China blocks access to YouTube
p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- Are Chinese authorities censoring YouTube?
China is blocking access as, “the video-sharing site continues to wrestle with governments offended by some of its content,” says the Wall Street Journal.
A spokesman said as of Tuesday evening it hadn’t been contacted by the Chinese government and was working to restore the service, which had been disrupted for more than 24 hours, according to the story.
Dynamic Internet Technology’s (DIT) DynaWeb is a free proxy network built to circumvent internet blocking in China. Five years ago, before Google had splashed out to buy GooTube, ceo Bill Xia told p2pnet Google’s news results for China were different than those conducted in the US.
Google spokeswoman Debbie Frost told p2pnet, “to create the best possible news search experience for our users, we sometimes decide not to include some sites, for a variety of reasons”.
Does ‘not include’ amount to ‘block’? – we wondered. And does ‘block’ amount to ‘censor’?. We went on »»»
Google justifies the fact it ‘omits’ some sites in mainland China by saying:
“[...] it’s clear that search results deemed to be sensitive for political or other reasons are inaccessible within China. There is nothing Google can do about this,” and:
“We … considered the amount of information that would be omitted. In this case it is less than two percent of Chinese news sources. On balance we believe that having a service with links that work and omits a fractional number is better than having a service that is not available at all.”
Logic suggests the most sensitive sites would be the ones ‘omitted’. Otherwise, why bother?
Here’s what Google’s help entry on censorship once said »»»
Google does not censor results for any search term. The order and content of our results are completely automated; we do not manipulate our search results by hand. We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results. To learn more about Google’s search technology, please visit
But following the China censorship debacle, revealed for the first time by p2pnet, it was amended to say »»»
It is Google’s policy not to censor search results. However, in response to local laws, regulations, or policies, we may do so. When we remove search results for these reasons, we display a notice on our search results pages. Please note: For some older removals (before March 2005), we may not show a notice at this time.
Back to 2009, “YouTube faces stiff competition in China from domestic video-sharing sites such as Tudou.com, which are less likely to get blocked in their entirety because they restrict political or racy content that might draw fire from the government,” says the WSJ, adding:
“The Chinese government didn’t directly address whether it had blocked YouTube. When asked about the ban during a news conference Tuesday, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry said that the ‘Chinese government has taken up management of the network according to the laws,’ according to a transcript of the event.
“The Chinese government frequently blocks foreign Web sites that it deems to have objectionable content. Access to YouTube was blocked last year during high-profile government meetings and following unrest in Tibet.”
Wall Street Journal - YouTube Says China Blocks Site, March 25, 2009
best possible news search experience - Google China censorship: more, October 2, 2004
help entry on censorship – Google `Don`t be Evil` amended, April 15, 2008
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