As well as censoring Facebook and Twitter, the Chinese Government is believed to have blocked a host of websites from marking the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
A number of Chinese websites are unavailable, displaying the words ‘under maintenance’.
According to Chinese media blog Danwei, aside from Twitter and Facebook, sites ‘under maintenance’ include Bullog.com, a dictionary site called Wordku.com and a social networking site Douban.com.
Earlier this week, popular western websites such as Flickr and Hotmail were blocked by the Chinese Government in a move that can only be described as censorship.
Music-sharing website VeryCD has been taken down, as well as Fanfou, a local version of Twitter.
It is not clear whether the sites themselves submitted to Government pressure or other technological methods are in use, or whether the ‘under maintenance’ shutdowns represent a subtle protest by the sites themselves against censorship by the Chinese Government.
There have been reports that the sites would face serious consequences if they published anything relating to the events of 4 June 1989.
By John Kennedy
