AlexL Posted April 11, 2011 at 10:30 AM Report Posted April 11, 2011 at 10:30 AM Hi all, Is it just me, or does searching for any phrase with "王“ on Google in China give you an error? I was trying to find information on a local 王力宏 concert via Google and kept getting shutdown. I realized that any phrase with 王 in it was blocked. Any idea why this might be? Has 王 turned into a 敏感词? Quote
rezaf Posted April 11, 2011 at 11:49 AM Report Posted April 11, 2011 at 11:49 AM yes seems so but only on google. use baidu edit: but i tried it a few times. now it seems to be working Quote
skylee Posted April 11, 2011 at 12:18 PM Report Posted April 11, 2011 at 12:18 PM I am not interested in Leehom. But is should be 敏感詞. Quote
AlexL Posted April 11, 2011 at 01:02 PM Author Report Posted April 11, 2011 at 01:02 PM Hi there, Thanks for the responses! I did end up using Baidu and found the information fine. I'm just wondering why 王 is blocked now! What is the information that's considered sensitive? Any ideas? edit: I should add that it's still blocked for me. But if it's unblocked for rezaf maybe my computer is just special... Quote
rezaf Posted April 11, 2011 at 01:08 PM Report Posted April 11, 2011 at 01:08 PM yes it's blocked again :huh: Quote
Lu Posted April 11, 2011 at 01:12 PM Report Posted April 11, 2011 at 01:12 PM Blocked for me too. This seems highly weird. Quote
anonymoose Posted April 11, 2011 at 03:15 PM Report Posted April 11, 2011 at 03:15 PM Maybe 王力宏 was overheard humming the Taiwanese national anthem. 4 Quote
Yang Rui Posted April 11, 2011 at 04:17 PM Report Posted April 11, 2011 at 04:17 PM Could it have something to do with ex-student leader Wang Dan? I seem to remember he was refused entry to HK a couple of months ago and continues to be seen as very sensitive, even though he's a figure from years ago. What with everything that is happening with Ai Weiwei it appears that there is some sort of crackdown going on. Would seem odd to block the surname though! Quote
rezaf Posted April 11, 2011 at 04:52 PM Report Posted April 11, 2011 at 04:52 PM Maybe they are playing with google Quote
aristotle1990 Posted April 11, 2011 at 06:13 PM Report Posted April 11, 2011 at 06:13 PM Jeez, blocking a surname like 王? Next thing you know they'll block the name of one of the Communist leadership's favorite songs or something. Quote
cababunga Posted April 11, 2011 at 07:54 PM Report Posted April 11, 2011 at 07:54 PM What if you try to query Google over HTTPS? https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=王力宏 Quote
m000gle Posted April 12, 2011 at 07:34 AM Report Posted April 12, 2011 at 07:34 AM Maybe they are playing with google This certainly wouldn't surprise me... I've had issues accessing www.google.com (my homepage) fairly regularly for the past couple of weeks. Its usually only resetting my connection for a few minutes at a time, so only an inconvenience, but the issues are conveniently unique to Google... What if you try to query Google over HTTPS? I used this by default back home, but have yet to see it load inside China... Unfortunately, this erratic behaviour is, more-or-less, par for the course with the GFW... Other than the few obvious, permanent blocks, most keyword triggers I hit seem to be arbitrary, often intermittent and usually for sites which aren't political in the least. :blink: Quote
gougou Posted April 13, 2011 at 03:43 AM Report Posted April 13, 2011 at 03:43 AM Maybe it's connected to the meet-ups on a shopping street starting with that character? Still weird to block the individual character though. Quote
Lu Posted April 13, 2011 at 02:10 PM Report Posted April 13, 2011 at 02:10 PM Hm... 府 works just fine but 井 also times out. I'd love to try 中关村 too but google itself is hard to reach at the moment. Quote
anonymoose Posted April 13, 2011 at 02:13 PM Report Posted April 13, 2011 at 02:13 PM Hm... 府 works just fine Well, the 政府 wouldn't want to block their own sites, would they? Quote
m000gle Posted April 13, 2011 at 04:10 PM Report Posted April 13, 2011 at 04:10 PM Well, unfortunately, something fishy is clearly going on... Not too surprisingly, 刘 causes the same connection reset (kinda sucks for 刘翔 Liu Xiang, the famous Chinese Olympic hurdler, though :rolleyes:). Quote
gougou Posted April 14, 2011 at 04:12 AM Report Posted April 14, 2011 at 04:12 AM Actually this is quite surprising. With Wang and Liu blocked, half (made this number up, but a whole lot anyway) of the Chinese population are unsearchable... Quote
m000gle Posted April 14, 2011 at 12:01 PM Report Posted April 14, 2011 at 12:01 PM hahaha true... I was meaning that, if 王 is blocked for the reasons speculated above, 刘 also being blocked is anything but surprising. The one thing which truly intrigues me, though, is that only Google is affected... No others, domestic and foreign alike, seem to be hit. It would be pretty ballsy for the GFW to run Google through a more stringent filtering regime than normal, or mess with its connectivity like this, since it would substantiate the recent allegations of it purposely being singled out and disrupted. That said, I'm even more skeptical that Google has a problem, with their website, causing this... Quote
DespikableMi Posted April 14, 2011 at 06:53 PM Report Posted April 14, 2011 at 06:53 PM Is this only an issue inside China? Quote
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