference - freedom of speech tends to be valued higher in the US than in Britain or Germany.

      On the other hand, people in China tend to value the rights in Articles 22 and 23 more (and are thus more willing to accept restriction to other rights, if they perceive them to be useful in ensuring the rights in 22 and 23).

      Of course some people would consider rights not explicitly contained in that declaration as human rights. An interesting example is the right to petition.It is known in many different cultures. It exists in most western cultures (e.g. first amendment in the US, similar provision in the EU and its members). It has a long history (at least medieval times in Europe, at least 500 BC in China). Still it seems this right is not considered that important in the West these days; I guess severly restricting or even taking away that right in a Western country would be possible. A Chinese government probably wouldn't survive making such an attempt.

      In the end human rights are never absolute; they always have to be interpreted and valued against each other, as there tend to be conflicts (made explicit by Article 29b - it even allows restrictions for "morality", "public order" and "welfare"). Different societies at different times held different opinions. And Article 30 is quite a strong restriction on all the rights.

    10. Re:Let China Isolate Itself by spth · · Score: 1

      Isolating China might have kept them weak. But as you can see by the example of North Korea that doesn't mean it would have resulted in a less authoritarian government. It would very likely have had much worse impact on the people of China than the actions of their current government.

      By now it seems too late anyway. Even if the West could agree on such a policy, few other countries would follow. And US+EU+a few minor countries would probably loose such that second cold war.

      The best option seems to be to continue trading, and hope for some of the Western values gaining a bit of a foothold in the minds of the Chinese population, resulting in slow changes in China (as is already happening for many years).

    11. Re: Let China Isolate Itself by spth · · Score: 1

      If you refer to giving up freedom for security: I'd rather consider that convergent development, not the US and EU taking China as an example. The UK might still be leading there.

    12. Re:Let China Isolate Itself by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Isolating China would have been dumb but tit for tat laws regarding partnering with local corporations would have made sense all day long. Sadly, nobody even tried that as a means of getting them to change their policies.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    13. Re:Let China Isolate Itself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have to disagree. China just banned a political party in Hong Kong so they certainly are not supporting the peoples rights to assemble and form "unions"

  5. Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    lets give American companies 1 year to move production out of China then block them completely, all trade, all internet traffic. When theyâ(TM)re back in the 3rd world shithole America helped pull them out of then maybe weâ(TM)ll talk again. Dont bite the hand that feeds

    1. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just try it. And have China give Americans 1 week to get out. Seize all your assets and cut of trade completely until you wake up to reality.

      The rest of the world is unlikely to follow you down the path to self isolation. The rest of the world will carry on just fine without you. But where will you get all your stuff? Make it at home you say. Well then who will afford it? Your standard of living would drop dramatically if you lost access to all your imported stuff.
      Doubly so if it happened quickly and unexpectedly.

      Who is feeding who?

    2. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only 1 week? In the movie we had 55 days!a

    3. Re:Cool by spth · · Score: 1

      American companies might be able to move production out of China. That means the Chinese factories will the produce for other companies (mostly Chinese, as they already do, a bit for other parts of the world). I don't think the US has the know-how or skills to reindustrialize within one year. At least not to today's standard. The US are still great in a few key industries today, but that's it.

    4. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Production for US might move out of China. But since production for the rest of the world has no incentive to do so (because Trump is alone on this), they might just put up with higher customs and continue doing business there. So US pressure isn't enough to slow down China economy much, and at this pace they are bound to become No.1 some time after 2030 (plus, US policy might change again anyway in a couple of years).

      What Trump is certainy bound to try is to get EU, Japan (etc.) on his side against China economically. He was bullying them first to scare them to go with US, eventually. Then he moved his crosshair at China. It is quite obvious. There's no guarantee they will bite the bait though - e.g. Japan is already increasing ties with China economically, they're too much bound to follow. EU has no apparent reason to sever ties with China, they also won't be able to agree on it anyway. Australia is exporting huge amounts of LNG, they are tied in. Either one of them want to keep in line with rules of WTO (which Trump basically wants to sink or integrate all kinds of exceptions and benefits for US before allowing it to float).

  6. Viewer numbers? by Gabest · · Score: 2

    Did Fortnite and League lose 90%?

  7. And? by Bobrick · · Score: 1

    And nothing of value was lost.

    1. Re:And? by Altrag · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Freedom isn't valuable to you? I mean its China and I realize talking about "freedom" in that context is like kicking the rubble after the building's already collapsed.. but every additional kick is one less pebble the Chinese people have available to them.

    2. Re:And? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're not free retard. The bourgeoisie control all aspects of your life.
      The only freedom you get is the choice between indistinguishable commodities.

    3. Re:And? by Bobrick · · Score: 1

      Freedom... you must be American to associate freedom with a video game streaming website, completely overlooking how your country keeps your people everything but "free".

    4. Re:And? by Altrag · · Score: 1

      And exactly what freedoms do you consider to be non-trivial? Do you really think that only specific freedoms are worth having?

      Never mind the fact that _any_ user-driven content is a potential avenue for someone to tell their story for the world to see. Video is video. Twitch may be associated primarily with games, but as far as I know there's nothing stopping someone from uploading any other type of video content, other than "soft" measures like terms of service agreements.

  8. Alternative Reason - Protectionism by Luthair · · Score: 5, Insightful

    China has a number of popular domestic streaming platforms, perhaps the move to block twitch as it became popular is also to protect their buddies.

    1. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. All their "censorship" is just a way to weasel around WTO treaties and put up trade barriers. China is shit.

    2. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Huya, Pandatv, Douyu are all alternatives to Twitch. They also have MUCH MUCH higher viewer levels than Twitch does. Even the casual streamer easily has a few hundred viewers, which on Twitch would be considered pretty good. The big time streamers have at least 100K viewers at any time. Any Chinese streamer trying to make a living on Twitch versus the alternative would be crazy.

      In the end it probably IS about basic censorship. Just like how foreigners can't easily stream on Huya, Pandatv or Douyu. They don't want anything "subversive" being said.

    3. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      Even the casual streamer easily has a few hundred viewers, which on Twitch would be considered pretty good. The big time streamers have at least 100K viewers at any time.

      Yeah, but they have 1.3 billion people so you would expect higher audience numbers.

      --
      Wanna buy a shirt?
      https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
    4. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Why aren't we doing the same thing? It seems the very job of our government to give our own people an advantage. Instead we get sold out to fund hostile countries that hate us.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    5. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What Trump is doing exactly? WTO is shit.

    6. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 1

      China has a number of popular domestic streaming platforms, perhaps the move to block twitch as it became popular is also to protect their buddies.

      It's probably really the following.
      1) Twitch isn't based in China and it does live streaming. That makes it threat because Chinese Twitch users might be able to live broadcast The Revolution - if it ever happens there.
      2) It helps China based competitors who also cooperate with the government to stay in business and the government does have a way to get them to very quickly stop streaming The Revolution - again, if it ever happens.
      3) For some reason I really don't get, right now China is becoming anti-game on mobile devices and since Twitch is used a lot for streaming game play, blocking a service used to promote game play does fit into their current plans.

    7. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by hjf · · Score: 1

      For some reason I really don't get, right now China is becoming anti-game

      China knows its people. Asians are strange beings. Look at Japanese and Koreans. They become incredibly obsessed with things, to the point of dedicating every moment of their lives to that thing. Sometimes for good, when craftsmen make amazing things. Other times for bad, when kids waste their lives in internet cafes playing videogames.
      China relies on cheap labor. Having their workers play all night and come in tired to work won't do.
      Videogames are the new opium. And China has had a bit of a problem with opium in the past. They learned. Also they're pushing cheap graphics cards (opium) to the west for the same reason.

    8. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Asians are not really strange. People behave like their parents. Asian parents behave like their parent.. and so on.

      Asians are not obsessed with things; they like to perfect things. They are a people who lack creativity (due to *history* of socialism removing all the benefits of being creative). Since they are not creative their historical outlet to out compete one another is through meticulous perfection of *anything* and *everything*. This means people spend years or decades learning to make rice so they can make *the best rice*. People in the US learn to cook rice in 2 minutes by reading the directions and then we go on to spend the saved time being creative and inventing other things. Obviously some things have changed in recent history but these behaviors are learned and passed down over generations and do not change overnight.

      This is not an obsession so much as it is their culture of perfecting things being applied to things that matter even less than cooking rice. Unfortunately the inherent randomness and unobtainable or infinite end game included in these games just makes it that much harder to "perfect". Of course game makers can purposely exploit this to the maximum.

    9. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by Ryanrule · · Score: 1

      Lol at your sig. Why shut them down? Our domestic companies dominate.

    10. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by hjf · · Score: 1

      Pretty sure the asians were obsessed with things long before "socialism" was even a concept. Japan was never socialist. South Korea wasn't either. And both (especially the japanese) have invented A LOT of things.
      And let's not forget that the chinese were civilized when Europe was still barbaric.

    11. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The point is, that any Chinese streamer would normally want to use Chinese services and not slow twitch, unless, e.g. they are "subversive" or some ulterior motive. Just casually looking at Huya, you can see that the biggest streamers have several million viewers. So Twitch viewership is peanuts in comparison, and any Chinese streamer looking to make a living streaming would use a Chinese service rather than Twitch.

      BTW does Twitch have servers in China that China can control? If no, then technically providing services like that would be illegal. Just like how technically Steam is illegal in China, and could be shutdown at any time.

    12. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is pretty much bullshit. Asians do not lack creativity. And if they do, it's only in the last two century where this became an issue. Prior to that China was more innovative than Europe and many ways.

    13. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      China is taking an anti-gaming stance because of the kids. They have made several laws that regulate the amount of time a kid can play games. That's why Tencent's stock took a hit. The kids were just getting addicted to it like an opiate, and the government wants them to continue to working hard and studying.

    14. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by Luthair · · Score: 1

      So far we haven't needed to - have most people even heard of the Alibaba, Panda.tv, or Baidu?

    15. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by Luthair · · Score: 1

      Huya, Pandatv, Douyu are all alternatives to Twitch. They also have MUCH MUCH higher viewer levels than Twitch does. Even the casual streamer easily has a few hundred viewers, which on Twitch would be considered pretty good. The big time streamers have at least 100K viewers at any time. Any Chinese streamer trying to make a living on Twitch versus the alternative would be crazy.

      Chinese streaming numbers are generally considered to be padded.

    16. Re:Alternative Reason - Protectionism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even if the numbers are generously padded by 10 times, the viewership using those platforms would still be much greater than twitch. Especially in China.

      For league of legends, on Huya the top streamer at 8am in the morning (when people are still just getting out of bed) in China had close to "500K" viewers. At 1/10, that's still 50K. The largest on twitch at 8pm, 15.5K viewers.

  9. China's App Store? Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    China's App Store? Really? not Apples App store in China?

  10. Same China that was going to keep buying our chips by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

    If we only hadn't of stood up to them on trade ?

    Or is this a different China that has a "What's mine is mine, what's yours we'll talk about, and do you dare complain" policy.

  11. Re: Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are saying you are into young boys. And we know who you are.

  12. Fan Bingbing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Exactly how do the Chinese people know Fan Bingbing isn't some autocrat's sex slave right now? If she wasn't, wouldn't the government want to reassure the people that the government isn't that corrupted?

  13. Stand up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    First they came for Facebook and I said nothing because my last name was not Zuckerf**k,
    Then they came for twitter and I said nothing because I'm not a twat,
    Then they came for twitch ...

    1. Re: Stand up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...and I rejoiced! Please, go on cleaning the Internet of shit.

  14. Reported on Reddit.. ignored by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Curious why this is only now being picked up? It's been known for a while. Latest post was two days ago, Twitch of course has said nothing.

    https://old.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/9gtiv2/twitch_now_blocked_in_china/

    Thread is somewhat botted already which makes the discussion hard to follow.

  15. At least they didn't block anything good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not like anything important was lost.

  16. China has an app store? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    An app store operated by the People's Republic of China?

  17. Blocking info about Taiwan. by houghi · · Score: 1

    The Asian Games have Taiwan participating. They will want to block that. The result is that they block twitch as well.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  18. Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This girl seems halfway decent at Mario Kart

    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/312587395

  19. plenty of free time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They just have a lot more free time than people in the west. No facebook twitter etc. The economy has been growing at 10% for 30 years, wages increasing at a steady rate (much faster than US wages). Life is great for a large number of them, they have internet and love technology. They could all sit on the couch watching soaps like westerners but they prefer other things, what's so strange?

    The government (and anyone sensible) knows all the things I just mentioned are a waste of productive time. So why not 'encourage' people to do something more useful?

  20. Twitch has a huge camwhore problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    China has banned ASMR and other softcore porn youtube content - this is totally consistent with their policies.

    Twitch isn't a gaming site, now their primary source of income is underage girls being paid to shake their titties by underage kids. "Femininst Gurl Gamerz" my ass!

    If Twitch survives that, expect Nintendo and friends to start holding them to account on their anti-piracy policy - probably 90% of "retro" streamers are using Da Romzs!

  21. stuck in the country by ennis99 · · Score: 1

    I did not know that Facebook, YouTube and Twitter were stuck in the country, their government is terribly authoritarian ____________________________________________________ https://www.minimilitia.mobi/ https://www.applock.ooo/ https://www.7zip.vip/