Service blocking
Facebook, Google, Instagram, LinkedIn, Messenger, Reddit, TikTok, Telegram, Vimeo, WhatsApp, X, Yahoo, YouTube
Multiple Internet services have been blocked in China since 2002, the most significant being Facebook, Google, Instagram, LinkedIn, Messenger, Reddit, TikTok, Telegram, Vimeo, WhatsApp, X, Yahoo, and YouTube.
- Total Duration 2374 days, 18 hours
China
- Population
- 1,410,710,000
Freedom House rates Internet freedom as Not Free
Local impact
Many of these services are blocked due to their foreign-owned companies not wanting to adhere to China’s Internet censorship policies and the need to make user details available to Chinese authorities.
In China, all social media platforms must be licensed, and social media and online gaming users must register their identity information with service providers who must make this data available to the state.
Despite these restrictions, Chinese users can access all Internet services using virtual private networks (VPNs), which are currently heavily restricted (and often blocked) but not banned.
The Internet Society regards China’s intranet as so separated from the global Internet that it is more accurately described as a national intranet.
Related documentation
Many domain names are blocked in mainland China under the country's Internet censorship policy, due to international-owned Internet services not wanting to adhere to.
Other supporting information
Comprehensive analysis of China’s censorship and Internet connectivity is scarce due to its well-established Great Firewall. Some International researchers have reported difficulties accessing public government data from abroad.
OONI data collected from in-country probes run by Internet users shows consistent anomalies and failures when connecting to Facebook, Google, Instagram, TikTok, Vimeo, X, and YouTube. Other services, such as LinkedIn, continue to be mostly available.
Note: OONI reported in July 2023 that China was blocking access to its website and measurement app.
A report by CitizenLab discovered more than 60,000 unique censorship rules used to partially or totally censor search results across eight China-accessible search platforms — Baidu, Baidu Zhidao, Bilibili, Microsoft Bing, Douyin, Jingdong, Sogou, and Weibo.
There have also been several reports of DNS and TLS filtering.
Social media
Chinese will be required to submit digital ID to access the Internet. People required to get a permission from thought police first, to get on Internet. ——A permission only gives you 30 minutes of Internet access. If your social credit score gets too low, no Internet for you!! pic.twitter.com/GN4orKbhtP — Songpinganq (@songpinganq) August 12, 2024
The CEO of TikTok testifies before Congress tomorrow. On a completely random note, here are >8,000 global internet services currently blocked in China. pic.twitter.com/aEvymMlsM7 — Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) March 23, 2023
China Makes 'Firewall' Great Again; Government Shuts Down Popular #VPN Services https://t.co/8tXmMdnWxY #censorship #privacy pic.twitter.com/265j22Dtyb — The Hacker News (@TheHackersNews) July 5, 2017
China is now blocking all encrypted HTTPS traffic using TLS 1.3 and ESNI https://t.co/78b2gAMSk6 by @campuscodi — ZDNET (@ZDNET) August 8, 2020
After the VPN crackdown, a Chinese biologist published an essay that became popular on social media, entitled Why Do Scientists Need Google? He wrote: “If a country wants to make this many scientists take out time from the short duration of their professional lives to research technology for climbing over the Great Firewall and to install and to continually upgrade every kind of software for routers, computers, tablets and mobile devices, no matter that this behaviour wastes a great amount of time; it is all completely ridiculous.” – The Guardian
Media coverage
After the VPN crackdown, a Chinese biologist published an essay that became popular on social media, entitled Why Do Scientists Need Google? He wrote: “If a country wants to make this many scientists take out time from the short duration of their professional lives to research technology for climbing over the Great Firewall and to install and to continually upgrade every kind of software for routers, computers, tablets and mobile devices, no matter that this behaviour wastes a great amount of time; it is all completely ridiculous.” – The Guardian