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Censorship in China
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It is not clear if the ban on The Washington Post and The Guardian will be permanent. Photo: Shutterstock

China uses ‘Great Firewall’ to block Washington Post, Guardian websites

  • Newspapers’ sites had until recently been among the few major English-language outlets still regularly accessible in mainland China
  • Latest restrictions come amid increased censorship around 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square crackdown

The websites of The Washington Post and The Guardian appear to be blocked in China as the country’s government tightens its so-called Great Firewall censorship apparatus as it navigates a politically sensitive period.

Until this weekend, the two newspapers were among the last of the major English-language outlets that were still regularly accessible from mainland China without the use of virtual private networking (VPN) software, according to the censorship tracker Greatfire.org.

Chinese internet authorities went into overdrive ahead of the 30th anniversary of the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, prohibiting users of the popular WeChat social media service from posting keywords or pictures related to the event.

All but the most oblique references to the incident were immediately scrubbed and, during the days around the anniversary, users complained of not being able even to access the function to change their avatars.

Chinese internet authorities went into overdrive ahead of the 30th anniversary of the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Photo: Nora Tam
Every language edition of Wikipedia was fully banned in mid-May. A CNN reporter said the network’s website was blocked again this week soon after CNN.com ran a top story commemorating the 1989 incident.

China’s internet censors rarely, if ever, communicate their reasoning for blocking specific websites, and it is not clear whether the latest ban on the newspapers will be permanent. Although authorities intermittently tighten and loosen their restrictions, the trend since 2013 has shown more and more foreign websites being irrevocably added to China’s blacklist.

Why Beijing still thinks it got it right in Tiananmen Square

Outlets such as Bloomberg, The New York Times, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal have been blocked for years. So have social media services such as Facebook and Twitter and all Google-owned services, including YouTube. Other popular services such as Dropbox, Slack and WhatsApp are also prohibited.

International business lobbies, media freedoms groups and Western government officials – including US trade negotiators – say the “Great Firewall” amounts to a restriction not only on speech but also fair practice.

The extensive censorship software now blocks more than 10,000 web domains and is powered by artificial intelligence algorithms that tirelessly sharpen its ability to sniff out VPNs.

Chinese authorities have said their censorship practices are a matter of the country’s “internet sovereignty” and not negotiable with foreign governments. But its officials have gone further in recent years, not only defending their approach to censorship but touting its successes as a model that authoritarian governments around the world could also adopt.

While a small number of Chinese users download VPNs to access banned websites and social media services, Beijing has increasingly found ways to enforce the bans – including through physical intimidation.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Washington Post and The Guardian added to ‘Great Firewall’ blacklist
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