A question-and-answer page on Google Hong Kong’s Web site became inaccessible to some Chinese users yesterday, underscoring Beijing’s sensitivity about the Internet.
The Chinese government, obsessed with maintaining social stability and controlling the flow of information, requires all search engines operating on the mainland to self-censor. It uses a “Great Firewall” to block overseas sites with content it considers subversive or dangerous.
The Google page provides Chinese-speaking Internet users with a forum to ask questions of any description and some visitors had veered into highly sensitive territory.
Several recent questions concerned the June 4, 1989, crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, a topic banned from public discussion in China.
One questioner asked when China would have its next Tiananmen uprising, with answers including “soon; the Communist Party will collapse.”
Others included profanities about former leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東) or sensitive contemporary issues such as a recent protest to protect the Cantonese language in Guangzhou, which ended in scuffles with police.
Multiple users in China reported getting error messages when they tried to access the page.
A Google spokeswoman said there was nothing technically wrong with the site.
“If you are noticing there is a blockage, you would need to ask the government as it would be an issue at their end,” she said.
China’s State Council Information Office, one of the country’s Internet regulators, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Google angered Beijing this year by announcing it was no longer willing to comply with censorship rules.
The company closed its local search site and redirected traffic to its site in Hong Kong, a former British territory that returned to Chinese rule in 1997 while retaining a high degree of autonomy.
China has the world’s largest Internet market by users at
420 million.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
RSS