March 05, 2007
China Censors Again
The Chinese government has blocked access to the blogging site LiveJournal cutting off its citizens from the roughly 1.8 million blogs.
SixApart, the company behind LiveJournal, says there are 8,692 self-reported Chinese bloggers on the site, a number that's likely low since it's based on information volunteered in user profiles.
GreatFirewallofChina.org, which tests connectivity to popular Web sites from within China, first spotted the block Friday. The timing of the block coincides with the National People's Congress meeting in Beijing, says Xiao Qiang, a Chinese dissident and founder of the China Digital Times.
According to Xiao, the event is often accompanied by stepped up security and a worsening of China's notorious internet censorship policies.
"For whatever reason (if) you've been blocked, it's almost impossible to get open again," says Xiao. "It could be one of the blogs in Livejournal has the content they want to block. They are very bluntly over-blocking sites."
While Livejournal might be unblocked after the March meeting, Xiao warns, "You never know when they are going to block it again."
Posted by Buzz Webster at March 5, 2007 05:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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