

China Is Already Blocking Google+ - obtino
http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/29/google-plus-china-blocked/

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yaix
I think the main reason that Western Social Networks are blocked in China is,
to give Chinese web companies time to grow a Chinese rip-off version of the
Western site. Looking forward to "百度圆圈" (Baidu Yuanquan) or Sina加一 or similar.

In Google's case its probably also to get back at them for having said the
truth too many times.

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trotsky
While I don't doubt that blocking competition is a happy incidental, the
timing of when facebook and twitter were initially blocked makes it clear what
the primary purpose was. July 2009, just after the big Iranian election
demonstrations that were fueled at least in part by social networks, and
immediately following domestic upheaval at the Ürümqi riots. And while I
realize this isn't a popular idea among western tech populations, one should
realize how much of an opportunity there is for foreign intelligence services
[1] to play agent provacateur on these networks when they're controlled by
"the home team".

[1] Solicitation for Persona Management Software by USAF (also solicited by
SOCOM, etc.): [http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-
content/uploads/2011/03/person...](http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-
content/uploads/2011/03/personamanagementcontract.pdf)

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shaldengeki
I'm in Beijing right now, using otherwise-filtered internet. I can't access
Youtube or Facebook or Twitter, but I can access Google Plus without any
noticeable slowdown. Everything feels pretty responsive.

Maybe the filters just haven't gotten to me yet?

~~~
gommm
Same here in Shanghai

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dadads
I find it silly that China blocks Google+, but not 4chan.

([http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/index.php?siteurl=4chan....](http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/index.php?siteurl=4chan.org))

~~~
DavidSJ
4chan doesn't threaten their political power the way an effective social
network does.

~~~
jimmyjim
The birthplace of many groups that have ruffled more than a few feathers has
been 4chan (Anonymous, lulzsec, etc.). I think a place that actively
encourages anonymity and contrarian thought is surely something to worry about
for any government, arguably more than social-networking sites.

~~~
galuggus
4chan doesn't make money.

No one on the mainland has copied it and then paid to have it blocked

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yicai
I read HN from google reader. And it tells me that someone had just liked this
news.

The freedom of China's intranet needs to be fought for by its own people. But
how could anyone `like' current situation like this?

~~~
c1sc0
Someone who agrees that maintaining the current 'social stability' in China
outweighs the benefits brought by yet-another-social-network.

~~~
Retric
You need to also assume that filtering the web increases 'social stability'.
For many young people in China the amount of government interference with the
web is literally their number one complaint.

~~~
bilbo0s
Uhhh...what?

Try 'working conditions'...or actually...try 'just getting a job'.

You must know some super rich Chinese young people if their number one
complaint is Google access.

~~~
Retric
By young think 15 not 25. The problem is not so much they are going to create
a revolution today, rather the government is poisoning the well by eroding
peoples trust.

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seanlinmt
I reckon China is blocking foreign social networking sites for economic
reasons rather than anything else. They have a market that everyone else wants
to tap into. So why let others in when they can "innovate" internally and
provide a made-in-China alternative.

~~~
yinhm
Lovely thought, but not true.

The internet are changing rapidly, a breaking news may spread to the world in
minutes. The government seeing the power shift. They want's everything in
control, they are watching you. They want to make sure they can
censor/delete/block/FUD when things out of there control.

They can not control Google, so they degradation it.

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mike-cardwell
Have they purposefully gone and blocked google plus, or do they simply block
*.google.com and have an exception list?

~~~
fedorabbit
I think they've blocked Google in general... there's no reason to give
exception since it's a conflict in corporation management. You know... China.

~~~
yinhm
The Chinese government didn't block Google in general, that would cause too
much chaos. They interference/degradation all Google services instead,
especially https.

The experience may vary basic on where you located and which ISP is. According
to some of my frineds, it's very slow when they access to
<https://plus.google.com> directly, make it unusable for real.

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praptak
It seems that an obvious attack against the Chinese filtering system would be
fooling it into blacklisting a huge number of neutral sites - I mean the good
old poisoning with fake keywords technique. Yet I haven't heard about anyone
trying this approach.

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Shenglong
Has anyone with a startup that wanted China as a potential growth opportunity
ever try and address this problem? The only reasonable solution I can think
of, is having family in high places lobby for you. Thoughts?

~~~
byw
Censorship is not the only problem - the filter also makes visiting foreign
web sites intolerably slow, so people don't even bother.

One solution is to host your stuff in Hong Kong (which is what Google did).
It's fast for both foreign and Chinese mainland visitors, it's not under the
juridiction of the censorship bureau, and there's a more mature legal system
in place.

AFAIK, every western company that does business in China and every Chinese
company that does businesses overseas has a presence in Hong Kong.

