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Q: Connecting to Chinasmack, it's just me or it being harmonized ?
The website Chinasmack is showing what is deemed "most popular topics on the Chinese Internet", with translations of selected posts for Chinese netizens. With such a pitch, it's rarely mood lifting stuffs. But at least it's a small window into the mind of the average Wang on the net, something I don't find elsewhere, for me who can't read Mandarin.
The site used to be funded by advertisement, but this was scrapped down as, according to one of the website administrator, the advertiser were putting too much pressure on what was presented and how it was presented. Chinasmack moved to self-funding, to stay clear of censorship through financial pressure.
It was a couple of weeks ago. Fast-forward to now : the website became much slower, and since a few days, the dreaded "connection reset" response is what appears most often. Before crying "wolf", I would like to know if it's just me or if everybody have issues to connect to this website. Using a VPN solve the issue, I just want to check the facts before jumping to conclusions.
9 years 11 weeks ago in Web & Technology - China
Both ECC and Chinasmack have been having lots of issues recently.
I doubt it is a coincidence. They are probably being heavily monitored.
North Korea... I mean China... is getting more and more insecure.
On my phone, ecc loads perfectly fine, but chinasmack does not.
Both ECC and Chinasmack have been having lots of issues recently.
I doubt it is a coincidence. They are probably being heavily monitored.
North Korea... I mean China... is getting more and more insecure.
It's been real hit n' miss for me over about the past 10 days. seems most things I would expect to be blocked by the nazis.... oooops, I meant those good folks up in BJ-Land looking out for our mental well-being, have been blocked in a haphazard manner. For risks of giving away any vital info I won't say what, but it makes me wonder how incompetent they are or is it just more difficult to block sites than I know (I'm not a computer expert).
fk it... I'll come out and say it. I can stream torrents, and still opened a few adult sites. thing that pisses me off is blocking streaming news sites. but I guess sinister guys are more interested in blocking world news than porn. makes sense... 
bill8899:
That's what makes me mad. Porn? No problem.
Bloomberg? Hell no can't get it. And a lot of other useful sites.
So, if it's useless, yes, works.
Useful? No. Blocked.
Most English language China-based websites are experiencing slow periods and disrupted connections.
It might not have been permanently censored, but I experienced the same with thenanfang.com today.
Xi is cracking down.
DrMonkey:
The Nanfang is really good, better than Chinasmack or the Shanghaiist :(
It still works for me. But no new articles on their page since February 3rd. Kind of strange for them to go 3 days without something new.
I'm getting blocked for stuff which is as far away from politically sensitive topics as it gets. Even my regular game forums get blocked. I'm trying to find a pattern, but nothing consistent so far. It seems the websites I frequent most often, are increasingly firewalled no matter what they are. Occasionally, Google Chrome browser will work where my regular Firefox fails. But who/whatever is monitoring my laptop activity seems to be catching on, because the other browsers are getting the same blocks.
The Firewall seems to be heaviest in the morning, probably because the spyware monitoring staff are still driving to work, or drinking their breakfast tea...
My phone internet gets through a bit more often and faster if i'm connected to the paid service, as opposed to WiFi. But again, no unrestricted access.
These internet restrictions are really starting to make things difficult. Are Chinese citizens monitored just as badly as us, or do the point-stare-gossip crowd just snitch to authorities about any non-conformity?
Edit: I'm tarded. I added *.baidu.com to AdBlock and THIS site loads faster. I thought you meant ECC, not CensoredSmack.
