Some things never change. As in — when good things meet bad people — or bad firewalls. China’s super-harmonious Great Firewall (#fuckGFW in Twitterese) has taken Plurk (噗浪 in Chinese) offline — and that was a year ago today.

In the meantime, Plurk has since just about exploded with nearly two thirds of the user base from Taiwan. In fact, in a meetup with one of the more notable English-language tweeps in Taipei a few months ago, your blogger heard a fair bit of hearsay — of whether or not Plurk headquarters would migrate on over to the Green Isle. Meantime most Taiwanese news sites have a direct link to Plurk out news and commentary, and the island’s main political parties do Plurk.

Since then, China seems to have taken a liking to blocking social networking sites, whether they’re reactionary (Twitter) or not. With them even blocking I Can Haz Cheeseburger… it’s just a case before, as the Twittersphere has hinted to, them blocking every last website and creating an all-PRC intranet.

(The mandarins came close late last year, when they brandished the “foreign websites / whitelist” (白名單) sword. It, obviously, backfired.)

中國大陸去年今天起，開始對噗浪社交網絡進行封鎖，此後又對了推特、臉譜網等諸多國外社交網路採取封網措施。同時，噗浪在臺灣廣泛使用，許多政黨都在此設立帳戶，而臺灣不少新聞網站也提供噗浪連結，讓讀者直接將一條新聞轉入噗浪中。