It was brought to my attention by Twitter that the micro-blogging app has been blocked in China. Mashable reports that Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail.com and many other sites have been blocked ahead of the 20th Anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre on June 4th.

This is nothing new, in researching my dissertation into Chinese Internet Censorship a trend emerged where the state authorities started clamping down on peoples’ freedom to use the internet at times of political tension. Twitter has become a very useful tool for people to express their opinions, and it is only in the past 12 months that it has reached the popularity it has now.

Blocking Twitter and Flickr shows how serious the Chinese authorities are when it comes to preventing the spread of information which undermines the credibility of the government. I have long held the belief that the internet is a home for freedom of expression and in the case of China, I feel that the internet has a large part to play in shaping the future of the country. I won’t say that simply because of the internet we will see democracy in the country, but I do feel it is important in enabling Chinese people to share things with others.

As an aside my dissertation is well and truly complete, and so is uni! Results are but a week and a bit away, can’t wait to see what grade my dissertation got!

Tags: China, Chinese Internet Censorship, dissertation, Twitter

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 at 8:57 pm and is filed under Chris Evans Writes, General News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.