List of websites blocked in the People's Republic of China

This is a list of notable websites that are blocked, or have been blocked in the People's Republic of China. This list includes websites that are specifically blocked, and their history, in one or more regions of the People's Republic of China (PRC) under the country's policy of Internet censorship. Websites that are only blocked in particular institutions (e.g. universities) or are inaccessible because of packet filtering (and hence may be only partially or sporadically blocked) are not included in this list.

This list does not apply to the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, which have their own legal systems.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Reference sources

• Chinese Wikipedia (zh.wikipedia.org,secure.wikimedia.org), other language versions of Wikipedia (aside from certain articles) were unblocked for a period of time in 2007. On August 31^st, 2007, all languages of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites were once again blocked in Mainland China.^[1] They could reportedly be accessed through secure connections.^[2] On July 31, 2008, the BBC reported that the Chinese Wikipedia had been unblocked that day in China; it had still been blocked the previous day. This came within the context of foreign journalists arriving in Beijing to report on the upcoming Olympic Games, and websites such as the Chinese edition of the BBC were being unblocked following talks between the International Olympic Committee and the Games' Chinese organisers.^[3]
• Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org), and other languages of Wikipedia excluding Chinese Wikipedia (zh.wikipedia.org) were unblocked on April 4th, 2008. However, sensitive topics such as Dalai Lama and Falun Gong are still blocked including the Wikipedia article listing sites known to be blocked. The move comes after International Olympic Committee (IOC) inspectors told Beijing organisers that the internet must be open for the duration of the 2008 Olympics and that blocking it "would reflect very poorly" on the host country.^[4] It is currently more accessible with repeated clicks on taboo matter causing the user to be locked out. In late July, 2009, all images on Wikimedia pages have been removed by certain ISPs in China.^[2]
• Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org) as of 15-June-2009
  • The block to the main site was lifted sometime between 15-June-2009 and 30-July-2009.
  • Project Gutenberg Australia (www.gutenberg.net.au) was not affected
• Linux Documentation Project(tldp.org)
• Wikimapia as of 11 November 2009
• http://www.openbsd101.com/
• http://www.valuedlessons.com/
• www.celestiamotherlode.net Resources for Celestia.

Media

• New York Times (www.nytimes.com)^[5] (Now Unblocked)
• Radio Canada International Chinese(Now Unblocked)^[6]
• United Nations News (www.unitednationsnews.com)^[6] - an independent news website not affiliated with the United Nations
• Triple Star News (www.triplestarnews.com)^[6] - an American news website that hosts pro-Falundafa information.
• Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com)^[7] (Now Unblocked)
• Hong Kong Economic Journal (www.hkej.com) since 2009-05-09
• The Local (www.thelocal.se) since at latest 2009-07-30
• Deutsche Welle (http://www.dw-world.de/)
• NTDTV (http://www.ntdtv.com/) (Now Unblocked)

Previously Blocked

• China Times (www.chinatimes.com.tw)^[6]
• http://lists.debian.org/

Blogging, vlogging, and web hosting services

• Facebook (Still blocked as of 4th December 2009)
• Youtube
  • Blocked 24 March 2009 (for "Tibetan Protest Videos" according to Xinhua) (still currently blocked)^{[8] [9] [10]}
  • Blocked 27 March 2008
  • Blocked 15 October 2007^[11]
  • Blocked before 15 October 2007^{[citation needed]}
• Flickr image servers (farm1.static.flickr.com, farm2.static.flickr.com),^[12][13]
  • Unblocked 15 October 2007 Flickr some new-uploaded image services,but old-uploaded images are still blocked.^[11]
  • Blocked as at 2 June 2009 ^[14][9][10]
• Me, Mobile Me and formerly .Mac websites hosted on Apple servers blocked since 2007.
• Tripod (www.tripod.lycos.com) (No Longer Blocked, July 2, 2008)^[15]
• Technorati (www.technorati.com) (Still Blocked as of July 2, 2008) ^[16]
• Blogspot blogs (but not Blogger)(Status varies. Unblocked for most of 2008.)
  • Blogspot blogs and Blogger are fully blocked as of 15 May, 2009.^{[17] [9][10]}
  • Some Blogspot blogs are blocked such as bbcrfa.blogspot.com, Tales from a Draughty Old Fen and chinagfw.blogspot.com as of 18 April 2009.
  • Blocked before 15 October 2007^[11]
  • Unblocked 1 July 2008^[11]
• Plurk (www.plurk.com) (Still blocked as of April 23, 2009)^[18]
• Wretch, the largest Taiwanese blog and image hoster, blocked since August 2007^[19]; blocked as of 25 April 2009.
• Webshots blocked as of 18 May 2009
• Tumblr
• Twitter micro-blogging site
  • Blocked as of 4th December 2009.^[10]

"Twitter unblocked, for now". The Peking Duck. Retrieved on 2009-06-14. http://www.pekingduck.org/2009/06/twitter-unblocked-for-now/.  Was blocked during days leading up to June 4, 2009 ^[14][9]

• Hotmail email service
  • Unblocked as of 2 July 2009 Was blocked as of 2 June 2009. ^[14][9][10]
• Google and Gmail as of 24 June 2009 (Unblocked 25 June)
  • google.cn is not blocked

(Now Unblocked)

• Yahoo (www.yahoo.com)
  • Blocked as of 17 June 2009

(Now Unblocked)

• Imageshack(www.imageshack.us)
  • Including all pictures stored.
• cuteoverload.com
• icanhascheezburger.com
• dailymotion.com
• metacafe.com
• ljflash.com

Internet forums

• HKday.net^[20]
• newgrounds.com

Non-governmental organizations

• Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org)
• Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org)^[21]
• Reporters Without Borders (www.rsf.org)^[21]
• Wikileaks (www.wikileaks.be) ^[22]
• Falun Gong related websites like (www.falundafa.org) ^[6][23]
• USMRA (United States Mine Rescue Association) presumably for hosting information on mine disasters in China at www.usmra.com/chinatable.htm
• Gold Country Seismic Station (www.seismicvault.com/)

Online stores & payments

• iTunes - blocked during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing after more than 40 athletes downloaded a pro-Tibetan album from the service^[24] (Now unblocked)

Political organizations

• Central Tibetan Administration (www.tibet.net, www.tibet.com)^[21]
• Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China (http://www.alliance.org.hk/) as at 17 June 2009
• East Turkistan information center(uygur.org)

See also

• Golden Shield Project
• China Channel add-on for Firefox: Allows the user to surf the internet as if they were in China.

References

1. ^ Schwankert, Steven (2007-09-06). "Wikipedia Blocked in China Again". IDG News via PCworld. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136879-c,sites/article.html. Retrieved 2008-01-26. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Chao, Loretta (2008-07-01). "Facebook Gets Poked in China". Wall Street Journal. http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/07/01/facebook-gets-poked-in-china/. Retrieved 2008-07-02. 
3. ^ "Beijing unblocks BBC Chinese site", BBC, July 31, 2008
4. ^ Hasty, Katie (2008-04-07). "China allows access to a bit of Wiki". New Zealand Herald. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10502510. Retrieved 2008-04-07. 
5. ^ Sat Dec 20, 9:41 am ET. "China blocks access to New York Times Web site - Yahoo! News". News.yahoo.com. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081220/ap_on_re_as/as_china_internet_2. Retrieved 2009-01-07. 
6. ^ ^{a b c d e} Zittrain, Jonathan; Edelman, Benjamin (2002). "Sites Blocked in China - Highlights". Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China. Harvard. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/China-highlights.html. 
7. ^ David Flumenbaum (2008-06-19). "Huffington Post Blocked in Mainland China". Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-flumenbaum/huffington-post-blocked-i_b_108090.html. Retrieved 2009-05-27. 
8. ^ "YouTube blocked in China". HerdictWeb. 2009-05-18. http://www.herdict.org/web/explore/detail/id/CN/2071. Retrieved 2009-05-18. 
9. ^ ^{a b c d e} "China blocks Twitter, Flickr and Hotmail ahead of Tiananmen anniversary". guardian.co.uk. 2009-06-02. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/02/twitter-china. 
10. ^ ^{a b c d e} "Blocking of Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Blogger deprives Chinese of Web 2.0". Reporters without Borders. 2009-06-02. http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=31481. 
11. ^ ^{a b c d} Schwankert, Steven (2007-10-18). "YouTube blocked in China; Flickr, Blogspot restored". IDG News. http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/10/18/YouTube-blocked-in-China_1.html. Retrieved 2008-01-26. 
12. ^ "Yahoo: China Blocking Flickr Photo Site". Reuters. 2007-06-12. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,281195,00.html. Retrieved 2007-06-12. 
13. ^ Kopytoff, Verne (2007-06-09). "Flickr not even flickering in China". SFGate.com. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/09/BUG9VQC8QE1.DTL. Retrieved 2007-06-09. 
14. ^ ^{a b c} "Reports: China blocks Web sites ahead of Tiananmen anniversary". CNN.com. 2009-06-02. http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/02/reports-china-blocks-web-sites-ahead-of-tiananmen-anniversary/. 
15. ^ "ii. Selected Other Domains". Internet Filtering in China in 2004-2005. OpenNet Initiative. http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/china/. Retrieved 2007-04-15. 
16. ^ Hertz, Adam (2006-04-26). "Access to Technorati from China". Technorati. http://technorati.com/weblog/2006/04/98.html. 
17. ^ Goldkorn, Jeremy (2009-05-15). "Blogger.com blocked, but not the Washington Post". Danwei. http://www.danwei.org/net_nanny_follies/bloggercom_blocked_but_not_the.php. 
18. ^ "China Blocks Micro-Messaging Site Plurk. Is Twitter Next?". TechCrunch. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/23/china-blocks-micro-messaging-site-plurk-is-twitter-next/. Retrieved 2009-04-23. 
19. ^ China blocks public access to Taiwan’s blog portal sites, China Post, 05 January 2008.
20. ^ "HKday.net: Opinion Board: Blocking notice". Hkday.net. http://www.hkday.net/webbbs.cgi?state=13&bid=24&from=1617. Retrieved 2009-01-07. 
21. ^ ^{a b c} "Reporters Without Borders website blocked". Reporters without Borders. 2003-04-15. http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=6132. 
22. ^ John, Paczkowski (2008-02-18). "Like Trying to Take Pee Out of a Swimming Pool …". Digitaldaily.com. http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080218/wikileaks/. Retrieved 2008-02-20. 
23. ^ How Multinational Internet Companies assist Government Censorship in China^{[dead link]}
24. ^ "China blocks iTunes over all-star Tibet album free download". Times Online. 2008-08-22. http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4579783.ece. Retrieved 2008-08-23.