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China: Going into reverse in relation to the web

Who can forget all the hooha around the time of the recent Beijing Olympics about the degree of censorship the Chinese Government would exercise over the web.

Things improved a bit - no doubt as a result of the pressure brought to bear on the government and the poor PR "look" - but it seems that the Chinese have now taken a giant step backwards.

Apart from reports in the last days that the NY Times has been blocked in China, Reporters Without Borders reports in "Government goes into reverse, blocking access to foreign websites" again:

"Reporters Without Borders condemns the Chinese government’s censorship of the websites of certain foreign news media such as Voice of America and the BBC and certain Chinese media based outside mainland China, which have been rendered inaccessible inside China since the start of December.

“Freedom of information is widely violated in China,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Right now, the authorities are gradually rolling back all the progress made in the run-up to this summer’s Olympic games, when even foreign websites in Mandarin were made accessible. The pretence of liberalisation is now over. The blocking of access to the websites of foreign news media speaks volumes about the government’s intolerance. We urge the authorities to unblock them again.”

According to the online magazine China Digital Times, the Asiaweek (http://www.yzzk.com/cfm/main.cfm) and Mingpao (http://www.mingpao.com/) websites have been inaccessible since 2 December. The Hong Kong (http://www.hk.youtube.com) and Taiwanese (http://www.tw.youtube.com) versions of the video-sharing website YouTube are also inaccessible.

Access to the BBC’s website is also restricted. According to the BBC’s technical service, web traffic has also suddenly fallen off."

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