Technorati Blocked in China

It looks to me like Technorati has been blocked by the Great Firewall of China.

Since yesterday I have been (unsuccessfully) trying to access Technorati, but each time I have tried, the connection is refused.

Initially I thought there may have been an issue with the Technorati servers, so I went through a proxy and had no problems, which confirms that its not a Technorati issue.

So if you are in China test it for yourself - here is a standard link to Technorati, and here is a link via a proxy.

Yet another annoying little thing that simply frustrates people in their daily life. Seriously, why bother when I can access it anyway like I can through the proxy - all it does cause resentment against the people controlling the flow of information.

Update April 28th: It looks like we are back on with Technorati. I am able to connect through without a proxy this afternoon. I last checked at about 11am and couldn't get through, but now at 1pm I am getting back on. Maybe the China Net Nannies had a change of heart!

Comments

[Berry]

My friend who lives and works in Shanghai can confirm this: page cannot be displayed via direct link, it works via the proxy though.

[yee]

are you sure that Technorat is blocked by G.f.W ?

i suppose Technorat is temporary blocked because of the coming special day.May be it will resume after that...

[Brad]

Hi Yee,

I guess thats possible for that special day - but why not other search engines/ Obviously Google & Yahoo are filtered, but what about the others.

Here in China, typing the event you are referring to into Altavista gives me a complete listing of images and news stories - the same goes for Ask Jeeves, Lycos and many others.

So I don't believe that its related to that specific event. I do hope that it is just a temporary stop as you suggest and not the start of a trend where we will start seeing all search engine systems getting blocked if they don't adapt to the Chinese filtering system.

[yee]

hey Brad,

i don't konw the attitude of the gov.there are many possible reasons to block a foreign sites,expecially the ones which do not pay much attention to china gov.

wish it's just a temporary stop like sf.net

[MoJo]

this also upsets me. I work for Edelman PR and they recently did some research on blogs with technoratti. This information will be translated in to Chinese as well. Most of the info is very business related, how ever this can prove effective for businesses looking to spread out their products without super in your face advertising.

I wrote in Richard Edelman's blog about this about 2 months ago, you can check out my comments here: http://www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog/archives/2006/05/the_edelman_tec.html

As an avid blogger myself this hits home... how can we climb the great fire wall? Wo bu zhi dao.

[iban]

consultez le portail des Francophones de Shanghai:
http://www.bonjourshanghai.net

[Brad]

Is that last comment spam!? I can't quite work it as I can't understand too much in French - but at least its about Shanghai - so I'll let it live.

Technorati now remains blocked and inacessable in China.

[Meet Your Asian Soulmate]

Hi. I'm really frustrated now. I want to join technorati but I can't open their web site to register. I've tried the proxy you mentioned but I can only open technorati but can't join. I've tried it with google translator and still nothing works.

Do you know how to get into technorati and by pass the NOT-REALLY Great Fire Wall here in China. I'll still have to study here for 2 months before I can go back to a country where freedom expression or of the press is protected.

[Mark Vane]

Hey, I recently added a news widget from http://www.widgetmate.com to my blog. It shows the latest news, and just took a copy and paste to implement. Might interest you too.

[enlilikek]

It took me 1 hour to create it, please rate it :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqnobvEWTag

[Antivirus_man]

You write well will be waiting for your new publications.