3 Main Reasons Why the Chinese Government Blocks Popular Social Websites

By Zhou Tong on June 3, 2009
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Before we start, let’s find out which websites are being blocked by the Great FireWall of China (aka GFW): Google International, Blogger, Flickr, MySpace, YouTube, Plurk, Wikipedia, HotMail, MSN International, Live Search, Bing, Twitter, etc.

As a Chinese, I am very disappointed about the GFW. When I was in China, I could not even gain access to the Chinese version of Wikipedia to research on my school projects. There are still many Internet users out there who are not aware or puzzled why the Chinese government ‘loves’ blocking popular websites. Well, below are three main reasons why…

Reason 1: Competitions

Without blocking Google, Baidu cannot succeed. Without blocking Wikipedia, Hoodong cannot succeed. Without blocking Blogger, Blogcn cannot succeed. Without blocking YouTube, Youku cannot succeed. These huge International Internet Companies do not need to pay taxes to China Government, but the Internet Companies in China do pay taxes. The Chinese government wants to make more money, so and to boost their GDP. In addition, they want to “protect” China websites and hence blocking successful International websites.

Reason 2: Sensitive Contents

The main reason of blocking Blogger.com is that many people rant and post repugnant comments regarding the China Government on their Blogger hosted blogs. Of course the government does not want more people to know about this, especially readers outside mainland China as it will give them a negative impression about the country. With powers in their hands, they make use of the GFW to block it. In addition, the GFW is extremely sensitive when it comes to pornography contents. The reason of blocking Google International is that netizens in China can search pornography images via Google Images when the default setting of SafeSearch is off.

Reason 3: National Security

The government would not allow people to discuss about the various political parties or the government in those International Websites, because they do not have the ability to control them. Do not think that starting an Internet Company in China and creating websites is an easy task. If your website contains sensitive content, the Chinese authorities will not hesitate and demand you to remove the information at once; otherwise, your server will be confiscated for about 3 months. It is quite easy for them to control the Internet Media in China, but they are not able to touch the social web on an international level such as Facebook and Twitter.

These are the three major reasons of why the government blocks websites. Currently, the Chinese authorities can control all Chinese websites. If they notice any unsuitable content posted on the Internet, they can demand users to delete, or they just simply block it. Few months ago, there are some cases about blocking .CN domain names; even .CN domain names are dangerous under the governmental control.

It is quite strange for me to complain about my home country in this Singapore-based tech blog. My main objective today is to let everyone know that the Chinese government blocked websites not because of the Monopoly of ChinaLAN, but because of the taxes, contents and security. China is not as open and limits freedom of speech as compared to most Western countries. As a result, the Internet Life in China cannot be that wonderful, and I hope everyone can understand that blocking website is indeed the last resort to control the Internet in China.

About the Author
Zhou Tong is a 15-Year-Old Chinese student who is currently on a scholarship in Singapore. He is an all-rounded tech-savvy teenager - professional web developer (PHP, Ruby on Rails and MySQL), website designer (XHTML/CSS, Internet analyst and a professional tech blogger.
Website: http://zhoutong.me
  • JCH
    Just to make clear, most of the websites that you list at the top (twitter, bing, etc) were accessible two days ago. While it remains to be seen, most people in China believe that they will be unblocked in 2 days or so, so this wa a temporary measure for the anniversary today.

    Others you mention - youtube and blogspot - are periodically but not permanently blocked. I could access them two months ago.

    Finally, a few of these you mention are just wrong. Google is not blocked at all (though some of its results might be blocked). Google and other google products did run into problems occassionally in the past but not in the two years I have been here. Wikipedia is also periodically blocked but right now it is working fine as long as I don't search for something sensitive on the Chinese site. On the English site, I am now looking at the entry on the 1989 Tiananmen protests without a problem.

    The first part of your article implies that all of sites you list are blocked all of the time, which is 100% false and something you should make clear.

    ~Beijing resident
  • In Soviet Russia, Twitter blocks China (Family Guy quote)
  • Bonochromatic
    Very interesting perspectives. As a foreigner living in China, I share many of the frustrations that the Chinese have been expressing about the blocking of so many popular websites.

    I think you're precisely correct about China stifling foreign competition, but I question whether it is a question of revenue, or whether it is a question of strengthening China's internal assets. China has always been a country terrified of dependence on foreign powers; therefore, allowing Youtube, for example, to become China's #1 video sharing platform would indicate that the countries internal assets (Youku and Tudou, to name the two largest) are not sufficiently equipped to handle the task.

    I firmly believe that if China could simply cut itself off from the outside world without causing a significant disturbance to the lives and the wealth of its country's residents, it would. Ultimately, China is too large a country for them to worry much about the outside world; 1/6 of the world's population resides within its border, and they're really disinterested in increasing that number, either culturally, politically or geographically. In short, China's hands are full. By cutting off popular foreign websites, they give their internal assets an advantage, and in so doing, they further their eventual goal of 100% self-reliance.

    No man may be an island, but if China had its choice, it would be.
  • spryka
    The greatest benefit of Facebook is that it has many groups on the site that you can join. So if you are interested in Chicago Cubs you can research Chicago Cubs in the groups section and you will be able to find friends on there that like the Cubs. This is just one example, I know that you can join groups of your favorite football team, television show, or whatever you want for the most part! If you can't find a group for your interest, you can simply create one!

    James
    http://EmailCharger.com
  • eliza
    Cheer up! While there is a block, there is a bypass. Intelligent Chinese people sooner or later would come up some way to sneak through the bloody GFW. Government is powerful, yet it's not omnipotent.
    And look from another view, which government in the world really, absolutely, always play fair? Which country's history hasn't been tainted by its government's nasty doings, though their nasty level could range from cheating on history to genecidal injustice. The human history could almost be seen as a gangland movie, there are always wars going on this earth. In a world like this, I think it's quite understandable to be panicking, sometime even to take some indecent measures to secure oneself (though today I've used up all my words ammunition to cursed our government when I found torproject being blocked), especially developing country or underdevelop country.
    So these blockings are mainly derived from a sense of insecurity and economy consideration. When China grow strong enough, then our government could govern fairer, and above than other things Chinese netizens could get rid of these blasted, benighted, godforsaken, bloody blockings. Further more, 2010 Expo is coming. I don't think our sly government would risk to evoke from foreign visitors thousands of millions of complain about inaccessibility to twitter.
    The gate of our country has opened, I don't think the gate of information could hold any longer.

    A Shanghai Resident
  • Cyel
    finally now i know the reason why'd they banned those website. It's all about the money.
    i hope all of the foreigners in china whom using facebook will just move out from this 'THE GREAT CHINA' country as a respond to the chinese government of how wise they block facebook. the Government think they're wise huh?
    sucks!
  • Jen
    Completey wrong... http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/07/china-bloc...

    I'm still ticked off though. Can't wait to get back to Australia so I can use facebook...
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