p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- “Twitter is a new thing in China. The censors need time to figure out what it is. So enjoy the last happy days of twittering before the fate of Youtube descends on it one day.”

So says Chinese blogger and former New York Times researcher Michael Anti (right) in Danwei.

And his words have proved to be prophetic because as of today, Twitter is being blocked by Chinese net sensors, says  Alice Xin Liu in a Danwei update.

Chinese Twitterland is,  “funnier than the English one, for a Chinese tweet can have three times the volume of an English tweet, thanks to the high information intensity of the Chinese language,” said Anti last month, going on:

“140 Chinese characters can make up all the full elements of a news piece with the ‘5 Ws’ (Who, What, Where, When and How). But the joy of the Chinese Twitterland is more fragile, and I hope that it will live longer in this country.”

However, Twitter didn’t survive for long, and nor is it alone.

Also blocked are Flickr, Bing,the new Microsoft search engine, “probably for autoplaying Youtube videos when you put your mouse over them,” Live and Hotmail,although MSN Messenger “seems fine,” and Blogspot and Youtube remain blocked, says the story.

Twhirl is also blocked, says Multilingual Search, adding, “a set of internal working documents from the censorship department at Baidu, China`s largest search engine, were recently leaked. China often blocks sites and then removes the blocks after what perhaps may be an adjustment to their filters.

“A China Digital Times post includes a comprehensive list of the websites that are being censored by Baidu.”

(Cheers, Tom Crampton on Twitter)

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Danwei – Michael Anti: enjoy Twitter in China while it lasts, May 27, 2009
Danwei -  Twitter and other sites blocked in China as of today, June 2, 2009
Multilingual Search – Twitter, Flickr, Bing, Live & Hotmail blocked in China, June 2, 2009