Media regulation

Blogspot blocked again — ongoing saga

China's Net Nanny is again manifesting her bipolar disorder: she's blocked the blog hosting service Blogspot again. Below is a summary of the Nanny's recent fickleness:

Blogspot unblocked again March 29, 2007

Foreign blog providers (including Blogspot) blocked March 20, 2007

Blogspot working in Beijing again November 23, 2006

Blogspot blocked again October 27, 2006

Blogspot unblocked August 9, 2006

- Blogspot was first blocked in 2003

Nanny, take the lithium already!

There are currently 14 Comments for Blogspot blocked again — ongoing saga.

Comments on Blogspot blocked again — ongoing saga

I wonder if the explanation could be a Dr. Jekyll und Mr. Hyde like power struggle inside the beloved nanny's head.

Perhaps the nanny needs a shrink.

Blogspot is still viewable in Nanjing using CT's VNet service...is this a Northern Capital thing?

I'm not sure whether the lithium will help, even if it would be the real stuff.

It's back.

Seems to be partial. Here in Dalian I'm able to access some blogspot blogs, but unable to access some others. It's been like this for a while.

Related today are the protests in Xiamen where you report Flickr is not wholly blocked, only the pages with photos of the protest.

The Golden Shield is wising up to the bad press and blocking becoming more refined/less of a blunt tool.

Blogspot is working in Beijing.

Blogspot and comments are working in Beijing.

The weirdest part is that it's only Blogspot that Netnanny has such manic issues with. Xanga and Livejournal are blocked for good it seems, ever since the "Two Meetings". My guess is because Blogspot is run by Google, and Google might get a little slack (the temporary blockages being a reminder of who's really in charge) since they've capitulated on the search engine thing...

It's that time of year again, which is why they blocked it again. For the same reason the blockage will probably be a temporary affair, lasting a week at most..

ARGH! I just want to blog a bit of non-controversial, vanilla crap. Where's my freedom to be boring?

You can always bump week old topic on Danwei for entertaiment!

Anyway, I have a blog on blogspot. Next time I go back to China I make sure I have everything set up so I give Net nanny a good spanking (i.e load up on hacking tools)...


Well, spoke too soon; they caught up and the 'Spot is now blocked for me, too.

Blogspot is blocked again today... maybe authorities want a monopoly on coverage of the Taiwan negotiations? Or perhaps the recent Tokyo press conference with the Dalai Lama is the pretext? In any case, it's annoying and childish.

It is Google that must answer to God and the owners' own innermost self when they agreed to allow censorship. Both the U.N. and the United States must draft laws outlawing internet censorship in these extreme forms. Google should have known the commercial pressure for China to acquire internet access was so overpowering that they would have absolutely had to relent had both Google and Yahoo refused to allow censorship. These entities have blood on their hands for some of the tragic results of Cisco Sytems monitoring the emails of private Chinese citizens, resulting in their torture. This is one American who cares deeply about China.

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