Funny if true.
As the comment there says, the surprise is that not every instance is blocked yet.
But I’ve seen hardly any Chinese on the fediverse, so they probably don’t care that much. And it’s not just that I’ve stuck to the English-speaking parts, there’s been lots of Japanese and various European languages. I suppose even if it otherwise would have a chance to catch on there, Chinese users know that if it did it quickly would get blocked.
Wouldn’t they just use a VPN? I know they’re technically illegal in China but from what I’ve heard lots of people still use them regularly.
VPNs are not illegal in China. And one can use it to circumvent any restrictions.
Non-approved VPNs used to circumvent the great wall are absolutely illegal, though largely tolerated (and observed), but the authorities can and have used them as an excuse to bring people in.
Source: have actual been to China and played the whole “which VPN will work on which network” game many times.
I feel like I should say that a VPN isn’t a magic bullet. Even if its configured correctly to totally obfuscate the data and the final endpoint of the traffic it’s still blatantly obvious that a VPN is in use. Given that the CCP monitors all of this stuff it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that if you run a VPN long or often enough without providing stating why that it’ll either end up blocked or you’ll end up in trouble.
Given that the CCP monitors all of this stuff it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that if you run a VPN long or often enough without providing stating why that it’ll either end up blocked or you’ll end up in trouble.
How do you know this? I have friends living in China that states otherwise.
Even if its configured correctly to totally obfuscate the data and the final endpoint of the traffic it’s still blatantly obvious that a VPN is in use.
Which is why Chinese users don’t use standard VPNs, they use obfuscated proxies with protocols like Shadowsocks and V2Ray, which mask the tunneled traffic as innocuous HTTPS traffic.
But using a VPN is not illegal in China… why would you even have to explain why you’re using one?
I’m sure lots of people do, it’s a big country. But for the vast majority I imagine that the risk of getting in trouble for it, plus the risk of the one you paid for getting successfully blocked, plus the difficulty of finding out which ones are allowed to operate only because they share all your data with the authorities, plus the cost, plus the usual difficulties in finding a good vpn outweigh any desire to communicate freely with foreigners.
It’s like when your dad doesn’t love you
I imagine that the dynamic here is reminiscent of the western media’s self-censorship. Western journalists learn to conform to certain standards and topics because they understand what kinds of articles are more likely to be published and advance their careers. This is largely influenced by the preferences of media company owners and advertisers, creating a selection pressure for content producers to conform to these expectations.
In contrast, in China, censors strive to identify potentially politically sensitive content and tend to err on the side of more aggressive censorship. This is due to the understanding that being overly cautious in such matters will not result in negative consequences, encouraging a more conservative approach to content regulation.
Does anyone know a reliable site for checking? This is just a random one I found: http://www.chinafirewalltest.com/?siteurl=lemmy.ml
lemmy.world seems to not be blocked. I have no idea how they make these decisions 🤷
Edit to add: FWIW Wikipedia has a short list of test sites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China#External_links
Seems like hexbear.net is blocked as well
Interesting. It wasn’t when I tested it yesterday or several weeks ago using this: http://www.chinafirewalltest.com/?siteurl=hexbear.net
But I have no idea if these tools are any good. This one seems to indicate that it’s accessible but very slow https://www.dotcom-tools.com/china-firewall-test/
Please, someone tell comrade Stalin Xi that this is all just a terrible mistake!
