China blocks Web sites as anniversary looms China's government ratcheted up its censorship of the Internet on
Tuesday by blocking Twitter, Yahoo's Flickr and Microsoft Hotmail, two
days before the 20th anniversary of the military's attack on
pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.
It also marks the first time that Twitter, the micro-blogging service,
has been restricted on a large scale in China. The service is
increasingly used by dissidents worldwide to post from the scene of
protests, for instance.
Responses more outspoken
Yahoo said in a statement about its Flickr photo sharing service
becoming inaccessible to users in China: "We understand the Chinese
government is blocking access to Flickr and other international sites,
though the government has not issued any explanation. We believe a
broad restriction without a legal basis is inconsistent with the right
to freedom of expression."
Kevin Kutz, a Microsoft spokesman, said his company "is committed to
helping advance the free flow of information, and is committed to
encouraging transparency, due process and rule of law when it comes to
Internet governance."
He added that "we are reaching out to the government to understand this decision and find a way to move forward."
In addition to the Hotmail e-mail service, Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, was blocked.
No explanation
Chinese authorities offered no explanation for the blocking. In
general, they say they take necessary steps to ensure that Web sites
comply with local law, which requires companies and individuals who
post information to largely avoid sensitive topics including Tiananmen
Square, Taiwan and Tibet.
U.S. and European Web sites are routinely blocked and then sometimes
restored to good standing with little public discussion of why.
Censorship is often more pervasive around important anniversaries and
political events.
Some obstructed earlier
YouTube, the video site owned by Google, has been blocked since
March without explanation, according to YouTube. The company also said
that its Blogger blogging service has been unavailable in China since
mid-May.
Over the years, human rights groups and members of the U.S. Congress
have intensely criticized U.S. Internet companies for agreeing to
restrictions in China, including censoring search results as Google
does. Yahoo, in particular, has been attacked for turning over personal
user information to Chinese police that was used to identify dissidents
and imprison them .
Last year, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google helped to create the Global
Network Initiative, an organization of companies and human rights
groups, to counter the unflattering publicity. The group set voluntary
guidelines for operating in countries where freedom of speech is
limited, including the recommendation that companies take a more
aggressive stance by demanding that authorities show a legal
justification for censorship.
Twitter, which is not part of the Global Network Initiative, didn't
respond to inquiries from The Chronicle. Some of its users in China
reported that they could work around the censorship by posting messages
through third-party services that feed into Twitter like TweetDeck.
Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group for free expression,
responded to the crackdown on more sites in China by saying, "The
Chinese government stops at nothing to silence what happened 20 years
ago in Tiananmen Square." The group added that "authorities have opted
for censorship at any price rather than accept a debate about this
event."
How China filters Google and is Keeping the information out
and
U.S. Tech Firms Help Governments Censor Internet 2005