Since April 1994, when the first cable connected to China‘s Internet, the Beijing government strives to maintain control over online content accessed by the Chinese people. Since then, many sites have been banned in the country. And when they are not completely banned, they suffer from constant censorship.
Last month, Gmail service in China was completely blocked as well. Below is a list of eight popular sites that are banned or suffer heavy censorship in China:
Google:
Google search engine is banned in China as well as Blogspot, Google Translate, Google Earth and several other Google products are also completely blocked.
YouTube:
China banned YouTube in 2009 for unknown reasons, but at the same time, YouTube became a massive success in its neighboring countries like India and Japan.
Facebook:
Mark Zuckerberg’s social network is not part of the daily life of Chinese people for years. The government claims that Facebook is a dissemination tool for rumors and ideas contrary to the interests of the Chinese people.
Twitter:
Banned in China since 2009, the giant 140-character tweets plans to open an office in Hong Kong in 2015 to expand its marketing business in the Asian market. The popular microblogging service among Chinese is the Weibo, with over 500 million registered users.
Wikipedia:
Chinese censorship also affects cooperative encyclopedia, one of the most visited sites in the world. The Chinese government blocks access to controversial terms in the country as Dalai Lama, Chinese Dissidents List, and Democracy.
LinkedIn:
Just like Wikipedia, the social network that connects professionals was not 100% banned in China, but its content is subjected to match the Chinese censorship rules.
Dropbox:
In June 2014, Chinese authorities cut off access to Dropbox synchronization service and popular cloud data storage in several cities. However, the blockade did not affect many users, since the Chinese Internet giant Baidu offers similar service in the country.
New York Times:
Besides the traditional New York Times, other major global news networks, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and Bloomberg, have been blocked in China in recent months. In October, the BBC announced that the English version of its website was suffering Chinese blockade.
Do you know more websites that are blocked in China? Share with us in the comment section.
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