Blocked Sites in China - Best Blogs Asia
An article on how by China blocking certain sites, a huge portion of your readership is gone.
In the recent news, China has barred and blocked sites like Hotmail and Twitter because of politics. Now I dare not explain the reasons why due to the fear my site will be banned too, however it’s usually a temporary measure…
Blocked Websites
There’s a big uproar at the moment in China (it’s where I’m based too) since now Hotmail and the Popular Twitter have been added to the long list of blocked sites.
Other sites currently blocked include:
- Flickr
- Youtube
- Livejournal
- Blogspot
- Geocities
Impact on Site Owners
The impact on site owners is huge. If you currently use a free hosted site service to contain your site, then there is a great chance of it been blocked by China at some point in time. The same goes for politically charged content, certain anniversaries and explicit content.
In fact it’s been said there are over 1 million “Net Police” headquartered in Beijing who monitor what the locals can and can’t view…it’s a figure worth taking into account!
Other Alternatives
I guess you will only know if your site has been blocked by contact from your China based readership or if your stats package doesn’t show any hits from the Chinese region.
There is no way to contact the Net Police for a review, only the hope that you will be unblocked at some point in time. Another way could be changing hosts, perhaps Hong Kong based if there’s a ban on certain hosts?
People use Proxy sites to bypass restrictions on sites, but it’s illegal and doesn’t offer a long term solution anyway.
Conclusion
Messaging sites like QQ and Yahoo Messenger are still up and running, which is surprising since they account for a bigger audience in countries like China!
China along with Korea and the States account for the biggest online population, so it’s important to take steps and be careful.
5 Replies:
Thanks for providing this information. Very helpful. I just arrived in China for a six-city, three-week holiday, having made plans to blog my friends and family back in the States. I developed a site to host photos, talk about food and tourist attractions, etc. What a surprise to find out that I couldn’t access my own blog (on Blogspot) in order to post. Hopefully, the ban will lift soon, and I can tell folks about all I see in China. Again, thanks for the info. Kind regards, …
thanks for the comment! I don’t think they’ll unblock blogspot any time soon, is a pain that can’t view Youtube here either…
Just got back from the Uk to find that Facebook has now been added to the blocked list too. Impossible to log on, and can boot you from the internet for even attempting. It still amazes me that they have the power and ability to do this kind of thing, but there you have it folks. Slowly loosing contact with the outside world! God bless China, and here’s hoping they unblock things soon!!
Yep it’s like that in China, Twitter is blocked too. There are many similar sites, if not copies of these sites and I’ll be reviewing them soon!