Chinese Government Cuts Access to YouTube
March 17, 2008 | by Nick Mokey
Video of protests in Tibet triggered the government to pull the plug on the entire site for its citizens this weekend.
In response to video of recent protests in Tibet that cropped up on YouTube this weekend, the Chinese government blocked access to the entire video-sharing site on Saturday. The videos depicted violent riots in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, which occurred on Friday.
According to InfoWorld, Google News has also been barred, and other sources report that the government also censored news coverage from CNN and the BBC for the day. Not surprisingly, the government has released no official statement on its move, and Chinese citizens attempting to access blocked pages receive an error message with no explanation.
China-based video-sharing sites, such as 56.com, youku.com, and toudu.com, have simply censored the Tibetan protest content, leaving the rest of their videos intact.
Although China has at least 210 million web surfers by its own count, its government has never been shy about censoring the web, shutting off access to content it deems offensive or subversive.
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