The Backstory on China's 'Block' of Google+
Little media buzz and speculation has been directed at how Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)'s acrimonious relationship with China has affected the Google+ rollout and Google's expanding war with Facebook.
It was initially reported that less than a day after the new service was unveiled, the so-called "Great Firewall of China" moved to block access to Google+.
It turns out that those reports are overstated. The Great Firewall of China has not blocked access to Google+ entirely. Techniques such as "throttling" and DNS blockages appear to be the censorship tool of choice in this instance. Internet users within mainland China can ultimately still access the Google+ Website, but only at access speeds so painfully slow they're practically useless. This is the same method that the Chinese state uses to restrict access to Gmail and achieve its goal of reducing the use of Western Internet services without having to say that Websites are actually blocked.
It seems like the Chinese government has not done itself any favors by refusing to comment on the situation. Despite the fact that clarifications and corrections are circulating throughout the Web apologizing for initial reports that the site has been completely blocked in China, it seems unlikely that these secondary reports will grab the attention of the public the way the seemingly more likely story did. China has consistently made a habit of taking away tools that might help dissenters to organize and gain attention for their cause. Older social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, have long been banned within the People's Republic.
Perhaps the most amusing aspect of the coverage surrounding Google's product launch has been the lack of attention devoted to the company's gleeful advertisement of its privacy controls in a way that appears to be explicitly focused on drawing attention to how China and other nondemocratic states handle user data.
For example, accompanying the product launch was a video from a group that referred to itself as the Google+ Data Liberation Front. It features Google employees clad in gray and red military uniforms. Most of the faux soldiers seen in the video are posed in a way that mocks Maoist-era propaganda, while a Communist Party apparatchik hands the narrator tape-reels of user data. In contrast, the privacy-friendly Google Takeout appears on the table as a literal chicken fried rice container (an oddly coincidental choice!) that "allows you to take your data out of multiple Google products in one convenient package."
It seems entirely likely that Google's entertaining video was created with the express purpose of tweaking the nerves of China's 100,000 cyber-cops.
The ultimate fate of Google+ within China remains unclear -- but so does the eventual status of Google+ in the Western world. Google has attempted to enter the world of social networking twice before with Buzz and Wave, both of which flopped. One might question why Google+ would be different. Its proponents seem to believe that the answer lies in a feature known as "Circles." The timing may also be better for Google this time around. Facebook lost nearly 6 million members in the US alone during the month of May.
One thing: The more successful Google+ is in gaining a foothold as a social networking destination, the more likely it is that the People's Republic of China will contemplate a total block on the service.
Hannah Thoreson, a physics student and blogger at Arizona State University, contributed to this blog.
— William Foster is a faculty associate in the Science, Technology, and Society Program at Arizona State University, where he teaches classes on information technology and globalization.
Little media buzz and speculation has been directed at how Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)'s acrimonious relationship with China has affected the Google+ rollout and Google's expanding war with Facebook.
It was initially reported that less than a day after the new service was unveiled, the so-called "Great Firewall of China" moved to block access to Google+.
It turns out that those reports are overstated. The Great Firewall of China has not blocked access to Google+ entirely. Techniques such as "throttling" and DNS blockages appear to be the censorship tool of choice in this instance. Internet users within mainland China can ultimately still access the Google+ Website, but only at access speeds so painfully slow they're practically useless. This is the same method that the Chinese state uses to restrict access to Gmail and achieve its goal of reducing the use of Western Internet services without having to say that Websites are actually blocked.
It seems like the Chinese government has not done itself any favors by refusing to comment on the situation. Despite the fact that clarifications and corrections are circulating throughout the Web apologizing for initial reports that the site has been completely blocked in China, it seems unlikely that these secondary reports will grab the attention of the public the way the seemingly more likely story did. China has consistently made a habit of taking away tools that might help dissenters to organize and gain attention for their cause. Older social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, have long been banned within the People's Republic.
Perhaps the most amusing aspect of the coverage surrounding Google's product launch has been the lack of attention devoted to the company's gleeful advertisement of its privacy controls in a way that appears to be explicitly focused on drawing attention to how China and other nondemocratic states handle user data.
For example, accompanying the product launch was a video from a group that referred to itself as the Google+ Data Liberation Front. It features Google employees clad in gray and red military uniforms. Most of the faux soldiers seen in the video are posed in a way that mocks Maoist-era propaganda, while a Communist Party apparatchik hands the narrator tape-reels of user data. In contrast, the privacy-friendly Google Takeout appears on the table as a literal chicken fried rice container (an oddly coincidental choice!) that "allows you to take your data out of multiple Google products in one convenient package."
It seems entirely likely that Google's entertaining video was created with the express purpose of tweaking the nerves of China's 100,000 cyber-cops.
The ultimate fate of Google+ within China remains unclear -- but so does the eventual status of Google+ in the Western world. Google has attempted to enter the world of social networking twice before with Buzz and Wave, both of which flopped. One might question why Google+ would be different. Its proponents seem to believe that the answer lies in a feature known as "Circles." The timing may also be better for Google this time around. Facebook lost nearly 6 million members in the US alone during the month of May.
One thing: The more successful Google+ is in gaining a foothold as a social networking destination, the more likely it is that the People's Republic of China will contemplate a total block on the service.
Hannah Thoreson, a physics student and blogger at Arizona State University, contributed to this blog.
— William Foster is a faculty associate in the Science, Technology, and Society Program at Arizona State University, where he teaches classes on information technology and globalization.
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