For a bleeding-edge tech company, it's sure hard not to feel Google's been a bit slow to acknowledge and address a phenomenon that anyone in China has been witnessing for years -- search results are censored.
In a new video and blog post, the folks at Google illustrate the problem and explain that they will now be notifying users that their search query may result in access to Google being cut off for a minute or …
Despite all the talk, all the late night sweats in Beijing, and all the curses from VPN-lagging China-based twitterers; it turns out Twitter and the PRC see more eye-to-eye than either side would have you believe.
The following is a screen capture by Nick (@riceagain), a Kiwi splitting his time between Taiwan and the Mainland, who noticed a peculiar phrasing when attempting to set the Twitter tweet location to "Ta…
As I write this, I am listening to Radio Free Asia, a podcast which I subscribed to on iTunes with no hassle. After I finish writing this, I plan, just for shits and grins, to run a Google search on Liu Xiaobo and proclaim my love for a free Tibet on Twitter.
When I first came to China, all the hysteria I'd heard about going to live under a Communist regime turned out to be unfounded. Chief among them: the interne…
According to a post on Global Voices, Sven Englund, a Swede studying in Shanghai's Fudan University, has been interrogated and has had his passport confiscated by Shanghai police after writing a "letter" to the Chinese President Hu Jintao in his Chinese-language blog.
Not wishing to bring any undue wrath down on me or mine, I'll not re-post Sven's letter, which GV has translated. Essentially it asks China's presid…
This is clever.
So a few years ago Google enters China and is put under a global grilling lamp on whether or not it will adhere to local laws regarding censorship and its search results. Don't Be Evil held for a little while, but 300+ million Chinese Internet users was bound to make anyone check their morals at the gate eventually. But then, after floundering around in the country for a few years, they largely sai…
Usually I love living in China, thirstily drinking the kool-aid that this place is changing for the better, improving a little bit every day. Sure it has its warts, but compared to 5 years ago, 15 years ago, 35 years ago... it's definitely improving -- right?
Then Youtube gets blocked, Facebook and Twitter follow, as do pretty much all major UGC/SMS sites. Ok, ok, it's a complete pain in the ass, seems totally bac…
Tom Lasseter, who in 2009 took over the Beijing bureau chief spot for McClatchy Newspapers from long-timer Tim Johnson, has a great post on his blog about the GFW.
Due to a computer glitch, Tom lost his VPN the other night and without it decided to traipse around the Internet as viewed from inside China (and with no tunnel out). Poking around here and there and brushing up against its fiery walls, he concludes tha…
Yesterday Elaine at the Shanghaiist reported a number of sites were miraculously unblocked -- Vimeo, Hootsuite, VOA News. Checking now and it appears Hootsuite has re-fallen to the mighty River Crab, but Vimeo is still powering along ... for now.
Twitter, Youtube and Facebook are all still unaccessible.
…
Welcome back one and all to the May edition of Fact or Fiction. Those of you who read either of the last three will know, every edition I will have a guest and we will discuss a few of the big issues in China of the day. Every answer will have a “Fact” or a “Fiction” and some justification to go along with it.
Today my guest is Josh Summers, a writer with a passion for the province of Xinjiang. He and his…
If you've somehow missed the news, Google.cn has officially exited China, sort of. Instead of pulling out of the country completely, they've moved the search division of their business to Hong Kong, which is free of the political censorship rules that the Mainland's internet is subject to.
Now when visiting google.cn, visitors are automatically redirected to Google.com.hk, which now features Simplified Chinese opt…
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