China is no stranger to Internet censorship. The country’s Great Firewall includes many well known sites, but up until now BitTorrent sites have never been blocked.
There was a short blocking incident two years ago when Mininova, isoHunt and The Pirate Bay were hijacked and redirected to the leading Chinese search engine, Baidu. However, this issue was solved in a matter of days without an official explanation.
In the years that followed the Chinese government mainly targeted local BitTorrent sites, leaving the previously mentioned sites unharmed. According to reports from isoHunt’s owner Gary Fung, this tolerant stance might have changed as visits from China to isoHunt have plunged dramatically.
The drop in traffic is so significant that any technical difficulties have to be ruled out. Last Saturday, isoHunt had only 1,349 visitors from China compared to 131,362 the week before, a massive 99% decrease.
Despite the signs that this ban of isoHunt is intentional, there hasn’t been any official word from the Chinese authorities on the situation. Whether it has anything to do with the recent P2P site crackdown in China, where the authorities shut down hundreds of local sites including some of the biggest BitTorrent trackers, is unknown.
IsoHunt owner Gary Fung told TorrentFreak that he recommends that Chinese users who want to continue using the site should access it through a foreign proxy. Gary said that China was never a huge source of traffic for his site, but sees the ban as a “big deal” for the ongoing net censorship debate.
Although China’s authorities are not known for their democratic principles, speaking out against the ban might help. “China has flipflopped between site bans, so putting on pressure and people voicing opinions do matter,” Gary added, referring to China’s previous banning and unbanning of websites such as Wikipedia.
The Chinese have become infamous for successfully imposing strict internet restrictions on their nations which stop people from searching for things such as previous Chinese military blunders, the Tibet issue and pornography. Google, being the symbol of all things ‘Internet’ are taking quite a bashing because of it. As a result they are considering pulling out of the country.
They say that they will be holding talks with the Chinese government to try and work out a way in which Internet search results are not filtered thus passing the book onto someone else. I don’t think this is going to be very likely as China like to keep a lid on their populations knowledge, much like Iran.
Google say that if they cannot active this then they will pull out all of their operations from the Communist country. Could this be the end of Google in China?
Apple (AAPL) will begin selling iPhones in China at the end of this month, company executives said during today’s Q3 earnings call. Apple will be launching with China Unicom and this is going to obviously be a great opportunity for Apple to gain even more market share in the smartphone market.
New details:
- Apple will have 1,000 points of sale.
- Plans will range in price from $18/month to $100/month.
- With higher-priced plans, users will get their iPhones “free.”
Spotify has been in the press a lot lately with their move into the US market imminent, new funding, plus they have launched their iPhone application (but still yet to be accepted).
Today the news is that Spotify has partnered with with Tom Group a major Chinese media conglomerate to launch the company’s popular digital music streaming service in China. The tie-up will create a localized version of the software to introduce to provide music over computers and mobile phones, Tom said in a statement to Reuters. Spotify’s current services are only available over computers.
“Tom will work toward unveiling a localized version of Spotify in Greater China in the near future,” the statement said.
One look at my Twitter account will prove that I like the old inter-web. I Tweet, Google, chat, play, surf and download. Am I addicted? No. On average I’d say I spend around 4-5 hours a day at my computer which isn’t bad for someone who makes a living as a writer. However, imagine if you or I were addicted to the internet and were beaten to death for it.
Deng Senshan was shipped off to a paramilitary style boot camp by his parents to cure his computer/internet addiction. These camps are notorious for treating teens harshly with physical and mental abuse. They have even been known to shock their young clients with high amounts of electricity as a punishment.
Upon arriving at the camp, Deng was placed into solitary confinement as though being addicted to the internet was illegal. Then, just days after arriving at the camp, instructors beat him to death because “he ran too slow”.
His family, who paid £600 to have him sent to the camp for a month are calling for the immediate closing of the camp. Three instructors who are taught to have killed Deng are being held by local police.
Internet and gaming addictions are becoming widespread in countries such as the US, UK and France, but loosing your life for it is wrong. I guess this story goes to show what living in China on a day to day basis is like where instructors are allowed to beat, shock and mentally torture kids.
