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China Blocks Twitter, Hotmail, Flickr, Bing Before Tiananmen 20th
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by Truemorist | June 2, 2009 at 07:03 am
2191 views | 48 Recommendations | 10 comments
China's government is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests by blocking Twitter, Hotmail, Flickr, Bing, YouTube, Blogspot, Tumblr, Livejournal, Xanga, Wordpress, Friendfeed, Windows Live, and just about every other social networking tool that Beijing can think of.
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Will Google Wave or Microsoft Vine Replace Twitter and Facebook? | Photo 04
uploaded by CynicalPatriot
What better way to celebrate the anniversary of a civil rights crackdown than by expanding the Great Firewall even further?
Yikes... they even blocked Bing, before the new-car smell wore off.
Users attempting to circumvent the free-speech crackdown are attempting to log-on using a proxy and are searching "#twitterblock" to find ways to get around the ban.
This isn't the first time this has happened: remember when China blocked YouTube over the Tibet violence footage? Good times.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (10)
at 07:18 on June 2nd, 2009
Any idea did they block NP ?
.Agent.
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liquilite1at 12:01 on June 2nd, 2009
Are any of you really suprised? China has one of the worst human rights records EVER. They are laughing all the way to the bank while they poison us with antifreeze in our toothpaste and lead in the toys you buy your children at Christmas ( and we wonder why autism is so high in the US) when they're not hacking all of our corporate and military secrets ( remember the Ghost Network that was found a few months ago?). BOYCOTT EVERYTHING CHINESE. We are basically paying them to slowly kill us, whether it be literally or economically. I'm sure there are many other countries that would love to make our products just as cheap without all the poison and death stuff...
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Canada_Joey (not verified)at 15:55 on June 2nd, 2009
Have you ever been to China? How many other countries have you explored? It seems so ironic to me that Americans pretend to have this right of freedom and capitalism but in the end, as we are seeing, capitalism and a free market is failing. Do you think Americans don't abuse the freedoms of their own citizens? I hope you realise that the American Internet as you know rather than being blocked is fully scoured day and night by several federal agencies. Phones are tapped and prisoners are treated poorly. I have personally lived in China and albeit foreigners are treated differently than Chinese Nationals, China is only doing what any other country out there does. It's protecting it's own interests. Call it selfish but the US will do whatever it takes to protect commodities, resources, and it's way of life. Look at Saudi Arabia; How often do you hear of issues coming out of that country? They have a worse human rights record than China. They torcher, crucify, and have no rights for women in the country. Why are they not on the world stage all the time? They give us oil. I have been to every continent on the planet and every country has it's own way of protecting itself and the interests of it's citizens. Believe it or not the Chinese are a very proud and nationalistic society. Keep in mind that China is not the sole off shore country for products. SE Asia and Latin America make up over 40% of products entering America. China actually runs factories in the US, owns a trillion in US bonds (imagine that .... China is actually holding up America while we're falling apart) and is taking steps to improve their own population. The society is too complex to write about in one article here but I can tell you that it has been the most successful race for the past 5000 years (of course they have their ups and downs) and has given more to the world than America. Unless you are talking about weapons. Doesn't it seem odd that the American's do not want to allow any other country out there to build a strong military, expand their influence nor allow nuclear technology build ups to happen yet the hypocrisy convienently shows us that the US is more than happy to. Sounds like a double standard to me.
You need to get out more.
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liquilite1at 10:08 on June 3rd, 2009
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/imm_imm_to_the_uni_sta_imm_sum_1830_to_2000_2000-united-states-summary-1830-2000
...I guess this stat is so high because China is such a great country to live in. And it doesnt count the illegals either. Oh, and I dont remember defending Saudi Arabia's human rights record ( which is well publicized actually ) or saying that China is the only country that the US imports from either...you make alot of assumptions. Did you ever think that China willingly holds our current debt because we are their biggest and best customer? You claim a double standard by the US trying to stifle Chinas growth...they already have a well established military, have nuclear weapons, and expand their influence across the globe ( like Tibet or Taiwan for example...how's that going by the way?) You claim that Capitalism and free trade are failing, but at the same time admit that economies have their ups and downs...so, wouldnt it be more fair to say that Capitalism and free trade are just in a down turn, and not necessarily failing? My ultimate point is that I dont believe that the US should do business with China ( or Saudi Arabia for that matter but thats a whole other discussion). I dont care how long they've been in existence, or what the've supposedly given to the world, or how proud they are, I dont think we should help fund their "growth".
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alan567 (not verified)at 06:54 on June 3rd, 2009
think objectively,chap. material toxins might be from imported goods from china but finanacial toxins are exclusively from wall street in nyc usa.
peopel and government are not the same.
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liquilite1at 09:00 on June 3rd, 2009
This is true....people and govenment are not the same...we all suffer at the hands of our own government in one way or another, some more than others. I should have clarified that my point was aimed more at their government, not the people themselves. I do not necessarily believe that all of the common Chinese citizens are out to get us in some paranoid fashion...they are most likely against their govenments actions which is how we got to Tiananmen Square in the first place. Apologies.
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Jim Em (not verified)at 19:52 on June 2nd, 2009
All a chinese person needs to do to see anything on the web is to use an anonymous proxy server that a transplanted American dumbphuk such as myself can easily find here in China is all I need to see any blocked site. The Great so called Chinese Cyber Wall is silly and leaky as hell. Where there is a will, there is a way. Once the control freak authorities really come to grips with that is when the great cyber wall will probably silently be closed down. But not till China does a bit more reforming so as not to catch themselves in some very embarrassing situations.
I think the biggest problem the Chinese authorities have is their over bearing quest to only show the good side of China and cover up the bad. What I believe they fail to understand, that by doing so it only invites more hate towards China and adds more fodder to those that distort the truth and gives them a free pass to simply make up stuff on the fly to swell their donation coffers.
China is far more transparent then anytime in their history. But they need to become even more so to help stop the incessant China bashing.
Lets hope that when the 25th anniversary comes around that the feeling of a huge cover up will not be universally accepted in the world, but rather China says publicly that they could have handled it differently and they regret the pain, death and suffering their draconian crackdown resulted in. It would do them well to take the Janet Reno admission of taking full responsibility after Wako to heart and do the same.
While it won't put the China hate to bed, people will say, "well its about time" and slowly start paying attention to what China is really like, instead of what the talking heads tell us it is.
Peace
Jim
.
--------------------
"Life is so simple
But we insist on making it complicated"
Confucius (551-479 BCE)
============
I'm an English teacher here in China and I'd like to think I am making a difference with my students lives, but the fact of the matter, there is a lot of students I believe I am making such a difference, then there are the ones I am not only teaching, but building the corrupt, incompetent, baijiu-swilling buttheads of tomorrow!
.
I never said China is perfect
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therepoat 02:31 on June 4th, 2009
These Chinese guys are crazy! Why would they want their citizens to be cut off from the outside world? This is plain nuts.. It's high time the Chinese guys fight their govt
at 07:21 on June 4th, 2009
Maybe to protect their secret recipes ?
.Agent.
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TonyB (not verified)at 11:03 on June 4th, 2009
I didn't really care too much about this whole issue—figured it was China up to its same old tricks. But then I saw this video: http://www.newsy.com/videos/newsy_in_depth_report_china_s_internet_maintenance_day
I think what struck me most was the old footage that we've all seen, and realizing that things aren't very different from 20 years ago. Luckily there are still those who will stand in front of the tanks (or in this case, go through the hassle of tweeting through a VPN). China's minority is heard by the free world, but unfortunately the country's powerful militarism and extremely toxic and volatile rulers—who control the output of goods to the US—stand in the way of that country's development.
But that's just how China is. It's a very very old country that resists and resists and resists change until they incur a very bloody revolution. It's only a matter of time before the environment explodes.