Huffington Post Blocked in Mainland China

As the Chinese government begins its pre-Olympics media crackdown, the Huffington Post appears to be the latest victim in a recent wave of Internet censorship. A HuffPost reader in Shanghai reported Tuesday that when she attempted to connect to the site, an error page all too familiar to Net users in China loaded instead. The page says there is an "error" -- the same "error" that has accompanied the loading of BBC News, CBC News, Wikipedia, YouTube, and all other sites deemed "sensitive" that have been blocked periodically in recent years. Numerous other sources in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou confirmed that as of early Friday morning in China, HuffPost remains blocked on the mainland.

Chinese officials never explain, or even announce, when or why they block and unblock certain sites. However, Internet censorship has historically coincided with either major national events such as Communist Party meetings, or times of political unrest, like the riots earlier this year in Tibet. When citizen-produced videos and photographs emerged from Tibet in March, China restricted YouTube and some user-driven photo sites. The 2008 Beijing Olympics, a mere seven weeks away, serves as China's newest reason, and best yet, to tighten the reins on news, opinion, images and video from outside that appears on the Web.

Earlier this week, many sites that are part of the MTV Networks were taken offline in mainland China, including ComedyCentral.com, parts of VH1's site, Nick.com and the individual sites for The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. As one China-based blogger explained to HuffPost, "It seems to be an IP (Internet protocol) block rather than a site-specific block. Only those MTV-owned sites hosted on a particular server seem to be affected. Others, including MTV.com and MTVChina.com, not on the same server, are still accessible." With the block of a server, as opposed to an individual site, one cannot be certain which of the sites was targeted by Chinese censors. The blogger went on to say, "It's impossible to know what the exact reason for blocking these sites is, but it still amounts to censorship, and cuts Chinese netizens' access to quality programming otherwise unavailable in China."

As for America's "Internet newspaper," the Huffington Post, all it takes is one news story, blog post, photo or even a comment to set off the alarms in China's Ministry of Information.

With the Olympics quickly approaching, China's government seems to be controlling the flow of information as tightly as ever and in doing so, reneging on its promise to the International Olympic Committee back in 2001. During the selection process for the 2008 Summer Games, Beijing vowed to espouse new ideals of democracy and human rights, adopting the motto "New Beijing, Great Olympics."

The Olympics might be "great" yet. But what is "new" in Beijing, like the inability to access the Huffington Post, the Daily Show or Colbert, isn't so "great" for Olympic organizers, human rights groups or even your average web user in China. Glen Wong, an American fashion designer currently in south China for work said Thursday, "I love coming to China, but it becomes stressful never knowing what sites are or aren't blocked, where I'll be able to get my news, watch video or whatever else."

As Wong put it, "China ain't the same without my HuffPost."

Read more HuffPost coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games

Comments

[LairdKeir]

Consider teaching Western kids here in a fascist state that spends much of its GDP keeping its people stupid. Its constitution claims, "Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration." The regime lies to its people as it did to the IOC when it got the Games. You can teach American crimes in Korea but would be hard-pressed to find material about the countless palaces, temples, monuments, and lives destroyed by the Chinese themselves. Teaching about the Great Leap Forward, where in 3 years the equivalent of Canada's population was wiped out through stupidity is practically impossible. In the history taught here, people's lives are not worthy enough to be remembered (especially if peasants) unless rabid blood-crazed foreigners were responsible.

Living in this year's Olympic host country that continues to torture, occupy Tibet, threaten democratic Taiwan, attack human rights activists, use a ludicrous and completely corrupt legal system, gaols more journalists than any other on earth, uses a gulag system for mass "Re-education Through Labour" and blocks any site that might warn its people about the next SARS or bird flu outbreak (including my own), all of which appear to abide by the IOC's 'Olympic Charter,' is it any wonder why my seniors excel in exams testing their understanding of the rise of Hitler?
www.lairdkeir.spaces.live.com

[progolferyo]

HuffPost's Pick

Another example is using photo sharing web sites or social networking sites. I went to Facebook the other day and after logging in, was immediately blocked. Why was I blocked? Well at first I couldn't figure it out but finally I did. After I log in, I am on the page that gives me little messages from my friends and what they have recently been doing. Well it turns out that one of my 400 friends on Facebook just recently joined a group that had the word 'Tibet' in it. Simply seeing the word Tibet on Facebook would trigger that entire domain to be blocked (again for 10-15 minutes). But the problem is that once I login, it will always direct me to that page. So I am blocked on Facebook until that message does not appear.

There are so many other examples, I just get so frustrated sometimes. It makes no sense. There are software programs that avoid the Firewall, so its not the worst thing in the world (I am on HuffingtonPost now, anyway), but they are usually either a pain, they show advertisements everywhere or they make the internet dreadfully slow because everything has to be heavily encrypted so the Great Firewall doesn't pick anything up.

Stupid, I say....plain stupid.

[progolferyo]

HuffPost's Pick

I'm currently living in Shanghai, China and the recent blocking of HuffingtonPost has been ridiculous if you ask me. This site has become part of my daily routine and to see it blocked is just another pain in the butt in a long list of internet problems in China. For those of you that are not aware, there are more problems with Chinese internet than the complaints we hear about sensitive content being blocked.

Basically the Great Firewall produces a huge bottleneck in China Internet. All traffic from all of Mainland China has to go through a series of filters, and those filters are only present in a few places in the country. So the result of all this is that the internet is generally painfully slow, ridiculously unreliable and on top of all this, we can't go to sensitive sites like Huffingtonpost. In addition, the firewall is not 100% accurate, no firewall is 100% accurate. So more often than not, it causes me trouble when it shouldn't. Let's face it, I am not Googling sensitive material all the time, in fact, its quite rare for me to do this. But it is way more likely to search on Google Images. When I do this, I usually immediately get blocked because one of the images that loads within Google Images comes from a web site that is blocked, which I had no control over seeing. Once Google Images is blocked, that means all of Google is blocked (10-15 minutes).

[Raymondf]

I knew I liked China For some reason. At least they did one thing right. As for trade with the Chinese I think the US needs to pay their bill to China, and cut off all trade with that country. They are waging chemical warfare through trade with US.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

That does it. No more take-out at my house!

[JScott]

You mean it's only blocked just now?
I thought it always was.
But as other comments alluded to, there are ways around it.

[edtastic]

As a long term resident of China I am frustrated by internet blocking. There are ways around it, but its just a nuisence. Most Chinese i meet are extremly well informed about world affairs unlike Americans who have a "Free Press" that would make the "Goverment Controlled Press" look good. Information contorl in America is severe. We rarely see articles critical of Israel in USA, and almost never see it on television. If someone says America did something wrong they are called "anti American". America has completed 4 invasions of foriegn countries in the last 20 years. China is far more peaceful and practical as a world player. Simply persuing the interest of its people and not pandering to special interest makes it more responsible. America creates its own problems then invades to correct them, in doing so creating more problems. The China bashing needs to stop your just falling for Media tricks to demonize nations and people.

[1will]

Damn.....put that propaganda to music. If China is such a paradise then why is the entire world trying to imigrate (legally or otherwise) to America while only a few starving North Koreans move to China?
Yes, we have problems here. Suprise. Yes, some Americans are uniformed and merely wish to work and raise a family without worrying about politics or world affairs. I don't agree with that but I can understand it. I'm sure every Chinese citizen is up on current events around the globe and is working for a free Tibet. I'm sure these Chinese citizens are protesting daily the hundreds of missiles aimed at Taiwan and are withholding all taxes that are used to pay for these arms.
I'm sure that as China is surpassing the US as an emitter of CO2, these Chinese citizens are protesting the 2 dirty coal fired power plants their government is planning to bring online every week (for the next 5 years. Oh yeah, thanks for the smog that CA is enjoying.
Give it a rest. No nation is perfect but if there is any Human Rights advances around the world, any equal rights for women and an end (or at least decline) in slavery worldwide it's not because of China. It's America and the Western Nations that have worked towards a more enlightened world while China was killing tens of millions of it's own people.

[edtastic]

This is not protest this is China bashing read the comments they are divorced from reality. It's like a bunch of right wing crazies trying to bash Muslims as the root of all evil. China is doing what it suppose to do for the stability of the nation and the benifit of its people. If you dont like the Chinese goverment putting progress before your ideals of making every country into America then thats too bad. They are not gonna trash their country just to make you feel good about America, or the appearence of freedom. The Chinese goverment responds to pressure from their people, and if you have not noticed they are quite capable of change. If China was running America we would certainly have healthcare and world class education K-12. Indeed an authoritarian goverment can do the right thing sometimes, sorry the world does not fit into your little box.

[KarateKid]

It's getting harder, but I do not buy ANYTHING made in China. I don't trust them. They don't know the meaning of the terms "inspection" or "quality control". Any American company that sells anything made in China will also be boycotted.

They put lead paint on toys, poisoning our children. They don't inspect their food products and it has killed people in Japan as well as here. Their tainted pet products kill our beloved pets.

They even kill their own citizens by crappy building codes and the resulting destruction caused by collapsing buildings during the earthquakes recently.

And their students who are matriculating here have the nerve to protest our outrage. They should be thankful that in THIS country, they CAN protest without getting run over by tanks.

[edtastic]

Your demonstrating the "Classic Right Wing Bigot" mentality with absurd conclusions from unrelated events.

First of all, the Quality Control is the responsibility of the USA Corporation IMPORTING THE PRODUCTS. I taught this very lesson to some 4th graders the figured it out on there own as soon as i explained how USA companies get products from China. I lived there for 6 years been to lots of factories and everyone knows you do your own QA. You cant trust a factory thats been open for 5-10 years to do your QA anymore than you would have tax payers auditing themselves.

Since when are all Chinese, or the whole goverment responsible for every single item made or export, by those rules your personally responsible for the Agent Orange that has caused birth defects in Vietnamese and continues to poison people today.

America has never built an unsafe structure. You are saying America is never corrupt, never wrong, never made an unsafe product, .

Remember Kent state 20 students killed for protesting in our FREE COUNTRY. Get real! The ignorant people of America are sickening.

[torrrep]

You're ignorant. Only 4 students were killed at Kent State. Not that this is any better but if you are going to use an event from history make sure you the facts straight.

[kimbatch]

Censorship of the media and the Internet helps China conceal its ongoing human rights abuses.

Sign Amnesty International’s pledge - at http://action.uncensor.com.au/pledge/ - and send a message to the Chinese Government that censorship is unacceptable.

[KarateKid]

You can submit 10 million signatures and they won't give a rip.

[kimbatch]

Pressure and campaigning works. Thousands of human rights supporters all over the world sent appeals, write letters, sign petitions and speak out on all sorts of issues.

For example:

International pressure on the Sudanese Government meant that Rehab Abdel Bagi Mohamed Ali, who had been wrongly imprisoned, was eventually released. Pressure also helped in the case of Thich Quang Do, an imprisoned Buddhist monk from Vietnam.

And pressure too played a part in the UN General Assembly's passing of a Global Moratorium Against the Death Penalty in last November.

It does work.

[edtastic]

Excuse me will you please help stop the Censorship of the USA Media by corporations. It took 7 years for the USA Media to turn around demonstrate the fallacy of this administrations views. It took 7 years to talk about violations of human rights by Bush administration. The Media barely discussed George Bush abandoning the Geneva Conventions. Clean up your own house and stop looking for other countries to demonize. Peace activist and there selective outrage are a clear demonstration of the hypocrisy American Ignorance produces.

I would love to see a real free press in America, we hardly hear about the 4% we spend on Education vs 30% of budget spent on defense. Americans are clueless due to a corporate media that works far better than goverment censorship. The Chinese unlike you are far better informed than you think. Chinese know world issues because the are not shallow enough to assume the rest of the world does not matter. They respect there goverment because their goverment DOES ITS JOB. They have a INCREASING QUALITY OF LIFE, while America has DECLINING QUALITY OF LIFE. Who do you think your fooling , your just being a puppet of the blame game. Distract you from whats happening right in front of your face and you fall for it EVERY TIME.

[Wombat]

The neocons gotta love the Chinese communists; they sure know how to deal with the"liberal" media. Sorta makes a conservative all misty

[MsLiz]

Bill O'Reilly and Communist China agree that Huffington Post should be banned.

[zaza]

Boycot the Olympics already! China, with it's gross human rights violations, doesn't deserve the honor of being embassdors to the world. Also, I'm going to attempt to buy non-Chinese made (not the easiest thing to find these days) products whenever possible until they began to reform the more repressive elements of their political system.

[edtastic]

THE CHINESE PEOPLE DONT WANT YOU TO BOYCOTT OLYMPICS!!!

Who would you be boycotting for exactly? You seem to be another outrage addict wanting to rebel rouse everywhere buy your OWN COUNTRY. Dont we have some Problems to deal with here. Dont we have a Corporate Media that manipulated our country into several wars. Don't you want your goverment to denounce Israel's treatment of the Palistinians. Don't you want to restore your own countries constitution under threat.

The Chinese people are as proud of the Olympics as anything. You seek to hurt them for a false agenda. They will respond to your boycott with very ugly nationlism. The Chinese people will pressure there goverment to be more aggressive less respectful of world views, and this will not end years. This anti China sentiment being drummed up is why the Goverment blocks things. The Nationalism caused by the constant attack on China makes the goverment more popular and the western world the enemy of the chinese people. Wake up! Get a clue!

[torrrep]

Who cares what the Chinese people want? If we don't want to buy their products we won't. If we don't want to watch the Olympics we won't. What are you going to do about it?

[watchingthings]

Who-Da-Thunk that the Chinese government would squash web-sites.­.........I thought they only squashed people with tanks......as in Tianemen square.

[edtastic]

Amercian Goverment sent National Guard to Kent State and Shot 20 unarmed students. READ THE HISTORY OF YOUR OWN COUNTRY BEFORE TRASHING OTHERS. You are in no position to scold China right now, their goverment improving the lives of its people unlike your goverment. Maybe ignoring the several hundred years of slavery in America while praising freedom leads to a mental disconnect that keeps Americans from accepting the nature of their own country.

[Belisarius]

So it's OK to squash some citizen protesters with tanks and to put the rest in jail for the rest of their lives?

Well, in China it's OK. And it appears to be OK with you too.

[torrrep]

Why don't YOU try reading the history? You said above in another comment that 20 students were KILLED. No there were not. Only 4 died. And what you failed to mention was that the National Guard was surrounded and pelted with rocks. Students had also set fires to several buildings. So before you get all puffy chested about Kent State maybe you should read the WHOLE history and quit ignoring the fact that these students were not so innocent.

[Rolley]

Of al the stories Huffington Post could have published about internet censorship in China...
Like that of Zeng Hongling, a 53 year-old woman detained apparently for criticizing authorities in her account of the Sichuan earthquake sent to friends by email...you chose to write about yourselves and the interruptions to other English-language content, inconveniencing American expats chasing the Chinese yuan. There is nothing in this article about the censorship of Chinese language content. Nothing about the Chinese people who are detained, harrassed and imprisoned for what they've written on the Internet. And you're meant to be the ones advocating change in America's outlook to the world?

[mamacat]

Freedom of expression is to be valued, and treasured.
However, I especially liked the words of Salmon Rushdie, when he said, "There is a difference between free speech, and cheap speech."
A little self-editing now and then would be appreciated, but should never be demanded, as in censorship.

[LeonBNJ]

The PRC government - They can't handle the truth!
They don't want their people to find out the about ideas like freedom of speech, critizing governments and leaders, that no where else in the world do they limit families to only one child, that one can believe in a faith and so on.