China Doesn’t Like Me! :(
First I get banned from Digg (I did get unbanned, but all my stories are on auto-bury so I might as well be banned). Then Technorati freezes my ranking because of an evil ping attack. Now I find out that China, the country that was I born in, has blocked access to this blog!
According to GreatFireWallOfChina.org, China has blocked access to johnchow.com. However, the site also comes with the following disclaimer.
This version 1.0 may report sites as being ‘blocked’, while there are only technical reasons for their unavailability.
It’s greatfirewallofchina.org’s aim to collaboratively build a community that will be able to visualize Internet censorship in an increasingly accurate way.
The last time I was in China I had no problem accessing my blog so I think this site is full of it. When I entered Stephen Fung in the URL, it say, “This page does not exist or could not be tested due to technical reasons!” So, I’m blocked and Stephen doesn’t exist. 
Thanks to Juan Francisco Diez for sending me this but I’m pretty sure John Chow dot Com is available in China. But just in case, can someone in China confirm this for me?
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I guess China knows evil when the see it. I just tested my blog ( http://www.shawn-knight.net ) and my tech site ( http://www.ocia.net ) and both say “Your URL is available”. I guess they dont hate me… yet…
Strange, I tested this blog and it says available also…
Reply to this commentI was in China, the city of ZhuHai(next to Macau) two weeks ago. I access the site without problem at the time.
Reply to this commentI tested mine about a week ago and couldn’t open it. I tried again and got in….
Reply to this commentYou’re just not cool until you’re banned somewhere. You must be doing something right.
Reply to this commentWell that just sucks…
No _huge_ loss though, with all of my sites next to none traffic comes from China, so I imagine it’s the same for you.
Good luck with things John.
Reply to this commentok I am stupid… I entered john-chow.com instead of johnchow.com
My bad!
Reply to this commentNow you’re unblocked
Reply to this comment–
GFW Customer Service
Probably not true. Why would they go out of their way to ban their one and only dot com mogul
Reply to this commentNo, John. You’re fine here. (Guangzhou, China. ADSL)
Reply to this commentAnd that site reports that my URL is unblocked.. Surprising considering that it has one of the
forbidden 
word in it. 
Reply to this commentAnd what word would that be?!?!
Reply to this commentMy site is blocked
why?
Reply to this commentmaybe they have site standards that your blog needs to pass
Reply to this commentI just tried my domain which includes the word “devil” and it’s all okay, I mustn’t be evil enough.
Gives me a new goal though
Reply to this commentI’ve heard this site is more of a joke than anything. Its pretty random what results you get, not based on actual China connectivity at all
Reply to this commentWhere did you heard that from?
Reply to this commentSeems to me it is not a joke. Because I try it on wenxuecity.com which is the largest chinese site out of China and the result is that it is blocked. I have known for a long time that this site is blocked by China.
Reply to this commentAlso, the title of your link says GreatWallOfChina.org - but its actually GreatFIREWallOfChina.org
Reply to this commentI don’t like you either.
Reply to this commentlooks like lot of site from china has been banned.Even cypherhakz had same problem.
Reply to this commentI guess it’s not really necessary to bother about results from this, since China does block many external websites. The only ones that their citizens can view are mostly internal websites, since they can be largely ‘controlled’.
Reply to this commentBut Hey….You just went to China right?!!!!!!!!!!! They like u JC…they like u… lol
Reply to this commentMy remains blocked too.. But I wonder where the .com.cn web visitors on my site are coming from…
Reply to this commentThey’re getting you back for the baby panda incident.
Reply to this commentDon’t forget the Scooter Incident!
Reply to this commentThe pandas had you blocked.
Reply to this commentChina try to protect their citizens to sensor unneeded informations.
So don’t worry be happy…
I hope this problem will be solved soon
Reply to this commentFor some reason I get like 5% of my traffic from China on one of my sites. Not sure exactly why either. The site really isn’t about anything other than internet personalities.
Reply to this commentApparently I don’t exist in China.
Reply to this commentI tried http://johnchow.com and got the same result. Agree with the comment about baby panda.
Reply to this commentBlog about how great China is and you’ll be back in no time.
Reply to this comment
I’m sure John is really stressing over this!
Reply to this commenti see him shakin from LA!
Reply to this commentLife’s little way of telling you not to go into the red.
Reply to this commentMaybe you gave the finger to the wrong guys at the ECS concentration camp
BTW I think that website is full of it too, but why bother making a scam with no adsense?
Reply to this commentJohn:
your site available in China,I can confirm it
(I’m in China)
I think there is some problem in GreatFireWallOfChina.org, many results it returns wrong
Reply to this commentSuck for you. my personal on is ok http://www.gregstratz.blogspot.com but my review site http://www.ourblogreview.com was blocked. oh well
Reply to this commentSurprised not all blogs are banned in China since they don’t want their citizens to read anything with an opinion attached to it (unless it agrees with the state)
Reply to this commentThat’s right. The state steps in to control what is said as well, on the net world.
Reply to this commenti checked yahoo and they said it was blocked… might be the fact that my connection is a bit slow though. it says it was unblocked for other attempts today though.
Reply to this commentthat’s some of my biggest concerns, as i plan to go to china. i want to continue to access my accounts, but i just can never be certain how long i will be able to, or if they would ever block me.
i suspect they don’t like seeing a wild Chinaman on the lose, John. :p
Reply to this commenthaha…If it is blocked…thats quite funny…
Reply to this commentHeheh… Well like people have said, it does not look like it actually shows what is blocked correctly, but funny anyway.
Reply to this commentSince my blog is also blocked, I assume they have many technical errors. Interesting site concept though.
Reply to this commentI’m in China ..but I can access your blog now
Reply to this commentCanadian Financial Rants is readable by anyone in China who wishes to read it! I once did a presentation which was translated “on the fly” by a young lady to a group of Japanese businessmen, and half way through my presentation I noticed she had given up, due to my speed and use of coloquialisms! Whoo Hoo!
Free John Chow for the Chinese!! –C8j
Reply to this commentI found this resource a couple of weeks ago and checked my sites - looks like China hasn’t blocked my sites (yet).
But it’s an interesting concept and a good way to showcase censorship…
Reply to this commenti wonder just how picky they are, i’ve never had any of my sites blocked
Reply to this commentNow that’s funny.
Reply to this commentI’m banned too?! I think that’s stupid. All of us who tried it god banned url
I think it has glitches. or just a fraud
Reply to this commentive read that this has been happening a lot, i dont know why
Reply to this commentpretty crazy, my site (www.exoticexcess.com) was also blocked by Digg. When I asked why I was blocked I was told that my site has been reported as spam.
So in essence you could report just about any site as spam and they would get blocked. Kinda flaky if you ask me…
Reply to this commentVery true, but Digg can’t employ someone to sit around and check all of the reported sites!
Reply to this commentWhy not? Judging by their ‘About’ page they’ve got like 30 employees, I doubt they’re all fulltime coding or on the phone…
Reply to this commentDear Dr. Evil,
I’m in China, and have been here reading your last blog regularly since Jan 2007. Just to let u know, cheers!
Reply to this commentwhoa . you’re in china and you can read this blog? . . .better be careful!
Reply to this commentI doubt the website linked to in the post is accurate, I’ve seen various sites being said to be blocked, and others who hit the news because they were blocked don’t seem to be.
Reply to this commentDon’t let those commies catch you! Chow is now an unspoken word.
Reply to this commentHmmm, I think your people are protesting you John…you must be evil
Reply to this commentMine worked!
However the flash has issues. 
Cool tool John. Thanks!
Reply to this commentMy worked aswell, but when I put in JohnChow.com, it took to long to load and aborted
.
Reply to this commentI don’t believe that website. Said my IP was ‘Australia’, not likely, mate. It’s Taipei, Taiwan.
Also, I tried mine. It said I was ‘banned’, too.
Anyway, you can always make a “Banned in China, now you can read John Chow - THE uncensored version!” That must be good for a few hits.
Reply to this commentI think that site doesn’t work at all! It’s reporting all the sites that i put has banned, wich i know that some of them are not banned at all
Reply to this commentI am from china , i can vist your web.
Reply to this commentas csudhoff said digg bans blogs if you’ve been reported.
for me it’s very unfair.
I think they should check it before banning it
Reply to this commentDo not worry John, China did not like URL relative to Blog. I have tested my new address and my blog address is blocked but not my Web site …
I think that there is an automatic process. blog is a no autorized work, like john
Nico
Reply to this commentLooks like all 3 of my sites are blocked. I’m not surprised by two of them but the third is a surprise….
Reply to this commentIt must be the blog posts about the OhMyBod (and now iBuzz) :twisted:.
Reply to this commentHere’s something that you might find pretty strange. My freelance writing business (michaelkwan.com), whether you include the www or not, is blocked… BUT…. my blog (btr.michaelkwan.com) is available.
Reply to this commentI think their sever has the glitch
Reply to this commentJohn, on Monday it was reporting bloggingfusion.com as blocked, but today it shows it as available. I just tested your blog and it still showing as blocked. I’ll be blogging about this too.
Reply to this commentI tried it again on my other domains ending up being said to be banned, I think it needs some twitches!! hehehehe
Reply to this commentSo what do you have to do to get banned in China anyway?
Reply to this commentMany of my sites are “unavailable”..hmmm wonder how accurate the test was. Oh, well most of content are focused to the North American market anyway.
Das Brain
Reply to this commentYour site is available to me here in china. I found out today, for the first time in 7 months, that I cant access my own now. I think there is a crack down going on because most blogs I can’t access from here that I have been able to all along. ?
Reply to this commentit seems like all these companies are trying to bog you down, digg, then this
Reply to this commentI am in China. I can access your site.
Reply to this comment