'Great Firewall of China' Blocks Some Searches
Yesterday Google announced that it would be pulling out of China and instead redirecting Chinese users to Google.com.hk, where the search engine would be offering uncensored results in simplified Chinese.
While it seemed like an adequate solution for Google, most assumed China would block access to Google.com.hk eventually and media reports suggest that day is upon us.
TechRadar reports that the 'great firewall of China' is already blocking search results from Google's Hong Kong hosted site. TR says Chinese Internet users searching for information on Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement, or '89 student movement' through Google Hong Kong were met with an all-too familiar message: "the connection was reset" today.
CNet cites Gene Munster, a financial analyst with Piper Jaffray, who is reporting something similar. Munster has a contact in China who says the message would appear after consecutive searches for a particular topic or repeated searches about a sensitive subject. However, Munster said that restarting the computer after you ran into problems seemed to restore access.
More on Google's decision to leave China:

You can speak out against Fox News and not disappear the next day.
Nope, user based censorship (however not really censored so much as tucked away, you can still see the "offending" comments if you want), key word in your post was "vote."
You can speak out against Fox News and not disappear the next day.
Nope, user based censorship (however not really censored so much as tucked away, you can still see the "offending" comments if you want), key word in your post was "vote."
Sometimes.
porn isn't necessarily 100% illegal in china but paying for live webcam and such generally is. it is funny too that if u find live cams, they always are 100% filipino. seems like there are other asian countries with similar laws as china that aren't being talked about here. possibly korea and vietnam.
Ha, you breached the topic man, I'm just following through with it.
At least we get both sides of the story, from both sets of extremists, and us middle-of-the-road folks get to sift through the crap and find the truth.
The peoples of China get no such opportunity.
Okay, mental image of being roughed up by Sheperd Smith, and forced into Rupert Murdoch's work camps is too funny.
You have to be utterly kidding. You are really falling for that paranoid, slippery-slope (a logical fallacy, by the way) crap?
I have my qualms about Obama as well but seriously, saying he's trying to turn us into China? Be sane and reasonable, not paranoid. You tend to act as those you listen to so perhaps you should try listening to some reasonable people sometimes.
I for one am ashamed my state is suing over the bill, next they'll be suing for losing an election...
Part of the douchebagger.... er sorry, teabagger movement I see. Epic fail. It's not Obama per-se anyway, 216 reps voted in favor of the bill, AFTER it passed the senate as well. You lost, act like a soldier "soldier37" and stop crying.
It's funny that people in China can find the truth about Health care reform via the internet, even with all the firewalls and blocks in place, but these fools with open access can only seem to parrot Rush Limbo's crazy rants. "I want my country back!!" LMAO.
You either have health insurance already, or will be getting it. What is the problem with that? Oh, I see, you just don't want others to get it too. It's only "forced" if you didn't already have it. I don't know anyone currently without insurance that is upset they will be getting it soon enough. How dare the Gov't help others get coverage!??? My brother is self employed, he's been without health ins for over 10 years because of the cost. Finally, he'll have the chance to get treated for illness/injuries without worrying about going bankrupt in the process. That's worth a few extra dollars out of my paycheck.
According to the Chinese Government the above massacre never happened.
But for the rest of the world we were shocked at the horror of an oppressive regime killing its smartest and brightest young students.
I support Google's decision.
There is a moral stance here ...
Many ofthe Chinese Gen Y simply don't have access to history.
C Wright Mills spoke of the sociological imagination ... hard to develop when your missing large chunks of your own history.
Amen.
Google have used their muscle as the world's number one search engine and made a threat to leave the China market in order to bring about change in China. This is a most noble effort on Google's part.
China unfortunately have called - and are in effect saying to Google, there's the door.
Google have been procrastinating for weeks now and seem to be getting cold feet. The transfer of the domain to Hong Kong smacks of desparation of a company wishing to cling on the business but at the same time wanting to appear as they are following up on their talk. Unfortunately the only person walking away from this without any credit is Google. China stands by and looks unwavering in it's stance of the firewall policy. Right or wrong, it is the law of the land - e.g. some of the points in US Patriot Act look effensive to me, but I can make a choice whether to go to the US or not.
The only thing left for Google to do, is to make a clear statement - Google will leave the China market on this date. END STATEMENT. END EPISODE. Yahoo and MSN, obviously will pickup the slack, unless they show some guts and side with Google too.