China Blocks Foursquare over Tiananmen Square massacre
The Chinese government has blocked access to social networking tool, Foursquare as the authorities felt that many people were checking out 21st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
The Tiananmen Square carnage was a brutal act of Chinese government where more than 3,000 protesters and students were killed by the Chinese government who were protesting against communism on June 4, 1989. The incident was one of the black days in Chinese history and the Chinese government is against any discussions of the event in the China.
The Chinese ban applies on internet as well where the government has blocked internet searches related to the event. In 2006, even Google agreed to block all the searches related to the event. Even last year Chinese government blocked access to twitter, Flickr and Hotmail just a few days before the 20th anniversary the Tiananmen Square massacre to avoid any discussions on the event and later allowed access to the sites.
According to Chinese tech blog, Techblog86, there has been huge increase in number of people checking out Tiananmen Square massacre on Foursquare to commemorate to those who died in the event over the last few days and posting sensitive comments in place of tips. Chinese government is pretty aware of Foursquare’s republishing feature on other social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. So to avoid any mass protests again the Chinese government has blocked Foursquare in Mainland China.
It is still unclear whether Foursquare ban is permanent or temporary. But by seeing Chinese government blocks on other social networking sites before we feel that the ban is temporary and can be accessible to Chinese after the anniversary is passed.
