2014-07-02
Police check the ID cards of netizens at an Internet cafe in Shandong province, July 31, 2013.
ImagineChina
China’s Internet censors appeared to be blocking a number of overseas-based social media and messaging apps on Wednesday, after shutting down outspoken microblog accounts on the politically sensitive anniversary of Britain’s handover of Hong Kong to China, technology experts and netizens said.
The popular messaging apps Line, KakaoTalk, and Viber had all stopped working, users reported, just weeks after China once more blocked Google’s e-mail service.
It was unclear whether the blockage of the chat apps, which follows the blocking of the hugely popular WeChat smartphone app earlier this month, was linked to mass pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong on Tuesday.
Nanjing-based database engineer Zhang Haoqi said the applications were still available through virtual private network (VPN) services, however.
He said that keyword searches on the name of the app were currently being blocked as “sensitive words” on China’s tightly controlled Internet.
“It is probably being blocked [by the government],” Zhang said.
“There is probably some issue with this app if its name has become a sensitive word.”
‘Doubly sensitive’ date
The blocking of the apps comes after Hong Kong’s outspoken Apple Daily newspaper reported renewed cyberattacks on its website on Tuesday, when hundreds of thousands took to the streets to call for full democracy in the former British colony.
