Thursday, March 10, 2011

Mordor wins?

As of around the middle of this afternoon, Beijing time (I suppose around 6am or 7am GMT), Witopia - formerly the most robust and reliable of proxy services - got comprehensively squelched here.

None of their numerous proxy server locations seem to be accessible from mainland China any more.  None of their websites can be reached for information updates without a proxy.  And even their ordinarily ultra-prompt e-mail helpline is now unresponsive.


It would be nice to suppose that this Mother-Of-All-Internet-Crackdowns was evidence of the outbreak of significant opposition to the ludicrous regime we suffer under here, mass protests in several of the major cities, countrywide flour-bombing of Mao statues and so on.

But no, it's probably just the Kafka Boys playing with some new toys again.


Memo to the old farts in Zhongnanhai:  There's no better way to provoke rioting than to mess with people's Internet functionality.

OK, allowing food and housing to become too expensive for people to afford - that's a better way.  But you're already working on that.

And nepotism in the transfer of political power, that's never good either.  Whoah, you're on to that one as well!

Denying people their Internet is next, huh?

You really do want to get overthrown, don't you??


2 comments:

justrecently said...

The day of counter-revolution will only come if the government tries to ban smoking.

Froog said...

I like the way you're thinking, JR.

But I think we probably will see a 'ban' of sorts on smoking in the next few years - in a limited sense, with lots of exceptions, no doubt. A lot of office buildings in Beijing are nominally 'smoke-free' already; and a few bars and restaurants are starting to take that route voluntarily.

I'm told smoking is on the decline in China these days, particularly amongst the 20-30 cohort.

A comprehensive smoking ban wouldn't be popular, but it would be fairly easy to ignore or circumvent. Most such initiatives by the government are just empty gestures that little in the way of effective enforcement behind them.


It's only when the government actually does something - takes your home by force, throws your parents in jail for complaining about, lets the chemical plant dump toxins in the water supply - that people get pissed off. But there's more than enough of that...