BANNED!!

I noticed something strange today: I was able to open two Blogger sites (This American Iranian Life [good stuff!] and Predict Pitchfork) without using a proxy. Hmm... I tried my Treyopia.com. It timed out. That's what happens when sites are blocked here. They just never come up. There are no special pages telling you you're a bad person for wanting to look up info on Tibet, freedom, or democracy. The site just won't pull up.

I tried http://trinarian.blogspot.com. It pulled up.

The good news is that Blogger sites are no longer blocked; the bad news is someone put a specific block on my site. They put a ban on my domain mask, Treyopia.com, not the actual content of the site. Everything is hosted by Blogger (owned by Google.) It's strange because I've gone out of my way not to say anything negative about the Party or government as a whole so that this wouldn't happen. Oh well.

It could well be a technical glitch, but I doubt it. I feel honored... most of my favorite authors have been banned at some point in their career. It's nice to be noticed :-)

A lot of people have been asking me questions about the Great Firewall of China. It's not as intrusive (i.e., effective) as one would think. I can pull up the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and articles inside them very critical of China. I even pulled up a site called The Truth About China (not a chance in hell I'll out a link to that one from my site, even though I'm already banned). Wikipedia, BBC News, and most blog sites like Typepad, BlogSpot, and Technorati are banned.

Using a free anonymous proxy server (just Google it) will get you to Wikipedia and blogs. BBC and Technorati are still off-limits with a proxy server. I even had a friend set up a private proxy back home... still won't work. It's almost like there are two tiers of blocking. Blocking for the masses, and a deeper syntax blocking on proxy servers for the more technically inclined. So... if you're a commoner, no Wiki for you! If you're educated, BBC is still a little too counter-revolutionary.




UPDATE: Technorati is now available with a proxy, but still not without one.


TAGS: Banned Websites, Banned , Websites China, CurrentEvents, Treyopia, Great Firewall, Blogger, BlogSpot, Wikipedia Censorship