Tag Archives: GreatFirewall

In a bid to control the internet, China tries to put the squeeze on mobile news apps

Posted on by

In a bid to control the internet, China tries to put the squeeze on mobile news apps

It's like Jeff Goldblum's neurotic, chaos theory spouting character in Jurassic Park said: "life, uh, finds a way." Or, in this case, it's the internet that can't be kept down at heel. According to a Reuters report, the Chinese government's State Internet Information Office has instituted a "crackdown" on rogue mobile news apps that purportedly transmit images of pornography and other "obscene information" to children. But what's more likely, however, is that the apps in question serve as a workaround for citizens seeking news reports from established foreign media outlets; news that would otherwise be censored.

The move could see any offending app makers, which includes popular apps like Zaker and Chouti, effectively shut down if they fail to fall in line and sanitize their content. China's long had a history of strangling internet access, but this development, coupled with recent news of censorship as usual for its Shanghai free trade zone, highlights just how difficult it is for the state to control the web. And with new social networks cropping up every day and promising novel means of spreading illegal information, that fight's fast becoming a losing battle.

Filed under: ,

Comments

Source: Reuters

Chinese state media squashes claims of less restricted internet in Shanghai zone (updated)

Posted on by

Image

A few days ago, the South China Morning Post claimed that blocks put on websites like Twitter, Facebook and The New York Times were to be lifted in Shanghai's new free-trade zone. And the justification made sense, too: relax restrictions to make visitors happy, and potentially cash in on accelerated foreign investment as a result. Plausible, sure, but according to state-run news outlet the People's Daily, completely untrue. As it turns out, the Chinese powers that be allegedly have no intention of allowing web traffic in the free-trade zone to circumvent the Great Firewall, which means visiting Twitter addicts will still have to turn to Weibo for their social network / microblogging fix.

[Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]

Update: People.com.cn (not the People's Daily, as reported earlier) has since pulled its post. There's no explanation as to why.

Filed under:

Comments

Via: The Register

Source: TechWeb (Chinese)

China said to be unblocking sites like Facebook, Twitter and the NYT, but only in a small part of Shanghai

Posted on by

China said to be unblocking sites like Facebook, Twitter and the NYT, but only in a small area of Shanghai

Given how large a mobile market China has become, and its role in gadget manufacturing globally, we sometimes forget the government of this increasingly tech-aware country still dictates what corners of the web its peoples can see. Today, the South China Morning Post reports the state has decided to unblock several foreign internet sites "considered politically sensitive," but only in the free-trade zone of Shanghai's Pudong New Area. According to "government sources," the move to open access to sites including Facebook, Twitter (both of which were cut off in 2009) and The New York Times (blocked last year) is so visitors can "live and work happily in the free-trade zone." The greater goal is to make the area more attractive to foreign companies, beyond the favorable regulatory and tax environment, of course. Furthermore, the Chinese are allegedly beckoning overseas firms to come in and "provide internet services" for the new, 30 square kilometer zone. The Great Firewall may remain firmly up for the rest of the country and its billion-odd population, but one step at a time and all that.

[Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]

Filed under:

Comments

Via: Quartz

Source: South China Morning Post

Google quietly removed search warning message in China in early December 2012

Posted on by

Google's search engine has a turbulent history in China, from search results being censored to temporary shutdowns. The company's most recent effort to serve mainland China with unfiltered search results met with an untimely end back in early December, Google confirms -- a warning previously told mainlanders when the search term they were using had met with issues (read: Chinese government intrusion causing lengthy connection times) for other users. GreatFire discovered that said message no longer popped up when searching for various censored terms on Google Search in China, and while Google's confirming that fact, it's unclear what the exact reasoning is. Given the rocky history between Google and China, it seems likely that China responded in turn to Google's efforts with its own -- or as The Guardian puts it, "Google concedes defeat in China censorship battle." Whether that's the case or not remains to be seen, but Chinese Google searchers should beware that your experience may result in some unfortunate connection issues from time to time (as much as 90 seconds), per China's censorship policies.

Filed under: , ,

Comments

Via: The Guardian, The Verge

Source: GreatFire

Google services grind to a halt in China, political transition suspected as the culprit (update)

Posted on by

Great Firewall of China hits Google

As eagerly as Google has gone through routing acrobatics to minimize the Chinese government's ability to censor and spy on its its services, it's still at the mercy of the Great Firewall. The company might have just run head-first into the bricks as of Friday. As confirmed by some of our own staff, all of Google's services stopped working in China for at least the better part of a day despite the search firm verifying that everything was in good working order. Officials haven't confirmed that anything was afoot, but it's easy to raise the specter of possible censorship given local political maneuvering. The once-a-decade Communist Party Congress began on Thursday, and the establishment may have wanted to cut off a relatively unfiltered line of communication for dissidents during a transition of power. We're hearing that access may have ameliorated in at least parts of the country, which would be a pleasant surprise -- not that a sudden improvement in service will cheer up those who know they still face a backlog.

Update: As SlashGear notes, Computerworld / IDG has reported that Google's services were up and running in country again after about 12 hours of being inaccessible. Official details on the blocking are still slim as ever (and will likely remain as such) about the happenings, but you can click through the links above for more in the meantime.

Filed under: , ,

Google services grind to a halt in China, political transition suspected as the culprit (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Nov 2012 00:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Computerworld  |  sourceGoogle Transparency Report  | Email this | Comments

Google to flag ‘censored’ searches for Chinese users (video)

Posted on by

Image

Google is announcing that it's going to place a flag on contentious search terms for users in mainland China. Mountain View's Alan Eustace euphemistically described how some searches break a connection to the service, leading to users being frozen out for around a minute each time. He theatrically added that the company has checked its servers several times and found no error, so whatever issue causes these outages must be external. Whenever a term is typed that is likely to cause an "outage," the error message in the picture above will appear, with a suggestion to search for something else, or use Pinyin to search for a term where contentious keywords appear inside otherwise natural searches.

Continue reading Google to flag 'censored' searches for Chinese users (video)

Google to flag 'censored' searches for Chinese users (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Jun 2012 10:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Register  |  sourceGoogle Inside Search  | Email this | Comments