China Blocks YouTube, Restores Flickr and Blogspot
China's Web viewers can no longer access YouTube, but Blogspot.com and Flickr photos are now available.
Local access to Google Inc.'s Chinese Web site was disrupted during an important meeting of the country's Communist Party leadership this week, leading to an accusation that service was purposely disabled by the government.
A Google spokesman confirmed that access to Google.cn was disrupted recently, but said service has since been restored.
According to a report Friday from the group Reporters Without Borders, access to Google's blog search and YouTube video-sharing services was disrupted during the Party's week-long congress, as a means of limiting the public's access to information about the event.
China's Communist Party holds its week-long congress every five years to choose leaders and set the party's agenda.
Users attempting to access Google's (GOOG:google inc cl a
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GOOG 644.71, +5.09, +0.8%) blog search service have been automatically redirected to Chinese search engine Baidu.com (BIDU:baidu com inc spon adr rep a
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BIDU 316.11, -3.89, -1.2%) since the congress began Oct. 15, the Reporter Without Borders report said.
Meanwhile, users attempting to access YouTube, which enables the spontaneous posting of homemade video clips, have been denied access, the report said.
"The blocking of these sites comes at a perfect time for the government," the Reporters Without Borders report said. "Blogs and video-sharing sites such as YouTube offer ways for Internet users to share situations they may have encountered during the congress. Preventing Chinese citizens from having access to them forces them to rely on the national media for their information."
The Google spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on reasons why access to Google.cn was disrupted.
"We've had numerous reports that Google.cn and other search engines were inaccessible in China yesterday and traffic redirected to other sites," the spokesman said in an emailed statement. "While this was clearly unfortunate, we are pleased that service has been restored to our users."
According to various media reports, local access to Chinese search engines owned by Google rivals such as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT:Microsoft Corporation
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MSFT 30.17, -0.99, -3.2%) was also disrupted.
A Microsoft spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Reporters Without Borders report notes that while blogs and posted videos may contain diverse takes on the congress, mainstream press coverage of the event has been "virtually" uniform.
Reporters Without Borders a Paris-based organization that advocates for freedom of the press and the safety of journalis
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