Internet BANNED!!!

This was one of my first culture shocks upon arrival in Shanghai. The Internet is really censored... ok I knew it but I never imagined how it is to live with it!

Some examples...

• Wikipedia, fully blocked...
• Blogger, Typepad, Wordpress, fully blocked...
• CNN, BBC News, partially blocked (sensitive news)...
• Amnesty.org, blocked...
• Amazon.com, fully blocked...
  

YouTube, it has been blocked for a few weeks, now fully open... Google works fine (GMail, Google Apps, etc) except Google Video. When playing any video, the message you receive is very polite:

"Currently, the playback feature of Google Video isn't available in your country. We hope to make this feature available more widely in the future, and we really appreciate your patience."


Flickr, blocked to "sensitive" material, some photos cannot be displayed, including ANY PHOTO TAGGED AS SHANGHAI! I could even imagine that normal Chinese people should not see how Shanghai looks like (very western-like)... and that thought is scary!

If you would like to check on websites (if they are blocked or not), please let me know and I can test it for you :D

As I talked with some expats, many sites are blocked for few weeks and then open again, so the "black-list" changes every week. I also found out some annonymous free proxy servers. Cool, easy, although a bit slower, it works!!!

After all, I cannot live without Wikipedia! :D