Youtube banned in China

This hub is a bit of a rant, but what the heck I am starting to get really frustrated. I just moved to China partly to work on a new Internet project for the Olympics.

Around the time George Bush met with the Dalai Lama, the Internet in China started going crazy. Yahoo and Ebay were being automatically redirected to Chinese versions of these websites.

It is pretty much back to normal now after a couple of crazy days - except for Youtube. I know some people are thinking, so what if you can't access Youtube, but Youtube has become more than just an entertainment website. I can think of plenty of reasons how businesses can use Youtube to help their company.

Rumours are going around in China that the Chinese government is helping to launch their own version of a video sharing website. According to some reports this is how the government stopped Ebay from entering China and how they could start their own auction site which now dominates the market.

People visiting China would be hard pressed to find how China's economy operates differently than that of any other Asian or capitalist ecoonomy. The only difference now, is how the Chinese government tries to control information.

There are ways to get around these controls on internet by using proxy servers, but the authorities seem to be doing everything they can to block Youtube. Even if you access it via proxy the site loads so slow and it is almost impossible to view or upload any videos.

China has promised an open media for the Olympic games next year, but at the moment things aren't looking good.

Youtube is back online now but a few functions don't work. It is a bit annoying.

Anything related to what happened in Tiananmen square is blocked.