[UPDATE 1 April 2008, 18:15 HK time: China-based journalist & internet/media expert Thomas Crampton has just sent me an email alerting me to a post on his blog discussing this issue in depth. Check out the comments as well.]
Well, I’ve just confirmed that my blog that you’re reading right now is blocked in China. Several people in Shanghai and Beijing have reported this to me.
This is really too bad because:
- I don’t talk about politics in this blog (buy me a beer, gain my trust, and I’ll talk you’re ear off). I will say one (and only one) thing, for the record: I am highly critical of the “Tibet independence” movement:
- People in China are interested in what I write about (Web 2.0, indie-filmmaking, Red Digital Cinema camera)–but can’t read my stuff. This, ultimately and combined with all the other good info which is blocked, slows down the economic development of China.
Apparently WordPress.com blogs have been virtually or mostly blocked in China for the last couple years:
http://telecomsecurity.blogspot.com/2006/02/wordpresscom-blocked-at-china.html
http://www.thomascrampton.com/dalian/wordpresscom-and-the-great-firewall-of-china/
http://msmyla.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/wordpress-blocked-in-china/
http://thinkchina.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/blocked-in-china/
http://msmyla.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/free-wordpresscom/
My company’s web site is not blocked in China (nor is there any conceivable reason why it should be)–I can tell this from Google Analytics.
Punchline: If you’re planning Web 2.0 apps or social networks (or enterprise level SaaS apps for collaboration) with a presence in China, then what’s commonly referred to as the “Great Firewall of China” (GFWC) is a potentially serious ’spanner in the works’ and ‘fly in the ointment’ that needs to be studied and taken into consideration.
P.S. This is not a China-only phenomenon: WordPress.com blogs, reportedly, cannot be accessed from Turkey either (because, reportedly and from what I can gather, someone wrote a WordPress blog with criticisms of a fundamentalist creationist Turkish anti-Semite. This WordPress blogger was sued for libel by said anti-Semite, who also subsequently forced Turkish authorities to ban all WordPress blogs in Turkey). Yikes. And, as ZDNet reports, the U.S. government also engages in this activity of blocking sites.
P.P.S. I’ve turned comments off on this post, because this blog is not a place for politics. It’s a blog about Web 2.0 and indie film-making. Politics, in this instance, impacts the topics I write on and my ability to blog–thus the post, on info genuinely interesting to my readership. But I won’t allow this to become a sounding board for politics–you have millions of options elsewhere for that. If you have a genuine suggestion or feedback, send me an email.
