techblog86

Given that this is China — a place where anything “with Chinese characteristics” is big — it looks like the no-censors-included Twitter isn’t doing much to get the government’s attention — as in include tweets on a mainstream Chinese paper. Instead, what’s gracing papers such as the Beijing Evening News are tweets, if we may, from — Sina Microblog and Co. And it does appear that Hu and Wen want to tweet as well, but be assured — @HuJintao and @WenJiabao on Twitter are fakes.

Increasingly, folks are flocking to Sina Microblogs, amongst other microblogs, in China. Netease has a service, but apparently, it’s still very much an invite-only case, with those who even have an account limited in some respects from inviting others. (It’s a fair bit more restrictive of the Gmail or yesteryear.) QQ caused quite a stir some days ago, when it planned to launch its microblog — only to unexpectedly delay the launch. (Some said it was a ploy — to get 100 million users online at the same time.)

But then again, @zixia from Jiwai.de (which provided all the local tweeting at the Chinese Blogger Conference in Beijing in November 2007) may have had the last word. As one of the earliest local tweeps in the business, he’s of the opinion that, in this day and age, only those who are big and have good ties with the government in China can afford to let the tweeting continue. Startups and non-China-based tweeting machines, apparently, just won’t do.

最近開「微博」了沒? 中國大陸也逐步掀起一場「微博熱」，不過對於已經「被和諧」的推特等國外諸多微型博客服務來講，國內用戶很難上去，除非是「翻牆」過去。而與此同時，「牆內」則掀起了以新浪微博為「代表」的「境內微博浪」。前一段時間，嘰歪網的 @zixia 曾經在 Ignite 北京說道，現在如果你又「不大」又沒有與「主管機構」的「關係」的話，微博很難做大。

We had to sigh when we encountered this tweet from @danshoufuqiang:

Li Yi, the head [Ed: Minister] of the Chinese Ministry of Informational Industry stated: “To manage personal home pages, we’d have to shut them down first, then clean them up, and then slow allow them to come back online, one by one.” Fellow Netizens responded: “Thank God Lord Li is not the Minister of Public Security [Ed: Chinese police]… otherwise, they’d first detain billions, then interrogate them in turn, and finally allow them to come out back to freedom, one by one.”

(Original text: 工信部部长李毅中表示：“整理个人网站，就得把它先停掉，停掉以后进行清理，然后再一个一个恢复。”有网友表示：“幸好李大人没当公安部部长，否则他一定会先把十多亿人全抓起来进行审讯，然后再一个一个放出来。”)

Sad but true. Just a few days ago, papers around China report that all e-commerce sites in the Chinese mainland came “back to life” — that’s about 31 sites in all — in Xinjiang, where they had the July 5th riots last year.

Guilty until proven innocent. Is this Justice (or Justice 2.0) with Chinese characteristics?

Also of note: is this true “just” for websites based in China or is it true for sites the world over?

中國推友 @danshoufuqiang 就個人網站審查問題轉載中國工信部負責人之政策中，提到對於個網先關閉，再整理後再逐一「放回」。與此相關，前幾天新疆才剛剛恢復中國大陸三十一家電子商務網站，允許新疆網民訪問這些網站。

I’m probably more known for my Subway fetish than any real tech expertise, so I’ll probably blog about this in Subway mode. But this morning, a Best of FriendFeed post came across to my inbox — and it had Scoble wishing — less-than-well, shall we say, about Twitter.

This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up late at night. In Subway-ese, it’s like you just got off an old train and not only do you not thank it for taking you from A to B, but you kick the thing. It’s tragic behavior.

I’ve heard about Twitter way before FriendFeed or even Scoble (as in I heard about Twitter first before hearing of the Scobleizer). I don’t really have an idea what this enmity towards Twitter is all about. Sure, there are spammers, but just block ‘em en masse — no harm done.

Meanwhile, Scoble kicking the old Twitter train is something I’m not really up for. Sure, no service is perfect. But didn’t you like start off with Twitter or somesuch? Why kick an old train when it at least served you? It may have no aircon but at least it’s not totally useless or something…

What do Huxley, Orwell and the Twitter user @baixiaoci have in common?

@baixiaoci started out with a tweet (in Chinese) at 22:00 last night (August 18, 2009), which read (translated):

There’s something unfortunate about the Chinese over the Americans: the predictions of both Orwell and Huxley have become reality in China Switch on television, and you get Brave New World. Surf the Web, and it’s 1984.

Your tech blogger retweeted this in the morning hours today (August 19, 2009). This tweet got retweeted upwards of 20 or even more than 20 times in a single day, probably setting a brand-new record…

@baixiaoci, by the way, is from Shenzhen, but is presently in Shanghai as his tweets have him. He’s a photographer and has a site — 50mm.cn as well as another one at baixiaoci.com.

See, we had to promote this guy. He’s now famous. With just one tweet.

Not enough encouraging news, I know… here’s another list update on the Chinese Internet situation as-is…

• It seems that mainly China Unicom’s affected. That’s China Netcom as it used to be — if we’ve got the stats right. China Telecom seems to be unaffected. Ditto with China Mobile.
• VPNs are also hit — some work, but others are dead, including HotspotShield if you haven’t installed it.
• We’re getting reports that about 66% of MSN accounts are coming back — it’ll hit 75% soon, but no word when we’ll get that figure back up to 100%.
• Also hit is Dropbox, as we may have reported, but MobileMe remains up.
• Chinese IM folks have had to switch to QQ — which is viewed less “pro” than MSN / Windows Live Messenger.

Your tech blogger is coming through using a reroute which works, and now has the whole Internet back — but he does pity those who have to stick with what they have. It’s tragic.

In list form so that the details come out the quickest:

• Two quakes that hit earlier today (August 17) seem to have done damage — one off Japan, one off Taiwan.
• Websites hosted on DreamHost appear OK. Websites on Media Temple are not.
• This is not a Great Firewall issue; Hong Kong is equally affected.
• Access to Windows Live Messenger is impossible.
• iTweet.net loads slowly (this is relevant for those who tweet in China, as Twitter has been blocked for about a month now).
• VPN access often fails as well.
• Apple’s page at www.apple.com does not work; however, both me.com email, MobileMe iSync and apple.com.cn seem to work great.
• Most importantly: if you can stand slow connection speeds, try going through China Mobile’s GPRS services. (Your tech blogger has tested this; it works.) Add VPN, and you’ve also broken the Chinese Great Firewall.

Widespread reports are coming in about slow Internet access — especially when sites outside the Chinese Mainland are requested. This is also causing email, MSN Messenger and VPN several headaches.

Tweets are flowing in about this as well, with some comparing this issue to the undersea cable underneath the Pacific that borked in late 2006. We at techblog86, however, also do not exclude the possibility of heightened censorship efforts.

Onto stuff unrelated to the Internet, we even have reports that security at the Beijing Subway, of all things, have been stepped up. It’s China Big Sixty on October 1, 2009, but clearly, folks are only going to be in the mood to celebrate if the birthday party, which features a military parade, goes ahead without a hitch.

Remember Green Dam, that software that had the world grilling China for its stepped-up censorship efforts? Well, that thing isn’t dead yet — but it’s not coming back alive either. Green Dam was quickly shelved like a few hours before the July 1, 2009 deadline, and word has it that it’s coming back — but in a very “mum” way.

For one thing, it won’t be required on all computers — and we haven’t heard much about a Mac version. What’s most likely to happen is that it’ll be required in schools and Internet cafés — places that have never been (at least not recently) associated with libre speech, but for the masses who buy their PCs it won’t be required. Ministers have been quoted as saying that the software will not be made compulsory and be installed by force on every new computer (and at the same time, they’ve also criticized the critics for politicizing the whole issue).

Green Dam has made a lot of concessions (so to speak). First, it became required — then un-installable — then optional — then shelved — and now, again optional (this time, it’s likely to be “very” optional). It looks like the censors have to put up with the force that is the vox populi.

Ever wonder why Fanfou was shut down? The site was full of political tweets flying to and fro. Never mind it had a Chinese ICP site — it was nixed, no questions asked. With the PRC’s Big Sixty coming in this close, those at the top are hoping that there’ll be “nothing big” that could get out of control — not even with 300 million virtual beings.

Today was just another day in the Chinese Twittersphere — except for one thing: the Tan Zuoren case started and, as usual, some of the Chinese tweeps started tweeting about the case. We had reports of hushed courts, police brutality and other disturbing tweets coming in this side of the Pacific, whereas the tweets coming in from the US were much closer to home — and were less political.

I tweeted about this some time back. The Chinese Twittersphere seems to have a particular political interest vested amongst the community. Yet in the US, Twitter’s used to describe things that may not be all that political. It’s not that the US and politics don’t mix on Twitter — that’s what put @BarackObama on the map. Yet, the intensity of politics is lesser felt outside the PRC — especially in the USA.

Ever seen NC on its own on a Chinese post? That’s short for naocan (脑残), or braindead.

You get to hear this the most often when it comes to discussing interchange stations that require a Long March to change from one line to the other (sorry): We have some seriously NC designers… (设计通道的那帮人 NC 了吧!)

It may not, by the way, stand for niucha (牛叉), which is short-ese for niubi (牛逼), as in really, really cool.