Update: Youtube unblocked in March 27 with country preference setting.
While Chinese foreign ministry spokesman refused to confirm Youtube had been blocked and stressed that China is not afraid of the Internet, Youtube confirmed yesterday (March 24) its website indeed has been blocked in China since March 23.
Video clips on Tibet crackdown
It is not yet clear why the Chinese government decided to block the site, but reports said that it is related to the videos uploaded by Tibetan exiles on violent crackdown of Tibetan protesters by Chinese government in March 2008 and early 2009. I searched through Youtube and found a number of videos that have been uploaded in the past few days on the above topic. (There are some longer video clips but too disturbing to put up here… ).
The video clips were released first via India T.V channel, showing the graphic details of atrocities in Tibet in March, 2008. Moreover, the Tibetan exile government claimed that 250 Tibetan had been killed, around 1,294 were serious injured since January 2009. It also showed a person named Tendar being beaten to death by police on March 14 last year. But Xinhua report said the footage was not in fact Tendar and the wounds shown were fake.
Youtube spokesman said that they are trying to restore their access in China. Let's check if the above videos would be compromised.
Youtube email harmonized?
Meanwhile, netizens from China report that Youtube e-mails to their users have also been harmonized. When they try to open Youtube e-mails, the email service company, Tencent gives a warning message:
“你将要打开不安全的链接，是否继续”
You are about to open an insecure connection, do you want to continue?
Below is a screen capture of the warning message:
Over the Wall
There are various sites helping netizens to jump over the Great Fire Wall and get access to blocked site. You can try this one at seawe.net, or the more grass mud horse approach at fuckGFW (Chinese only).
[...] BBC udtaler skråsikkert, at det er fordi Youtube har en video med kinesiske soldater, der banker tibetanske munke. Globalvoices skriver mere om videoen her. [...]
posted on March 25th, 2009 at 8:11 am - #15264global network initiative’s statement on youtube:
posted on March 26th, 2009 at 4:50 am - #15269http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/newsandevents/youtube_032509.php
[...] Awesome job, lovely security forces. Yeah, let’s see you smack around and beat up more of these cyber activists. I’m sure you’ll manage to silence all of them pretty easily. And hey, if you can’t, you can just block the entire internet in Sudan, sort of like how China blocked all of Youtube. [...]
posted on March 26th, 2009 at 3:11 pm - #15272[...] Global Voices Advocacy suggests methods to get around the blockade. [...]
posted on March 27th, 2009 at 5:18 am - #15281Update: Youtube unblocked in March 27 with country preference setting.
posted on March 30th, 2009 at 6:00 am - #15331This is the fact that China afred of the internet.. and blocks a lot of sites, filter many of materials wich r not crape and leve in the fear of truth……
SuCkS!!
posted on April 2nd, 2009 at 12:38 am - #15354Definitely still blocked here in China.
posted on April 10th, 2009 at 3:22 am - #15412Not the first time either.
I am really missing the tube. i had a lot of videos to upload and friends all over the world work hard to share their videos.
Thanks China, for blocking this website again just to cover your ass. Cowards.
how to open u tube. plz mail me. rrat_2005@yahoo.com
posted on April 14th, 2009 at 6:57 am - #15445youtube is still blocked in china. This is totally lame and pathetic and a shame on china
posted on April 20th, 2009 at 12:18 am - #15499I’d like to put my voice up about this on http://www.voicestoday.com
posted on April 20th, 2009 at 12:19 am - #15501live in China but I set up a server in the States. I charge $3/month to friends. The only catch is that sometimes if they discover it I have to set up a new one which is a few days of downtime.
You can write me an email and I’ll give you free access for a couple weeks if you want. blockedbychina at gmail.com
posted on September 10th, 2009 at 11:24 am - #19942