China lifts block on Google Plus; or so, it seems

Reports coming in have revealed that China may have lifted the block that it had placed on Google Plus, Google’s popular social networking service; since the latter’s year-old launch. While it may not be best to state that the block has been lifted completely in the country, several users in the country, reportedly left no stone unturned in flooding the U.S. President Barack Obama’s re-election page on the site with messages, like “Oppose censorship, oppose the Great Firewall of China!”, once the controls seemed to have eased. Those wondering the basis of the mention of the “Great Firewall of China”, the report explains, “Beijing’s blocking of websites and censoring of search results for politically sensitive terms is known colloquially as the “Great Firewall of China.” With sites such as Facebook and Twitter blocked, self-censoring homegrown equivalents like Sina Corp’s microblogging platform, Weibo, fill the void.” In all probablity, this may have been a bug in the censorship system in the country, which made this happen. 

Website of objectionable content petitioner defaced (Image credit: Getty Images)

China has been long known for its intolerance to websites, like Google, Facebook, Twitter, among other sites, explaining the block on the websites in the country. Google, according to this report revealed to have not done anything different to have earned itself the entry to the country. However, reports reveal that an executive from Google found an opening, last week. However, what was an heavy inflow through that part of the week, slowed down by the end of it, revealing that the crack may have been closed. The report further added that, “Individuals in China normally need to use a virtual private network to access blocked sites, an added expense and trouble that limits the number of people who do so. But that was not before hundreds of people who said they were Chinese citizens had an opportunity to ask their U.S. counterparts about hallmarks of U.S. elections such as campaign bumper stickers.”

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However, by the looks of it, it does seem like users made the most of their time on the social networking website. One user, named Zhou Zuoxin was quoted as saying, “I’d like to grab a bumper sticker in my left hand and a green card in my right hand”, while another user, named Lihui Chen was quoted as saying_, “Many people don’t understand the meaning why all Chinese are coming here. We envy American people their democracy and freedom.”_

Reuters