The Nanny moves in mysterious ways, her wonders to perform. On Friday, much of the Great Firewall of China melted away, just in time for the Olympics. Until now, the censors have protected our delicate minds from pornographers and terrorists like Amnesty International and the BBC’s Chinese service. Now, after protests from the international media and a rather unhappy International Olympic Committee spokesman, we can wallow in the pollution of these forbidden sites without having to resort to a proxy.
The gunslinging, “shout first, ask questions later,” Reporters Without Borders is freely available, though not its Chinese-language section. Wikipedia’s Chinese version is also temporarily open for viewing. For a very brief time, Radio Free Asia was even accessible in Chinese - presumably a mistake, since that hole has now been closed.
So, with all these anti-China forces allowed to swarm across the border, why was ESWN suddenly blocked? Or, to be more accurate, why were parts of ESWN blocked: Brief Comments July 21-31 and the all-important home page?
The answer was obviously a word, or phrase that the Great Firewall didn’t like. I assumed this was contained in ESWN’s short post on the Dahonghou Mass Incident - especially since it included Chinese characters. Wrong.
I copied and pasted every single piece of text on those two pages and split them into dozens of separate pages here to find out what was triggering the block - and the Nanny didn’t give a damn about the Dahonghou Incident. After wasting hours on this rather pointless task (I sometimes suspect I might be autistic) I finally found the answer.
The cause of the block on ESWN’s home page was his link to Jonathan Ansfield’s The Ti@n@nm*n P@p*r. The Nanny presumably thinks that phrase is similar enough to the book The Ti@n@nm*n P@p*rs to call in the firing squad.
So why did Brief Comments get blocked? The same link, same phrase. When Roland replaced the link on his home page, that page stopped being blocked. The naughty words remain in the Brief Comments, hence the continuing problems of access.
Returning to the temporary opening up of all those previously banned sites, here’s a question for people in China who live outside of Beijing: can you open them where you are, or is this just for the Olympic host cities?
(For a good description of how the Nanny works in China, see James Fallows’ article “The Connection Has Been Reset”)
10 Comments
There is another offending link on the pate. It is the fourth one down in the third column. The article is a game-theoretic analysis of the Joker’s use of the Prisoner’s Dilemma in Batman: The Dark Knight. As such, the content is quite innocuous. The problem is that the author plugged in Kunming (evoking the bus exposions) and it is the combination of “Kunming Joker” or “Kunming Clown” that triggered off the filter. I have tested it at the original site (that is, this page is blocked but other pages are accessible over there).
Clown show, indeed …
I live in Anhui. ESWN was blocked for a few days, but its unblocked now.
who was blocked? who will be blocked? who cares? the sky will not fall. Jeez! Bloggers-with-delusions-of-Grandeur!
I had an issue when I actually made the doofus mistake of actually linking TO the Ti*n*nmen P*pers. Sure enough, link removed, block lifted.
Ah, chinese buddhist, welcome to my humble abode. I’m sure that if Chris O’Brien ever returns to his blog it will be because he misses your friendly words of wisdom. I wish you many more happy years of Internet browsing in Hong Kong where the Nanny does not tell you what you can or cannot read on any given day, including your own email. Here’s a site I think you’ll love (though Amnesty International might not thank me for sending you there). For us here on the mainland, however, it is still blocked.
Yours deludely, B&W Cat
@Jeremiah: You %$^&$%^!!!! You blocked my access to the comments moderation queue by writing the banned phrase T. Papers! I had to use a proxy just to be able to approve comments. (If I didn’t hate smiley icons I’d add one here, but I do so I won’t.) I’ve now changed your ‘a’s to ‘*’s so that this post isn’t blocked in China.
Rob,
Dude…I am sorry. Total brain cramp on my part.
Ah the joys of living in the Olympic City.
Also, on my site, I use the ’symbol’ function to input Greek letters for “T” and “a” and other letters. Unless the coding on somebody’s browser is off, they’re indistinguishable from the real letters while sufficiently confusing to elude the Nanny.
Just a suggestion.
Oot dekcolb “Srepap Nemnanait” si?
so what has happened to Chris O’Brien? apologies if I have caused anything untoward to happen.
Don’t worry, chinese buddhist, I don’t think anything’s happened to Chris O’Brien. And if bloggers don’t want to be criticized, we shouldn’t have comment sections.
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