In the past few days, Chinese twitterers reported that the Chinese censor has blocked a number of popular Twitter's third party applications.
Since Fanfou, the Chinese micro-blogging website, has been ordered to shut down earlier this year, many bloggers moved to Twitter to spread their ideas. Net activists believe that it is impossible to block Twitter as there are many third party applications that allow users to read and post information without accessing the site. However, beginning from early this week, many Chinese twitterers reported that popular third party applications such as twitpic, itweet, twitese, twittergadget have been blocked and they have to shift to other tools.
When you search #fuckgfw in twitter, you can see the most updated blocking reports. Below is a selection of reports from past few days:
On Monday, October 12 2009
(trans) jason5ng32: bit.ly and twitpic are GFWed.
(trans) saytesnake: j.mp is dead also
On Tuesday, Oct 13 2009
Hafidxu Can't open http://bit.ly from china! #FuckGFW
(trans) binky2008: twitese.appspot.com is GFWed.
(trans) guoxintao #fuckGFW This afternoon (Tuesday): dabr.co.uk and itweet are both GFWed. The Wall is getting higher and higher.
Today, Wednesday, Oct 14 2009
weelingsoh Can't access Twitter via Twitzap or TwitterGadget anymore. #fuckgfw is getting increasingly sophisticated by the day. NGHNGH !
(trans) bleutee RT @iGFW itweet、twitzap、tweetree、twitterfeed and many other Twitter third party applications are dead #GFW #FuckGFW
(trans) kavenyan: just found out that i can't use itweet.net and twitter gadget from Gmail anymore. GFW is roaring. #fuckgfw
(trans) amoiist: in Plurk, someone reported: “latest news, Taiwan micro-blogging service http://buboo.tw can no longer be visited in PRC!!!”. So Buboo is blocked? #fuckGFW
Apart from expressing their frustration on the GFW, twitterers also share their ideas to get around the Wall.
amoiist RT @williamlong: update twhirl: open accounts manager, select laconi.ca, enter: “your twitter account”@twitter-proxy.appospot.com, password is your twitter password. It's done. #fuckGFW
Chinese bloggers and net activists once believed that after the 60th anniversary of the PRC, the government will loosen its control over the Internet. Now the situation is getting less optimistic.
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