Flipboard gets blocked beyond The Great Firewall

Flipboard’s problems just do not seem to end. After a series of outages threw users into a tizzy last month, Flipboard now seems to be mysteriously blocked in China. This will be the second time Flipboard has been allegedly blocked in the Asian country.

According to a report by The Next Web, users have been complaining about being unable to refresh pages on the International version of the Flipboard application. The app has been one of the handful of western bred ones to be allowed within China. Flipboard was originally blocked in China in 2011 along with Facebook and Twitter, but was later made available in the country.

Blocked?

The Great Firewall, as China is now known as, has been controlling the advent of international media within the country with an iron fist. Besides Facebook and Twitter, websites of international news agencies like New York Times and Bloomberg have also been snuffed out in China.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

While not much is clear about why Flipboard was being blocked in China, even the company sounded a little flummoxed on Twitter as it told a user, “We are still investigating,” going on to ask whether he knew the version number of the app on his device. Last year, Flipboard had ended up allowing unblocked access to Twitter to Chinese residents and that surely could not have put the service in the good books of the country’s administration. What needs to be noted here is that Flipboard’s local language service remains fine while the international app is now only available through virtual private network (VPN). 

While it was being rumoured that Flipboard could be self-censoring in China, the company has refuted the claims. In a statement to The Next Web, the company added, “We have an edition of Flipboard for China. Each country is very different and requires a tailored approach, but the common thread is that we work with local partners. In China, we partner with Sina, the most influential Chinese portal, and Renren, China’s leading real-name social networking platform.  They provide us with relevant local content and support us with marketing efforts.”

While the statement does not do much to clear the air up about the censorship, more details should be available soon.