Reporters Without Borders: Chinese Authorities Blocking Google News

November 30, 2004

According to Reporters Without Borders Chinese authorities have been blocking access to Google's news website, Google News, for approximately the past ten days. On November 29 Interfax reported that the site had been inaccessible for over a week, and that Zhang Junwei, whom it identified as a Google Media official stationed in Beijing, acknowledged the site was not accessible, but could not provide further comment.

Shortly after Google launched its Chinese language news aggregation service in September, 2004, Dynamic Internet Technologies' Bill Xia noted that Google was censoring news from sources the Chinese government blocked. In response to Xia's report Google noted on its Web site: "There has been controversy about our new Google News China edition, specifically regarding which news sources we include. For users inside the People's Republic of China, we have chosen not to include sources that are inaccessible from within that country."

Click here to read more about how Chinese authorities attempt to prevent Chinese citizens from accessing news from outside of China.