China’s censors have blocked access to the popular video sharing site YouTube but the authorities insist they are unafraid of the Internet.
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Access to YouTube began to falter late on Monday and by Tuesday it had become impossible to reach the site.
The California-based company confirmed that the web site had been blocked in China since Monday but was unable to provide an explanation for why the Chinese authorities were barring access.
Scott Rubin, a company spokesman, said: “YouTube has been blocked in China. We do not know the reason for the blockage, and we’re working as quickly as possible to restore access to our users in China.”
It may be no coincidence that the blockage has occurred around the anniversary of the Tibetan unrest. The site was blocked last year from March 15 to 23 – a day after a riot in Lhasa in which 22 were killed after Tibetans protesting against Chinese rule rampaged through the streets of the Himalayan city.
The release at the weekend of a video compiled by Tibetan exiles showing violent scenes shot by Chinese police of their crackdown on a riot in Lhasa in 1988 and a scene of armed police arresting protesters in March last year may have angered the authorities.
It is hardly the first time that YouTube has been blocked in China – or in several other countries nervous about the almost unfiltered content available to their people. In the past the site has been inaccessible in China for brief periods, sometimes with specific videos blocked.
Attempts to download certain videos on Monday prompted users’ computers to show that all-too-familiar almost-blank page with the words “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage”. The appearance of that page is pretty much a sure sign that the site in question is blocked.
Access to YouTube has been irregular since the start of this month – the one-year anniversary of widespread protests by Tibetans against Chinese rule.
Speculation is rife as to why YouTube might have been blocked. Any informative explanation from the Chinese Internet police is unlikely to be forthcoming.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang avoided a direct answer to the question of renewed blocks on YouTube. He told a briefing: “Many people have a false impression that the Chinese government fears the Internet. In fact it is just the opposite."
Indeed, he said, the existence in China of the world’s biggest Internet population, at some 300 million, and with 100 million blogs showed: “China's Internet is open enough, but also needs to be regulated by law in order to prevent the spread of harmful information and for national security".
YouTube is just the latest of thousands of sites to be blocked behind what has become known as the Great Firewall of China – a phrase first coined by Sinologist Geremie Barme and writer Sang Ye in the magazine Wired in 1997.
An Internet crackdown that began in January has closed hundreds of Chinese sites, including a popular blog hosting site and several sites popular with Tibetans. It has been described by analysts as another step in the Party's battle to stifle dissent in a year of sensitive anniversaries, including the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule on October 1.
Marc van der Chijs, a Dutch Internet entrepreneur who co-founded Shanghai-based video-sharing website Tudou.com, offered another theory for the blockage in a Tuesday message on his website. "I suspect the real reason might be that YouTube just launched a Chinese version, which would make the site much more accessible for Chinese users. I don't like sites to be blocked; even not those of our competitors.”
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BY Jane Macartney, Beijing
Source：TIMES ONLINE
Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd.
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