Talk:List of websites blocked in mainland China

Accuracy of the information in this page

I'm currently travelling in China and are surfing the net from a cybercafe and every site on this list I can access just fine. Great firewall my ass! And someone tell me how to insert my ip in here so you all can check.
(Woofenstein (talk) 19:19, 26 September 2012 (UTC))

Websites blocked during 15 June 2012 to 17 June 2012

The following websites were blocked during the afternoon of 15 June 2012 (UTC+08:00) to the morning of 17 June 2012 (UTC+08:00). Since such websites have been unblocked as of this time, I've removed them from the table.

Alexa Rank	Domain	Website	URL	Category	Primary language	Blocked since
16	yahoo.co.jp	Yahoo! Japan	yahoo.co.jp	Portal	Japanese	2012, June 15
21	google.co.jp	Google Japan	google.co.jp	Search	Japanese	2012, June 15
79	rakuten.co.jp	Rakuten Market	rakuten.co.jp	Shopping	Japanese	2012, June 15
94	amazon.co.jp	Amazon Japan	amazon.co.jp	Shopping	Japanese	2012, June 15
564	yomiuri.co.jp	Yomiuri News	yomiuri.co.jp	Publication	Japanese	2012, June 15
628	excite.co.jp	Excite	excite.co.jp	Portal	Japanese	2012, June 15
633	sponichi.co.jp	Sponichi News	sponichi.co.jp	Publication	Japanese	2012, June 15
660	nikkeibp.co.jp	Nikkei BP Japan	nikkeibp.co.jp	Publication	Japanese	2012, June 15
4480	sony.co.jp	Sony Japan	sony.co.jp	Corporation	Japanese	2012, June 15
22196	sonymusic.co.jp	Sony Music Japan	sonymusic.co.jp	Record label	Japanese	2012, June 15

Thanks, 125.33.255.90 (talk) 06:59, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Major changes (May 16, 2012)

The page claims to list "the most notable .. blocked websites" in China. I found that many of the websites listed were either not currently blocked (such as www.google.com, www.nobelprize.org ect), or not notable (Radio Canada International, United Nations News etc). I changed the approach to a table sorted by the websites Alexa rank (hence the most notable first). I also only include websites with a source showing it's blocked. I'm happy to discuss/adapt the approach to fit better with Wikipedia standards. Also, the list is far complete and I will add more entries. If you have sources showing when a website was blocked, earlier than 2011, please add. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GreatFireChina (talk • contribs) 10:59, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't know how to format the date column better. I specified the year first which looks awkward but at least allows sorting by year. But it doesn't sort by month. Anybody knows how to fix it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by GreatFireChina (talk • contribs) 11:19, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

deviantART

My only source is the Journals made by large amounts of Chinese users, but according to them deviantART will be blocked by tomorrow (Jan 24 2009). 71.179.46.39 (talk) 20:09, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Unblocked sites

Because of the olympic games, it seems like the PRC has unblocked a great majority of websites. This list needs to be updated. This post is from a residential PRC connection. 221.218.171.224 (talk) 10:00, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

New York Times

New York Times website is blocked in China due to it's reporting of Wen JiaBao's family financial gains while he was in office.

Wikipedia

All wikipedia sites appear to be blocked from a China Netcom connection in Beijing. October 29th 2007. 213.246.227.244 04:57, 29 October 2007 (UTC) A documentary needs to be made on the laughable efforts of these censorships. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.247.5.248 (talk) 14:08, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

---

I'm using an internet connection within the PRC, and I can access the site in English, UNTIL I click a link to change the page to Chinese, when I cease to be able to use the site at all, even if I switch back to English. Upon exitting the page however, I can, once again, go back to English pages. How curious... The Evil Chengmistress PWNS joo all!!! (talk) 02:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

YouTube

YouTube is fully blocked in all of mainland China and will be for the foreseeable future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ccvortex (talk • contribs) 09:18, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I was in China in October, 2007, and I was able to access YouTube in Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu, Chongqing, and Shanghai. I was in Xi'an on the October, 15 and YouTube was accessible. So YouTube is not blocked in China? Colipon+(T) 07:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• YouTube is not blocked right now.But i guess if YouTube launch a Chinese version,it would be blocked at once.For details,see the comments here(Chinese).--Gzdavidwong 12:37, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, it definitely has "politically sensitive" contents. Colipon+(T) 20:23, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you watch this video in China? Thanks.--Altromercato 21:31, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The video cannot be watched.The page would be blocked by the Great firewall of China automatically for it has some sensitive words.But if there are only some numbers like"1989.6.4" on the page,the video can be watched no matter content is "sensitive" or not.--Gzdavidwong 14:19, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

YouTube is unreachable from my China NetCom connection. Beijing, October 29th 2007 213.246.227.244 04:57, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

218.78.227.11 (talk) 15:14, 17 April 2009 (UTC)Anon218.78.227.11 (talk) 15:14, 17 April 2009 (UTC) Not sure of proper format, but as of 11:15pm on Friday Apr.17th, Youtube has never come back since the 29th. Shanghai.

why is facebook.com not on your list

Right; Facebook will never be unblocked in China, it is far too dangerous to the PRC to ever allow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ccvortex (talk • contribs) 09:20, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I am in China now like a vastly growing number of young and older expats. I am surprised that your references includes information about the blockage of facebook but it is missing in your content, especially being the largest social network globally.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gPnP7LwTUdHg_GDoqgaFOGiUrTHg?docId=CNG.288b97b91effcdef8c4542fb4c5057a8.7e1

Michael voice (talk) 01:35, 5 November 2010 (UTC) michael_voice

greatfirewallofchina.org is unreliable

most of the sites on the list were verified using http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/test/.

However greatfirewallofchina's test is no longer available (August 20, 2010). From the Web site: "Because of the ever stricter measures of censorship China imposes on the Internet, the team of www.greatfirewallofchina.org at present can no longer vouch for the reliability of its test tool. We have therefore decided to take the test tool offline."

Other comments relate to greatfirewallofchina while the test was still operating: —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.169.19.151 (talk) 22:46, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I have serious doubts that site is accurate. For example, it says that http://www.baidu.com, the big chinese search site, is blocked which I think is certainly false. greatfirewallofchina.org says many more sites are blocked than actually are.

In what way is greatfirewallofchina.org a reliable site to cite? It's just some random site on the internet, not a serious study. I think all the items verified in that way should be removed from the list and only real citations (eg news reports, studies) should be cited. Using greatfirewallofchina.org is borderline original research, which does not belong in wikipedia. BlankAxolotl 15:48, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

GreatFireWallofChina appears to be malfunctioning (or China is interfering with their process). Use WebsitePulse instead.--Daveswagon 17:20, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

WebSitePulse results

I'm getting a little wary about this site. The English Wikipedia was not blocked. The Chinese Wikipedia was not blocked. And, astonishingly, the Democratic Party of China was not blocked. I also verified with Seattle, WA on this. Seattle was slower on one test, much slower, actually. --Blah2 (talk) 02:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Expand

• Falun Dafa related websites are blocked in China, see http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/ Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China; http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/china0806/5.htm How Multinational Internet Companies assist Government Censorship in China; --HappyInGeneral (talk) 12:27, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Hong Kong Jockey Club

Why is this under Governments and political parties? Better question: Why is a horse racing site supportive of the 2008 Olympics even on this list? Is there something wrong with that source? HanBoN (talk) 05:29, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Well the club makes charitable donations to public charities that are not approved by the government. I don't know if that's why it's in the government party section, you can move it if you want. I don't currently understand it's notability or why it's listed.--Sparkygravity (talk) 19:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Sources

Trying to maintain any list of blocked sites in China is just not possible. They block new websites all day, every day, 7 days a week.

Both greatfirewallofchina.org and websitepulse.com are not reliable, and they are not proper sources either. I've tested a few sites listed here (such as chinalawblog.com). Many sistes listed can be accessed without any problem in Beijing, so the list does not make sense. For several sites, the RSF article was given as a source when that article in fact doesn't mention them. I've removed all sites from the list for which no proper sources were given. Criteria for proper sources can be found here: Wikipedia:Reliable sources. See also: Wikipedia:No original research. Other relevant guidelines: Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Notability (web). —Babelfisch (talk) 02:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree the greatfirewallofchina isn't really the best reference, however it's one of the only ways that people have of proving their claims that china is blocking a website. Most of the time, websites that are blocked don't get anything written about them specifically. I had to track down an article that talked about china blocking wikipedia, it ended up being a more difficult google search that I thought it would be, because china also unblocks sites. So if you find that china blocked Youtube in 2006, you have to look around to confirm that it's still blocked in 2008. I think your also right about WP:NOTE however I don't feel that I should be the only arbiter about what is notable and what isn't.... so for the most part I haven't deleted websites listed. The list is fairly important as it documents the web censorship of china... so the list is important. Do you have any solution for these problems you bring up?--Sparkygravity (talk) 10:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I think there are fundamental problems with this list. It probably doesn't fit Wikipedia criteria of “notability” and “encyclopedicity”, it's obviously “original research”—and I don't think it will be possible to change that very soon.

A flawed on-line tool that people use to check their personal websites is simply not a proper source.

I live in China, so I know personally that sites that I use frequently are blocked and unblocked all the time, it would be quite an effort to monitor this, and I'm not aware of any organisation doing that. Some reports in Western media are fake, probably politically motivated. The tool used initially to monitor blocks (greatfirewallofchina.com) either had a technical problem (btw the site is still there, but the tool seems to be down at the moment) or it was a China-bashing hoax. Some reports are simply outdated.

If there are no proper and detailed sources, the whole list is per definition not “notable”.

In short: I don't see a solution. —Babelfisch (talk) 01:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I sadly have to agree with Babelfisch, it's incomplete, out of date, and badly maintained. And plus, the most up to date information has to be original research. I'm in China, I can verify lots of this independently, but then again, it's not consistent what is blocked in Beijing, Shanghai, Ningbo, etc. and also what ISP you're using makes a difference. In short likely this list should be deleted and a section about historical blocks in the Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China article is the proper thing to do. -- Fuzheado | Talk 09:33, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

The result of the blocking and unblocking is pretty interesting. Most information is that censorship is largely random and adhoc... but I'm beginning to think otherwise. It seems that the efforts of the government in censorship is not the full outright censorship of a site, because in the long run that is an impossible and notable solution. Instead by unblocking and blocking repeatedly it makes the site status unreliable which is really worse. A continuously blocked site has a certain degree of integrity because it's something that is always blocked... it's reliable and dependable in it's absence. But a site that goes online and offline is actually put in a worse position from a user perspective. Of course this is completely my own suspicion but it would seem to me that the censorship china has political agendas and a certain methodology and isn't completely random... Do you know of any news source or documentation that would confirm my suspicions or any information on why China censors the way it does?--Sparkygravity (talk) 00:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Babelfisch and Fuzheado. This list claims to cover sites that are blocked in one way, but not another. The problem is, how can you tell the difference? While someone in China could do a more reliable test than greatfirewallofchina.com, there's no way to know who is blocking the site, why, or for how long. What is blocked varies by city and by day in my experience, and frequently by hotel if you're traveling there. My company does business in China, and I'm in charge of making sure everyone can communicate and see information between the various countries, and it changes every day. Keeping this list is impossible, at least as it is currently described. A list of "sites that have been blocked" or "may be blocked" could be feasible and useful (but notable?). As an example, livejournal.com as a whole was blocked on my first trip to China. A little internet research suggested that it had been banned for years, which made sense. But then I moved hotels, and it worked on some days. It does seem almost random. LoLo McSpanky (talk) 19:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the former list in Wikipedia is too long and very inaccurate, since it fails to distinguish blocking by IP/URL or blocking by keywords. As mentioned, bans are different between cities, ISPs and the list changes over time. Also there're many bugs in the filtering systems, which allows many leaks and many ridiculous bans. To keep up such a list, we need an out-of-wikipedia website dedicate to censorship reports in China, which is also bound to be inaccurate since there're false alarms and false "go throughs" due to misunderstanding or political agenda drive. 125.217.162.8 (talk) 05:03, 5 May 2009 (UTC)plarq 13:02 5 May 2009(UTC+8) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.217.162.8 (talk) 04:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

PMSbuddy.com

I noticed one of the sites listed under the "Blogging, vlogging, and web hosting services." Was a site called PMSbuddy.com, a site for women to keep track of their periods. Not only is this site unsourced, but there's also a link included with it. I find it very hard to believe that China would block a site like that. Is it possible that someone from the site decided to use this page for advertising? –Nahald (talk) 16:28, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

"Previously Blocked"

do the websites under the "previously blocked" section really need to each say "(now unblocked)" after every example? 139.222.194.233 (talk) 22:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I would not say so, I think that would be silly and useless. SilvestertheCat (talk) 16:41, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Republika Srpska

Hi, I noticed that some websites are being blocked in the Serbian part of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Republika Srpska) and i wonder if there's some kind of tool available to systematically check urls if they work or not. The websites being blocked are GeenStijl and the related Dumpert.nl, both being Dutch (which is remarkably, and thats also why i think there must be a lot more) -- eiland (talk) 13:21, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

This page

When I was in Beijing, I went on this page to check the sites that where blocked, but it always loaded halfway. Then, I refreshed the page and it wouldn't load, but every other wikipedia page worked. I think it should be put here. 86.163.103.108 (talk) 00:30, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

This page is not "halfway blocked" as it is now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.217.162.8 (talk) 10:34, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Live in Beijing, and willing to help

I live in Beijing. Have lived here for five years. Looks like the information is a bit out-of-date. For instance, I just checked Picasa Web Albums (https://picasaweb.google.com/home), and it worked for me. Same with zh.wikipedia.org. Likewise, my blog -- http://sujinyan.com/ -- which is a wordpress blog works just fine, so putting "All Wordpress-powered blogs are still blocked as of November 2011" isn't correct. docs.google.com is working for me as well.

The restriction of access to websites in China is a big deal, so I think folks should probably spend a bit of time to get the information on this page updated... and keep it updated.

Perhaps some sort of table format, which sights the last time a page was checked?

Also, perhaps saving screenshots of the messages that occur as proof?

Sujinyan (talk) 10:45, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Go ahead an update them:)

Supaiku (talk) 11:09, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Does this page only list sites blocked at the present?

I argue that first of all all the sites blocked in the past are not notable enough for it to be listed. In addition, if there is an ethical reason to list all the sites blocked in the past, I say the World Wide Web did not come into being until at least 1990, so why not list all the sites as unavailable before 1990... for the sake of ethics? And of course, there is always an archive to be explored. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.244.13.79 (talk) 13:58, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

China is the worst country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.12.19.250 (talk) 10:59, 4 January 2013 (UTC)