'Clouding' the Issue - the Great Firewall

[Randy W]

 

No connectivity on either ExpressVPN or NordVPN the last day or so

 

https://www.ahenacy.xyz/support/troubleshooting/china-status/?utm_campaign=china_got_update_windows&utm_content=follow_latest_updates&utm_medium=apps&utm_source=rotating_message_v3_windows_e1&redir=fqdtohl.com&redir_t=b996bac8d9369382488774def7064502ad8c36b530bce1bf8a9c53c2e47da54e

 

Update as of 09:35 GMT / 17:35 GMT+8, October 17, 2019

We are aware of a new escalation in blocks in China today that is impacting VPN connectivity, and our engineering team is actively working to respond.

We will be updating this page with the latest advice on staying connected, so please check here regularly.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, at least my cell phone is back on line now. That's how it's been for most of the last 4 ½ months. I can live with that.

 

At least I did figure out that the Drudge Report is a good source for unblocked news.

[Randy W]

Bought Astrill for a month at $20. So far, it seems to be working.

 

Latency seems high (it takes a while for a screen to come up), but YouTube videos are playing seamlessly for the most part.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Bought Astrill for a month at $20. So far, it seems to be working.

 

Latency seems high (it takes a while for a screen to come up), but YouTube videos are playing seamlessly for the most part.

 

 

Astrill is definitely a keeper. Looks like Astrill on my desktop, and Express on my phone will do just fine.

 

 

 

Censorship blocks have increased in China in the last few days.

 

It is essential that you update your apps if you haven't done so in the past 24 hours.

 

Yesterday, we released the latest versions of ExpressVPN for Windows, Mac, Android, and Linux. Today, we released the latest versions for iOS and routers.

 

Here's how to update your apps and stay connected:

 

1. Download the latest app updates from the China status page

2. Install the updates on all your devices

 

3. Connect to the server locations suggested on the page

4. Check the page regularly for the latest advice on staying connected

 

China status page:

https://www.pjgykog.com/support/troubleshooting/china-status/

 

Our engineers are working hard to improve your connectivity, and we've made major updates to our VPN server technology to help you get and stay connected.

 

In the face of escalating censorship, we remain committed to helping you connect reliably and protecting your access to the full, open internet. We thank you for entrusting us with this duty.

 

The URL for the China status page seems to change each time, with the old link blocked.

[Randy W]

Bought Astrill for a month at $20. So far, it seems to be working.

 

Latency seems high (it takes a while for a screen to come up), but YouTube videos are playing seamlessly for the most part.

 

 

Astrill is definitely a keeper. Looks like Astrill on my desktop, and Express on my phone will do just fine.

 

 

 

Censorship blocks have increased in China in the last few days.

 

It is essential that you update your apps if you haven't done so in the past 24 hours.

 

Yesterday, we released the latest versions of ExpressVPN for Windows, Mac, Android, and Linux. Today, we released the latest versions for iOS and routers.

 

Here's how to update your apps and stay connected:

 

1. Download the latest app updates from the China status page

2. Install the updates on all your devices

 

3. Connect to the server locations suggested on the page

4. Check the page regularly for the latest advice on staying connected

 

China status page:

https://www.pjgykog.com/support/troubleshooting/china-status/

 

Our engineers are working hard to improve your connectivity, and we've made major updates to our VPN server technology to help you get and stay connected.

 

In the face of escalating censorship, we remain committed to helping you connect reliably and protecting your access to the full, open internet. We thank you for entrusting us with this duty.

 

The URL for the China status page seems to change each time, with the old link blocked.

 

 

 

Update to ExpressVPN for Windows Version 7.5.5.

 

Update to ExpressVPN for Mac Version 7.5.3.

 

ExpressVPN for Android 7.7.3.

 

 

Edited October 29, 2019 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Circumventing the Great Firewall, gamer style

 

from Abacus

 

PlayStation store in China suspended after gamers reportedly evade restrictions

Sony's indefinite suspension comes after reports that some people were getting around China's strict game censorship by switching the console to the international service

 

 

Last year, only 13 new games were added to the PlayStation Store in China. Nintendo Switch has only been allowed to offer three games in its China store in partnership with Tencent since it started selling consoles in China in December.

Given the tough regulations, Chinese fans are finding ways to skirt limits to access popular but unlicensed games such as Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons game.

To play the game, users in China are paying a premium for unlocked Switch consoles sold abroad and brought in by middlemen and ditching their Tencent-stamped ones that contain a server lock.

 

 

 

[Randy W]

 

Astrill is definitely a keeper. Looks like Astrill on my desktop, and Express on my phone will do just fine.

 

 

 

 

Looks like ExpressVPN and NordVPN have given up on the Chinese market - but Astril is still giving rock-solid performance.

[Randy W]

Also from the SCMP

 

China battles to control nationalist narrative on social media

 

• Embassy in France removes ‘false image’ on Twitter in latest online controversy amid accusations of spreading disinformation
• After months of aggressive anti-US posts by Chinese diplomats Beijing is cracking down on ‘smear campaigns’ at home

Schneider said this showed that the state-backed nationalistic propaganda online was at risk of backfiring diplomatically.

 

“The authorities have to constantly worry that they might lose control of the nationalist narrative they unleashed, especially considering how many people produce content on the internet, how fast ideas spread, and how strongly commercial rationales drive misinformation online,” he said.

 

. . .

 

Last month, a series of widely shared social media articles about people in different countries “yearning to be part of China” resulted in a diplomatic backlash against Beijing. Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry summoned the Chinese ambassador in April to lodge a formal protest against the article.

 

Following the incident, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s internet regulator which manages the “firewall” and censors material online, announced a two-month long “internet cleansing” to clear privately owned accounts which engage in “smear campaigns”.

 

 

[Randy W]

Next target - LinkedIn

from the NYTimes

China Punishes Microsoft’s LinkedIn Over Lax Censorship
Officials said the social network had failed to block objectionable political content, a sign of the sacrifices it must make to remain in the vast but difficult market.

Quote

 

LinkedIn has been the lone major American social network allowed to operate in China. To do so, the Microsoft-owned service for professionals censors the posts made by its millions of Chinese users.

Now, it’s in hot water for not censoring enough.

China’s internet regulator rebuked LinkedIn executives this month for failing to control political content, according to three people briefed on the matter. Though it isn’t clear precisely what material got the company into trouble, the regulator said it had found objectionable posts circulating in the period around an annual meeting of China’s lawmakers, said these people, who asked for anonymity because the issue isn’t public.

As a punishment, the people said, officials are requiring LinkedIn to perform a self-evaluation and offer a report to the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s internet regulator. The service was also forced to suspend new sign-ups of users inside China for 30 days, one of the people added, though that period could change depending on the administration’s judgment.

The Cyberspace Administration of China did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment.

 . . .

On March 9, LinkedIn posted a statement saying it had “temporarily” stopped registering new users in China. “We’re a global platform with an obligation to respect the laws that apply to us, including adhering to Chinese government regulations for our localized version of LinkedIn in China,” the statement added.

 . . .

The company has used a combination of software algorithms and human reviewers to flag posts that could offend Beijing. Users who run afoul of the speech rules have generally received emails informing them that their post is not viewable by LinkedIn members in China.

Its early efforts drew ire from users whose content was blocked even if they had been posting from outside the country. Still, unlike its peers, LinkedIn has remained in China and offered a tantalizing case study in market access.

 

 

[Randy W]

LinkedIn gives in - although many Chinese celebrities post on the International version, which is not affected

A day after #LinkedIn announced plans to close the only major international social network operating in China, local users are worried. 
http://ow.ly/WWcc50GrYPF

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3065413177110855

Chinese Professionals Say They Will Miss LinkedIn
Chinese users fear they’ll be cut off from international business networking as Microsoft prepares to mothball LinkedIn China.

Quote

 

A day after LinkedIn announced plans to close the only major international social network operating in China, local users are worried. Seven users who work in China or have business in China told Sixth Tone they use the platform regularly at work and fear being cut off from cross-border networks.

The Microsoft-owned company announced plans to “sunset the localized version of LinkedIn” in China later this year in a company blog post Thursday, citing a “significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements in China.” The company plans to launch a job-hunting platform called InJobs, without a social feed or the ability to share posts and articles, according to the statement.

A LinkedIn spokesperson said LinkedIn China will continue to exist as a company, but declined to offer more details as to how the move would affect Chinese users’ interactions with users of the global version.

 

 

[Randy W]

 . . . and BEHIND the Great Firewall

Replug: In China, the world of push messages is instead a lawless Wild West. China’s Android users received an average of nearly 100 push notifications a day. The daily total number sent by all mobile apps was almost 100 billion.

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3088157364836436

You Won’t Believe the Clickbaity Chaos of Chinese Apps
For China’s tech companies, user growth is increasingly all about having the pushiest push notifications.

Quote

 

In Luo Weiyong’s line of work, success means crafting a 7 a.m. push notification catchy enough that his company’s app is the first thing people open when they wake up in the morning. Or, it means sending messages personalized according to users’ online behavior every 39 minutes — an interval extensive testing proved optimal.

For the companies Luo has worked at, as well as for countless competitors vying to get noticed, time equals money — literally. More user attention translates to higher advertising income. But Chinese apps are finding they need ever more aggressive tactics to achieve their growth goals.

For years, China’s internet industry knew nothing but rapid expansion as millions upon millions of people went online for the first time. But with smartphones now in the hands of just about everyone who wants one, growth has slowed to a crawl. According to business intelligence service provider QuestMobile, the number of active monthly mobile internet users in China reached 1.135 billion in 2019, just 2.3% more than a year earlier. In 2020, this figure fell further to 1.7%.

The only way to increase traffic is to out-compete other apps for users’ time, a battle in which push notifications are the most potent weapon. To wield them most effectively, apps collect and analyze all possible user data, reducing every one of China’s 1.1 billion phone owners to a set of tags that can be used to target them with barrages of tailor-made messages.

 

 

[Randy W]

Content moderators spend excruciatingly long hours scrubbing anything associated with horror, violence, pornography, and information deemed politically sensitive or offensive. They review a barrage of user-generated content staring at their screens relentlessly and often working overtime at the cost of their physical and mental health.

Then on Feb. 4, the death of a Bilibili content moderator nicknamed Mu Se Mu Xin, allegedly due to overwork, served as an ominous reminder of the potential risks of excessive work hours — though the video streaming platform denied he had worked overtime. 

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3166416147010557

China’s Content Moderators Are Overworked and Chronically Stressed
Several former employees complained of long work hours, minimum pay, and limited professional development.

Quote

 

Hired by top domestic internet companies, the so-called content moderators spend excruciatingly long hours scrubbing anything associated with horror, violence, pornography, and information deemed politically sensitive or offensive. They review a barrage of user-generated content — including videos, comments, photos, and user profiles — staring at their screens relentlessly and often working overtime at the cost of their physical and mental health.

Six former employees in the content moderation department at major Chinese tech firms told Sixth Tone that their job required them to monitor online content at all hours of the day, in shifts that sometimes stretched up to 14 to 15 hours. Many of them, fresh university graduates attracted by working for the country’s biggest companies, said they were weighed down by long schedules, stressful performance assessments, and unattractive career prospects.

“We are like workers at an electronic factory,” Chen Xiaowen, a former content moderator at China’s leading internet company ByteDance, told Sixth Tone using a pseudonym for privacy concerns. “The only difference is that we work in an office building.”

 

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

This links to the same article as the previous post

China wants to keep its cyberspace “clean” — and there’s an army of workers tasked with sanitizing the country’s virtual world. Several former content moderators at major Chinese tech firms told Sixth Tone that they were weighed down by long work hours, minimum pay, and limited professional development.

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3168576906794481

Edited March 1, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Since 2002, thousands of Chinese teenagers have been labeled “internet addicts” and thrown into psychiatric facilities, where they’re subjected to forced medication, military training, and in some cases even electroshock therapy. A new film offers a terrifying glimpse inside the system.

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/pfbid0XfrLfEWRf4cZCEHbuLBk94BPK2neonz6zz5YTPiXBmGVyiqkTvX7346zgFXiMTYtl

Inside China’s Brutal Internet Addiction Clinics
Since 2002, thousands of Chinese teenagers have been labeled “internet addicts” and thrown into psychiatric facilities, where they’re subjected to forced medication, military training, and in some cases even electroshock therapy. A new film offers a terrifying glimpse inside the system.

A still from the film “Diagnosia.” Courtesy of Zhang Mengtai

Quote

 

You read that your parents sent you here on Aug. 30. They told you that you needed to see a psychiatrist, and promised you’d be able to return home after a consultation. But in reality, you’ve been locked up here indefinitely. Only the psychiatrist can decide when you’ll be released.

These are the opening scenes of “Diagnosia,” an award-winning new virtual reality film by Zhang Mengtai and Lemon Guo that offers a terrifying glimpse inside a Chinese internet addiction clinic.

 . . .

Zhang himself was thrown into one of these clinics at the age of 17, and the film is heavily based on his experience. Though he was only there for a month, the inhumane treatment he received still haunts him over a decade later.

 . . .

During military training, the instructors would physically beat Zhang whenever he showed disobedience. On several occasions, he was locked inside a dark room by himself for days. The clinic called this “Morita therapy” — a reference to a form of psychotherapy developed in Japan during the early 20th century, which focuses on forcing patients to be alone with their thoughts.

The most frightening thing about the clinic wasn’t even the violence, Zhang says. It was the lack of control — the knowledge that he was totally subject to the whims of the staff. “I didn’t know when I’d be able to come out, what would happen in the future, or why this illegal imprisonment was happening,” says Zhang. “And no one was stopping it.”

 

 

[Randy W]

Starting Dec. 15, online users will be liable for any “likes” on posts that are deemed illegal and abusive, though there were no specifications on what would be classified as such content or the punishments that would be handed as per the law. 

Click: http://ow.ly/bpB050LQK0i

from the Sixth Tone 
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/photos/a.1604152706570250/3391036051215231

 

Liking ‘Illegal’ Social Media Posts to be Punished in China
Authorities are putting more onus on users and online platforms to monitor cyberspace, but details on penalties are still scant.

Quote

 

Starting Dec. 15, online users will be liable for any “likes” on posts that are deemed illegal and abusive, the Cyberspace Administration of China said in a new guideline, though there were no specifications on what would be classified as such content or the punishments that would be handed as per the law. Meanwhile, all online sites are required to have a trained “auditing and editing team” for real-time monitoring, reporting, and deleting content that meets the vaguely defined criteria.

The new rules also ordered online platforms to develop a rating system for users based on their past social media posts and comments, though the criteria for such ratings weren’t specified. Users with a poor score — labeled as “dishonest users” — will be added to a blacklist, banning them from registering new accounts on the platform.

 

 

[Randy W]

 

The Great Firewall/Golden Shield Project was initiated by Jiang Zemin. His son, Jiang Mianheng did the actual work.

American and Canadian high-tech companies helped out.

An interesting history from Lei's Real Talk.

[Livestream highlight] How some western companies have killed their Chinese market prospect

Many multinational companies entered the Chinese market when former CCP leader Jiang Zemin was in power. China’s infamous firewall was initiated by Jiang. Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel and others helped Beijing build the digital surveillance system. Big pharma such as GSK and Roche sold the drugs and equipment that allowed the CCP to commit the crime of forced organ harvesting, which is also a Jiang Zemin legacy. Will these multinational companies lose their Chinese market prospect because they are complicit in a crime against the market?

Original live stream: https://youtu.be/hSSX8pp6I-w

 

Edited December 14, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)