The Chinese Are Not Allowed to Discuss Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index on Social Network

Star Chang, Jun 7, 2012 11:50 AM, 377 views, Got something to say ?,

Searches for “Shanghai Composite” were blocked from China’s most-used microblogging service after the stock index’s drop on the 23rd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown corresponded to the date of the event. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index dropped by 64.89 points on this Monday, matching the date on which the Chinese authorities crushed student-led protests on June 4, 1989. Queries for “Shanghai Composite” on Sina Weibo, China Twitter-like service, returned a message that said results can’t be displayed “in accordance with relevant laws, regulations and policies.”…

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Google Warns Chinese Users Some Search Terms Could Cause “Connection Error” (Video)

Herman Lai, May 31, 2012 11:45 PM, 619 views, Got something to say ?,

Even those who don’t live or haven’t recently traveled to China would know Google has had a long history of battles with the Chinese government in regards of censorship. Yesterday, Google in a blog post, notified users that some particular search terms could cause connection interruption, pop up error messages like “This webpage is not available” or “The connection was reset”, and block users from searching again for a minute or more.

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China Is ‘S.I.C.K.’ With No Facebook

Star Chang, May 31, 2012 2:26 PM, 1,226 views, 2 Comments »,

Chinese internet users are putting together the initials letter of the four countries — Syria(S), Iran(I), China(C) and North Korea(K) — that have restricted access to Facebook, and ridiculed China as a member of the “S.I.C.K.” group of countries. The acronym has been circulating online since Facebook submitted its IPO filing in February. In it, the company stated that access to its service “has been or is currently restricted in whole or in part in China, Iran, North Korea, and Syria”. This triggered plenty of discussion in Chinese social media, with one weibo user saying China, which is part of the BRICS group of emerging markets, has now joined the new “SICK” group of no-facebook countries. Well, we only know the CEO of facebook is sick enough for not getting into China yet …

China Authorities Intends to Ban Google Mobile Apps ?

Star Chang, May 9, 2012 3:18 AM, 738 views, 1 Comment »,

Last week Chinese media reported that the government has banned mobile manufacturers from installing Google applications on the mobile devices. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) quickly denied the rumors. The announcement came after reports by a number of major news websites in China, citing an note on the official website of a Shenzhen-based mobile service provider. The authorities said they have never delivered an order to ban the usage of Google logo and applications on mobile terminal products. The online news was not the truth …

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Google’s Forced Exit From China Because of Chinese Political Infighting ?

Star Chang, May 5, 2012 11:12 PM, 1,064 views, 5 Comments »,

Google withdrew its search engine business from China in 2010 after it was the victim of a coordinated cyber attack that hacked into their email service. Those attacks originated in China. According to a so-called exclusive report from The Epoch Times, a media organization from Taiwan, the ex-Chongqing mayor orchestrated the downfall of Google. Bo Xilai, the ex-Chongqing’s mayer, is supposed to be one of the main contenders for promotion in China’s leadership change this year. But he has been sacked for suggesting a fierce political fight behind the scenes. In 2009, Bo approached Baidu’s chairman, willing to promise that Google would be thrust out of China. The ambitious politician needed the local search engine to cooperate with Chongqing officials, and lift the censorship on articles criticizing the country’s leader, Premier and presumptive next Party head … UPDATE: Baidu has approached us and want us to remove this story …

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China Internet Users Are Not Allowed to Use Google Drive

Star Chang, Apr 25, 2012 12:09 PM, 701 views, Got something to say ?,

Google announced its Google Drive cloud storage service yesterday and just hours later the service was found to be blocked in China, just like Dropbox and countless other Western web services. While the blocking of the new Google service is not surprising, given that Google not so-good relationship with the Chinese authorities. The situation is giving chances to local players to take advantage of Chinese Internet users’ growing interest in cloud services. Apparently, most of the Chinese people are restricted to use international web services …

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Kickstarter Project Funds Documentary Film on Chinese Censorship

Star Chang, Apr 18, 2012 3:01 AM, 580 views, 2 Comments »,

A documentary film about censorship in China made by two Chinese citizen journalists, need money to take care of post-production costs, so the people involved are making a fund raising through Kickstarter. The film, entitled ‘High Tech, Low Life’, is a documentary project traces inspiring stories that often get buried by the state censors. The two unique individuals had traveled throughout mainland China documenting the urban struggles of a rapidly developing country. They have overcome the ever-evolving political risks and technical barriers to record 600 hours of value footage. We think this is certainly a project worth supporting, but the two Chinese folks will properly getting themselves into trouble and Kickstarter might get ban for accessing in China … UPDATE: The project has been successfully funded !

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Is There an ‘Emergency Button’ to Switch off the Whole China’s Internet ?

Star Chang, Apr 14, 2012 6:29 PM, 1,021 views, 2 Comments »,

A few days ago, many internet user in China had complained that they couldn’t access websites based outside of China (including Apple’s App Store). Simultaneously, Internet users outside China, including in Hong Kong, reported difficulties accessing key Chinese sites, like search engine Baidu and the website of the People’s Bank of China. Though services were more or less restored after a few hours, the disruptions led to a torrent of speculation, with many first suspecting it was caused by the earthquake over at Indonesia, which resulted the damage to undersea cables. But the inconsistency of the outages, and the fact that it seems to have primarily affected traffic going in and out of China, this might be an ‘emergency test’ carried out by the Chinese authorities that would allow it to quickly block access to ALL foreign websites …

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Will Instagram Get Blocked in China?

Star Chang, Apr 11, 2012 4:44 PM, 4,252 views, Got something to say ?,

So, Facebook bought Instagram for a billion bucks. Right now, Instagram is freely accessible here in China and apparently has a small but growing user base. At the moment, Instagram seems pretty harmless to the Chinese authorities, in fact it’s just a simple photo sharing program which allows users to quickly apply different color tone to their photo. Because Instagram is accessible from China there has been some speculation that it might provide a back-door into the market for Facebook. If Instagram is heavily integrated into Facebook’s core service, more likely the photo-sharing app will still be blocked in China …

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Authorities Order Chinese Artist to Turn Off his Webcams After 5 Million Views (Video)

Star Chang, Apr 6, 2012 4:30 PM, 957 views, Got something to say ?,

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei had set up four live webcams at his home to show his daily life, include one filming him while he sleeps, to celebrate the one-year anniversary of his detention and encourage more transparency from all sides. Last year, Ai was held for three months during a crackdown on dissent and was subsequently fined 15 million yuan ($2.4 million) for alleged tax evasion, which he denies. The live streaming TUREMAN show had been viewed around 5.2 million times in two days, and Chinese authorities have ordered him to shut down the live webcams without any reason …

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