rose~ Posted June 2, 2006 at 03:59 AM Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 at 03:59 AM I got really frustrated about not being able to access bbc.co.uk last night, especially after a friend insisted it was because BBC didn't want Chinese people to be able to access the service for free. Usually I am not bothered. I want to ask the question seriously- why is news.bbc.co.uk blocked? None of the other providers are blocked, but it's like a national insult to people from the UK. I think CCTV should be blocked in the UK. How do you say "blocked"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted June 2, 2006 at 04:20 AM Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 at 04:20 AM The BBC has a Chinese language service, which I've always assumed is the reason for the very inflexible block. I think the same goes for VOA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rose~ Posted June 2, 2006 at 04:29 AM Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 at 04:29 AM Sorry, off-topic in the original thread. Perhaps that is the reason, although Radio France has a Chinese service and it is not blocked: here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yingguoguy Posted June 2, 2006 at 04:33 AM Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 at 04:33 AM Try http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk, this has the same content as the normal news website, but for some reason is unblocked. No such luck with the Chinese language service unfortunately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rose~ Posted June 2, 2006 at 04:39 AM Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 at 04:39 AM Thanks for the link, yingguoguy. Maybe you should delete it, though, as the funny thing is last night I found: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/default.stm via Baidu's BBC "bar", and it worked, but today it seems to be blocked already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnd Posted June 2, 2006 at 05:01 AM Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 at 05:01 AM I agree, it is a national insult. Can someone please post that link for the Great Firewall complains form. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yingguoguy Posted June 2, 2006 at 05:19 AM Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 at 05:19 AM I thought about that, and if people think it's wrong I'll delete it, as I don't want to ruin it for others. On the other hand I feel quite stongly that I don't want to be cowed by this censorship. If they want to block it, fine let them block it, as there are plenty of other solutions. P.S. I can actually access your Chinese language page at the moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rose~ Posted June 2, 2006 at 05:43 AM Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 at 05:43 AM I cannot access the bbc chinese link here in Shanghai. But I can access http://news.google.com.tw/news?ned=tw which is a first! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted June 2, 2006 at 05:50 AM Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 at 05:50 AM The Chinese link starts to load for me, but then cuts out - which means it's triggering keyword filters, but isn't blocked by url (or IP address). Roddy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frobbit Posted June 2, 2006 at 05:15 PM Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 at 05:15 PM use torpark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonny Wang Posted June 3, 2006 at 04:13 AM Report Share Posted June 3, 2006 at 04:13 AM For those of you frustrated by the Great Firewall, all you have to do is install free software from a *certain* company that allows you to surf the internet anonymously. This particular company has made the software free for people living in places like China and Iran in what I think is a very worthy effort to promote freedom of access to the internet in these places. I'm not mentioning the name of the company or their website for fear of going afoul of this forum's posting guidelines. If the moderator responds with his permission, I'll gladly share the link for this free software. After you've installed it, websites like BBC, Wikipedia, etc. are easy to surf from China. Nice to know that not all internet companies are eager to whore themselves out to you know who! --JW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rose~ Posted June 3, 2006 at 05:54 AM Author Report Share Posted June 3, 2006 at 05:54 AM I really was wondering why the BBC was singled out when other equivalent sites such as CNN are not blocked. If Roddy is right that it is due to the Chinese language service, I wish they would only block that. I know how to access the website using proxies or other methods, but I would like to watch the news and newsnight with broadband, which is not possible with web-based proxies. Is that possible with this software? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadopup Posted June 3, 2006 at 08:08 AM Report Share Posted June 3, 2006 at 08:08 AM If you search there are websites that allow you to get around firewalls. It has something to do with proxies and other computer nonsense I don't understand. I use one in particular which works well. You type in the address and the website does the rest of the work. I've used it to read blogspot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
md1101 Posted June 3, 2006 at 08:41 AM Report Share Posted June 3, 2006 at 08:41 AM i read an article the other day on the chinese segment of bbc.com. it was all about tiananmen square and stated all of what happened so i think its pretty clear why its blocked in china. it used to bother me all the time while i was in china as well... i must say i feel so free being back australia. just shows we should never take for granted the freedom of information we have in our countries. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeon Posted June 3, 2006 at 10:33 AM Report Share Posted June 3, 2006 at 10:33 AM The BBC doesn't tone down the news to suit Beijing. It was quite critical and showed some very damning film footage in 1989 which the CCP would still find embarrassing, and has a large archive of news articles and video which are accessible via the site in multiple languages including Chinese. In other words, it's a site that isn't compatible with China's world view. So it's blocked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonny Wang Posted June 4, 2006 at 01:56 PM Report Share Posted June 4, 2006 at 01:56 PM Rose, You wrote: but I would like to watch the news and newsnight with broadband, which is not possible with web-based proxies. Is that possible with this software? --> I don't know. Sorry! Also, for websites that seem to have only been having problems for the last few days, it would be wise to consider that it may just be short term suppression related to the special anniversary that China marks on June 4th, ahem, ahem. It wouldn't surprise me if tomorrow or the next day any problems people have been having with internet access magically cleared up and things returned to normal. Just a though. (sh) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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