China has blocked websites including Twitter ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, internet users have said.
If ever one article summed up the way the world has changed this could well be it!
Twenty years ago I remember vividly the images coming from Tiananmen Square. I had a really good friend who was there at the time and never got over what hesaw and experienced. At the time there was absolutely no way that I would ever have envisaged a world full of Twitter, facebook, Google etc. It looks like China want to keep it that way!
It is believed they want to minimise the chance of negative coverage about controversial incident being written or read about my Chinese residents.
Hundreds of civilians were shot when the Chinese army sought to crush a largely-student protest in the Beijing square in 1989.
It is already partly censored and coverage of the deaths do not appear on Google search results in China.
Ahead of the 20th anniversary on Thursday, the authorities have banned access to a range of social networking, photo and video sites.
The sites blocked in the latest crackdown include Twitter, Flickr, Bing, Live.com, Hotmail.com, WordPress and Blogger.
Access to YouTube was halted in March after footage allegedly showing the mistreatment of Tibetan protesters was posted.
“It’s just part of life here. If anything surprises me, it’s that it took them so long,” Beijing-based technology commentator Kaiser Kuo said.
Some users have got round the ban by using a Virtual Private Network or hotspot shield. (Via Sky News)
I can understand where China is coming from… it’s generally much easier to avoid fair market practices or anything resembling competition
LOL well that is true in many ways but not sure it is the best way 🙂