Google, FB, Twitter blocked in China

More than 2600 foreign websites are blocked in China. Some websites are opened in regions like Hong Kong and Macau but in mainland China, many of the websites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, BlogSpot, YouTube, Bloomberg, Wikipedia, and Picasa are still blocked. There are several reasons why these websites are blocked in China.

Recently, the Google search Engine was temporarily unblocked in China, during U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Beijing for a series of high-level talks. This disruption of Google began in the run-up to the 25^th anniversary of the government’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

Google and all services like Google Play, Maps, Docs, Drive, and Google+ were blocked since 2010 in China. The reason for blocking these sites was they did not fall in the law of China and serve the interests of people. China manages it media according to their law. China does not want other websites to create rumors and bias against China. China has its own popular search engine as if Google called Baidu and popular version of Twitter called Weibo.

China had kept YouTube out because it has its own domestic video sites called Tudou and Youku and it wants them to grow and prosper. Introduction of Alibaba after Baidu has pushed US giant Google to third place in Chinese market. As if Facebook, China has domestic Social Networking, sites called Renren and Kaixin001. Skype is also illegal to use in China and government support homegrown services by China Telecom and China Unicom. These are more expensive than Skype because they require monthly registration.

Other online services are also facing disruption in China, which includes South Korean Naver Corporation Line and KakaoTalk. Flickr and Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage are also disrupted in the country. China is quickly becoming the most aggressive and protectionist country in the world. Perhaps after a few years government will be pressured to let these foreign internet companies back in and negotiate a return but then these firms will have been left in dust by Chinese rivals.