Tech Blog

We recently noted that this blog was no longer accessible in China, and wondered aloud why Beijing’s shadowy censors had seen fit to target ft.com. Well, we should probably have looked a little more closely at our blog setup. FT Tech Blog actually resides on servers run by blog host company Typepad, and it is access to Typepad that is being blocked by the Great Firewall see here. 

So there’s no reason to believe it was something we said that got us blocked – and rather than the target of some of China’s increasingly sophisticated and targetted censorship, we are merely among the many victims of a rather blunt instrument of internet control. Not that that is much comfort, of course. Read more

China’s policy of blocking overseas websites has been noted here on more than one occasion, but it still comes as a surprise to find that FT Tech Blog itself appears to have become a victim of the government’s shadowy censors.

In recent days it has not been possible to access this part of the ft.com website from Beijing and Shanghai, with page requests just timing out – the usual symptom of a blocked site. The blog loads fine if accessed through an offshore proxy site designed to evade the censor. And a quick check on the block-checker site greatfirewallofchina.org  (see picture) also suggests we have been blacklisted. Read more

The Japanese search service established by Baidu.com earlier this year has been hailed as a pioneering effort by a Chinese internet company to establish a global presence. So why do Beijing’s shadowy internet censors appear to be blocking access to the new website?

Baidu is declining to comment on why baidu.jp cannot be accessed from within China in recent days, but industry observers are sure  the Japanese service’s tolerant approach to porn is the reason behind the block. As noted by bloggers writing in Chinese and English, baidu.jp’s main appeal so far appears to be Chinese internet users who find its image search function a better way to get hold of pornographic pictures than the main baidu.com service. (Take a look at the rather revealing user data on alexa.com here) Read more

Beijing: With Google trailing far behind in Chinese internet search, Nasdaq-listed market-leader Baidu.com has been putting the boot in with a video commercial that mocks foolish foreigners’ ignorance about China. The spot, (available on Google’s own YouTube here ), features a local hero who crashes a wedding between a top-hatted Caucasian and his Chinese fiancée, woos the bride-to-be away, and leaves the foreigner vomitting up what looks like blood.

"I know you don’t know I know…you don’t know I know you don’t know," the Chinese scholar hero tells him in what is intended to be a demonstration of the importance of local linguistic understanding. Read more