Why Whatsapp is blocked in China? It was working before July 2017 but as of July 2017 Chinese government initially blocked photos, videos and voice sharing on WhatsApp and from September 26, 2017 China completely Bans Whatsapp. Ever since its fight with Google, China has been incredibly smart at how it blocks websites or apps, especially those that are in high use. Rather than completely and instantly block something, creating outrage, China now targets specific functions and blocks them sporadically. Whatsapp users have so far reported undelivered messages, the inability to send photos or videos, or the inability to video call. Others say that they haven’t had any problems. Trust me, eventually they will. It’s all part of the plan.
If you are living or moving to China for business or personal reasons, you may prefer to keep using websites and services as you did in the past. You would like to use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Gmail to keep in touch with your family, friends and your company via your iPhone. However, those websites are banned in China. n most countries, even when a website is banned there is some leniency that follows it, but in China, it has nothing of that sort. The law is strict, and if breached you have to face the consequences like never before. Every day the internet usage of the citizens is spied on by millions of internets polices hired by the Chinese Government. Even the ISPs that a person uses can sell to the government so they cannot trust anyone. China has advanced technologies to make the censorships last and some tools used by them are IP Blocking, Packet Filtering, URL Filtering, etc. Naturally, the citizens are losing out on worldly experiences, and it can make them frustrated in a technologically rich country.
The Chinese government has banned a number of well-known social media platforms, that are elsewhere ruling with their connectivity capability. A number of applications and entertainment sites have been blocked as well so that the country does not have to compromise with the security. Among blocked sites are such popular sites as Google services (including gmail, google maps, google docs and others) Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, VOIP services like Skype and Snapchat and tones of others popular resources.
South Korea’s Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said China had confirmed it had blocked “some foreign messaging applications through which terrorism-related information” was circulating, and Chinese authorities say they have blocked messaging apps KakaoTalk and Line as part of efforts to fight terrorism. If you are living in China or you will find in recent future, you will know that people in China generally don’t have access to several social and general websites. This happens because of the Great Firewall of China i.e. the Golden Shield Project that blocks several websites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, etc. And this is the reason that we can’t access KakaoTalk in China. But there are several ways in which you can actually access these websites if you can go around government policies.
Vimeo was the first video sharing site to support high-definition video. What to do if you can’t access Vimeo in China? As we know, the Chinese censorship authorities will block any site which they deem to contain material detrimental (even tangentially) to the Chinese Communist Party. The way they do this is by blocking at the IP address level. A crude tool indeed. Most websites in the world are hosted on Shared Hosting Accounts so if an IP address gets red flagged it could potentially impact hundreds of other sites hosted on the same server, using the same IP address. To create an analogy, it’s a bit like living in a shared house and one of the members is caught for being involved in illicit activities. So the police decide to charge everyone in the house whether they were involved or not. If you lived in a neighboring single apartment you would not be charged.
Gmail is the most useful email service available all over the world. Gmail has way over 900 million users using the service every day to keep up with work and relatives and friends. The Gmail mobile application had a record of 90.7 million users accessing Gmail at the same time from different countries in 2014. Around 75% users access the mail service from their smartphones.
Like many other foreign websites, all the Google services are blocked in China. The constant internet monitoring and restriction of various websites with China’s national internet firewall commonly known as Great Firewall of China (GFW) have made it impossible for the Chinese population and the travelers in accessing the services. GFW is constantly looking for the access, publishing and all the actions of the population on the internet. Useful websites like Google services, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and news portals such as Bloomsbury news, New York Times are officially blocked in China.
China is well known to censor and block foreign-based social networking websites and video streaming websites. It promotes the use of in-house applications and services. The Telegram application was blocked by the Chinese Government in the year 2015 as Telegram was accused of aiding human right activists and lawyers. A feature called “Secret Chat” is offered by Telegram, where the messages relayed between users, destroy themselves once the session is over. This feature was used by whistleblowers to organize their activities which the Chinese Government is vehemently against and finds it hard to crack the conversation between the whistleblowers and activists. In addition to it, no matter how popular it may be, Telegram has had its own share of controversies.
Netflix is the most famous and popular streaming video site around the world. Many people like to use Netflix and subscribe there to watch what they are interested to. However, it is not convenient for many people living in China or visiting to China because they can’t access Netflix and watch TV shows and movies. Therefore, How to Access Netflix in China? The first reason is that Netflix has not opened its service to China yet. And you should know that great content like films and TV shows on Netflix are not equally reachable from different nations and districts on the globe. For instance, access of subscribers in India is restricted to only a very small part of the library of the service because of copyright issues.
Twitter, one of the most renowned social media platforms, a Microblog, has been blocked in 2009 in China. But this really has not hindered the users from accessing the service. Twitter, since the very start, had been looking to the growth of the global user base. But since the time Twitter has been blocked in China, this goal of Twitter has been hampered. Twitter was basically blocked in China to prohibit people from spreading any kind of a message as it could come as a political threat to the country. The firewall of China, popularly known as the Great Firewall of China, keeps a strict track of the activity of the users on the Internet.
Twitter, one of the most renowned social media platforms, a Microblog, has been blocked in 2009 in China. But this really has not hindered the users from accessing the service. Twitter, since the very start, had been looking to the growth of the global user base. But since the time Twitter has been blocked in China, this goal of Twitter has been hampered. Twitter was basically blocked in China to prohibit people from spreading any kind of a message as it could come as a political threat to the country. The firewall of China, popularly known as the Great Firewall of China, keeps a strict track of the activity of the users on the Internet.
