
Major Chinese-made web browsers are reportedly blocking 996ICU's GitHub repo - rqs
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2F996icu%2F996.ICU%2Fpull%2F24904%23issuecomment-478881871
======
hyper_reality
Discussion last week on HN with more info about what 996ICU is:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19498179](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19498179)

------
AFascistWorld
Overtime in China is the norm, in factories, if you do 40 hrs per week, you
will only get the minimum wage in your city, mostly around 200 dollars a
month, and you will get kicked real quick.

This looks more like an industry behavior, which is not uncommon in China, for
example Tencent blocked on its WeChat self-media platform(a little like
Facebook's Instant Articles but much more low-brow and dominant) unflattering
articles about PinDuoDuo when it was goinf public in the US, which they
invested in.

Cellphone reviewers has long been under control of the brands, they give out
guidlines about how to write the review along with test units, manage them in
their work groups.

The 360 Chrome brower queries these URLs every time you start the browser or
open a URL, namely to give the url a safety and info badge.

site.browser.360.cn

cdata.browser.360.cn

cdn.weather.hao.360.cn

------
yorwba
According to this thread on V2EX, the block was changed to a redirect to
GitHub's 404 page:
[https://www.v2ex.com/t/551405#reply19](https://www.v2ex.com/t/551405#reply19)

~~~
zachguo
So it seems this is actually done by private companies since they are on the
blacklist.

------
duxup
The actual browsers are hard coded to filter a single github repo?

Is it common for them to filter at the browser level?

~~~
rqs
Maybe those web browsers are linked to a online URL database. If any URL is
matched in the database, then they will refuse to load the page.

But if true, that also means those web browsers are querying a online database
when user is trying to access a URL.

Not a good news no matter how you hold it.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Doesn't Chrome and Firefox do the same for known malicious websites? IIRC they
use hashes and / or a local database of hashes, but I can't be sure. Pretty
sure that caused major controversy in its earlier days too.

~~~
codedokode
Yes, they download a database of forbidden sites from Google (SafeBrowsing)
[1]

[1] [https://safebrowsing.google.com/](https://safebrowsing.google.com/)

------
rqs
Without Google Translation (In Chinese):
[https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU/pull/24904#issuecomment-47...](https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU/pull/24904#issuecomment-478881871)

~~~
yorwba
> 加?问号随机参数试试，微信可以打开

The block isn't very smart if it can be circumvented by adding random query
parameters with a question mark.

~~~
duxup
Maybe, but you have to know to do that in order to get around it.

If you don't know much about the page and get a 404, maybe you just roll on.

If you know to circumvent it, then you probabbly know a bit more about the
page anyway, maybe not the person they're trying to filter it from.

At least from UI testing we know that a thing not working, or just working
slowly is enough to turn away a lot of people.

~~~
b_tterc_p
Maybe

But it is a github repo. Only a small number of interested people are going to
be headed there

------
beatle_sauce
This is currently listed as the most starred repository on Github with 153k
stars:

[https://github.com/search?q=stars%3A%3E0&s=stars&type=Reposi...](https://github.com/search?q=stars%3A%3E0&s=stars&type=Repositories)
(There was the freeCodeCamp repo with 300k stars, but I don't see it in the
list anymore.)

I am surprised that this protest does not get more media coverage. Also,
Alibaba and Huawei are in the list of companies...

~~~
Grue3
I see freeCodeCamp, it's currently #1 for me, while 996.ICU is #2.

------
SimeVidas
Are these browsers popular in China? I’m only aware of UC.

~~~
yorwba
The QQ browser is the default for opening URLs in Tencent's popular messaging
apps QQ and WeChat, so it probably has a larger market share than UC. The
others are a bit more niche I think, but I don't know for sure. There should
be some statistics on this page by Baidu, but I can't confirm because it
requires Flash (!) and I'm on mobile:
[https://tongji.baidu.com/data/browser](https://tongji.baidu.com/data/browser)

------
deogeo
I've noticed that this story is sliding off the front page incredibly quickly,
despite the large number of points accumulated in a short amount of time. Does
anyone know why?

~~~
shadofx
It's political in nature

------
maimeowmeow
How come operators of the github page are not in some reeducation camp, or
elimitated? Seems like the censors are not as knowing as we thought.

~~~
narrator
As long as you are very clear you are not directing your anger at the
government, it's usually ok to protest in China. For example, there are often
mass protests if wages are not paid to factory workers, etc.

[https://www.voanews.com/a/chinese-migrant-workers-protest-
un...](https://www.voanews.com/a/chinese-migrant-workers-protest-unpaid-
wages/3682577.html)

~~~
outloudvi
Maybe I interpret it wrong, but here is a tricky point: You have to apply for
government's permission to do a legal on-street protest.

ref:
[http://www.npc.gov.cn/wxzl/gongbao/1989-10/31/content_148121...](http://www.npc.gov.cn/wxzl/gongbao/1989-10/31/content_1481217.htm)
(Chapter 2 Article 7, Chinese)

~~~
outloudvi
Thanks for your replies. I see that it's also required in other countries.

So I'm a little curious that if a protest is related to complaints about the
government, will it get accepted (at most cases)?

~~~
swuecho
most of them will not be accepted or considered at all. in very rare case,
protest will be accepted or encouraged, most of them have gov behind it.

------
alexnewman
i work 996 because i am so impressed with china. now i’m reconsidering this
behavior

~~~
chillacy
Unless your workdays are full of playing games and drinking with coworkers
you’ll probably burn out with that schedule.

But then again startups founders work those hours or more

~~~
alexnewman
OOh right, i'm a founder. I feel the opposite of burning out.

------
kimown
uc browser and qqbrowser are monitor pages you visited.

------
noeatnosleep
Shocking!

------
jnmandal
This is outrageous. 团结

------
abc-xyz
I suspect in the near future devices sold in China will be unable to install
certain apps (similar to how Apple recently removed Taiwan's national flag for
all Macs sold in China with its latest update -
[https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremyburge/status/11109235618820...](https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremyburge/status/1110923561882058754)),
foreign browsers will stop working (and be forced to implement support for
this functionality to the extent that the Chinese government can not only
block specific pages on https (as we see here) but also replace the individual
page with their own content).. This will make it very easy for China to not
only censor the internet, but also to rewrite history completely. Replace the
Wikipedia article related to the Tienanmen massacre with their own, replace
Googles search results with their own, etc.

To make matters even more scary, they'll put great emphasis on promoting their
own browsers in foreign countries, force hardware vendors to preinstall their
browsers on devices sold outside China. Forget about the Chinese Firewall,
this will take censorship and rewritten history to a whole new level that will
affect people all over the world, and make it much much easier to affect
foreign policies and elections.

Now for the sad part, even after they've showed their cards, companies and
governments will still continue to invest in China, continue to bend over and
do whatever they ask for.

~~~
tracer4201
They’ll rewrite any article that they feel is a threat to their power systems
and therefore a threat to China. No surprise there. We have similar measures
in the US - the government is willing to strip your rights if they feel you’re
a threat.

There is nothing really all that new in what you’ve suggested. I would be
surprised if those things didn’t happen.

~~~
abc-xyz
I've never seen any major browser (or some other method) censor/rewrite an
individual page that's protected by SSL before.. as far as I know then it's
not possible, which is why they've had to resort to banning the entire website
(which in GitHub's case would be too costly).. If you know about previous
incidents then please do share.

From today we know they are already able to do whatever they please (as long
as they can get people to use their browser).. abuse other organizations
reputation to spread lies and misinformation. If governments don't act then it
won't be long until all these Huawei, Lenovo, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, etc
devices come with their browsers preinstalled (and likely default back to
their browser to open links from other apps even if you tried to change the
browser).

