China’s Great Firewall Now “Saving” China from RSS
Oh, China. Mari enjoys your cultural cuisine so much, but Mari can’t fathom why China decided to crack down on Really Simple Syndication. WHY?
As many readers who follow the antics of the Chinese government know, when it comes to enforcing the “Great Firewall of China,” consistency isn’t exactly its strong point.[...]
Savvy Internet fans in the people’s republic have known for a long time, however, that there have been simple ways to get forbidden information. One of those ways was the magical gift of Real Simple Syndication, or RSS. The Great Firewall can block specific web sites all it wants, but as long as there’s an RSS feed, many Chinese surfers can use feeds to access otherwise forbidden information.
Unfortunately, China appears to have finally gotten wise to RSS as of late—reports have been popping up from our readers and around the web of not being able to access FeedBurner RSS feeds as early as August of this year. More recent reports tell us that the PSB appears to have extended this block to all incoming URLs that begin with “feeds,” “rss,” and “blog,” thus rendering the RSS feeds from many sites—including ones that aren’t blocked in China, such as Ars Technica—useless.
Oh, China, where did we lose you? You used to be so cool and different, now you’re turning into a hermit. Don’t curl into yourself, China, expand!
What do you think about China’s Great Firewall?
In all seriousness, Mari is very saddened just thinking of China. Many people in China work for a pittance a day and their meals make Lean Cuisine frozen dinners look like a sinful smorgasbord. The oppressive government won’t even let them learn about other methods of governing. People get arrested for blogging about other governmental ideas. Of course, Mari knows this isn’t the case every day, and China’s not a hell-hole. The very idea that things like this happen at all is extremely disturbing to Mari’s freedom-addicted Western mind.
Hey, Chinese readers! PSST! Ars Technica has some ideas for how to get around this.
Activism, Blogging 
6 October 2007, 11:34
Ars Technica, China, Chinese Food, Chinese government, FeedBurner, Great Firewall, Really Simple Syndication, RSSYou can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
I think China’s Great Firewall is bad >.< But if they’re blocking sites, it’s not surprising that they would block RSS feeds too :/
@Kaylee
Thing is, they’re not just blocking RSS feeds from blocked sites. They’re blocking all RSS. It’d be like the US trying to block envelopes with antrax in them, and choosing to block all mail.
I’ve never quite got why China blocks internet sites (I admit.. my cultural awareness sucks) but blocking every single RSS feed? Is that not going a bit far?
Yeah, I don’t really understand the whole China blocking sites thing. But I guess it’s in part due to the fact that they don’t want their people getting ideas of rebellion or something from other countries. They don’t want people to see the criticism and the bashing that others make about China, so I guess, it kind of makes sense? But at the same time, China just looks like a really overprotective parent.
@Melissa
Because China does not want their people to see sites about democracy. It’s boggling to the Western mind, but that’s why they block sites.
Yeah, and it’s a really stupid move, because you can still get to the sites.
@Maria
Bingo. The idea of democracy may make people rebel against the oppressive Communist government.