Reuters became the latest foreign news publication to be blocked in mainland China on Friday, when the newswire’s English and Chinese-language websites became completely inaccessible to readers behind the country’s Great Firewall.
“It was not immediately clear why users were hindered from using the Reuters sites” Reuters reported on the company’s own blocking. Internet users who tried to access Reuters using Chrome saw a message saying the website “took too long to respond.” There was no information on the block in Chinese-language media. Reuters is part of information and data company Thomson Reuters, which made 11% of its revenues from Asia in 2013, the last full reported year.
Several foreign news organizations have been blocked in mainland China for months or even years, after publishing articles critical of China’s government or individuals in it. For those who are keeping track, the list of foreign publications currently blocked, according to tests run with Greatfire.org’s URL testing tool by ProPublica on Thursday evening in Beijing, include:
- Bloomberg (English and Chinese)
- The New York Times (English)
- Reuters (English and Chinese)
- SCMP (English and Chinese)
- The Wall Street Journal (English and Chinese)
- The Washington Post
Those still up and running include :
- BBC
- CNN
- The Financial Times
- The Guardian
- The Huffington Post
In recent years, China has increased its censorship of foreign news, blogging and online discussion, what topics reporters can investigate and even plunging necklines in historical dramas.