Above: My friends, Maria and Andrew, at Tiananmen in 2006Anticipating the 20th Anniversary of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, the GFW (Great FireWall) of China has struck again! For those of you who have never heard of GFW, it's a method by which the Chinese government censors out anything that they don't approve of. For example, if you look up "Tiananmen Square" on Google in the U.S., you'd see a mix of photos, some of which include photos from the June 4, 1989 uprising. However, if you look up "Tiananmen Square" on Google in China, you see smiling pictures of tourists in front of Tiananmen and pictures of local restaurants. Big difference right?
This time, GFW is taking a ton of sites with it, including popular social networking sites, like Twitter, Xiaonei, Blogspot and Flickr.
To get a sense of just how many sites GFW is censoring, take a look at this Google Doc that includes an extensive list of sites that are currently being blocked in China. Check out the document here.
There have been a lot more stories that I wanted to aggregate here for you, as well:
Tiananmen Square, 20 Years Later (The New York Times)
China's Forgotten Revolution (The New York Times)
Behind the Scenes: Tank Man of Tiananmen (Lens Blog, NYTimes)
China Blocks Twitter (And Almost Everything Else) (Mashable)
To Shut off Tiananmen Talks, China Disrupts Sites (The New York Times)
In China, a New Breed of Dissidents (Wall Street Journal)
China Blocks, Twitter, Flickr, Others as Tiananmen Anniversary Looms (Fox News)
Tiananmen Square: Foreign Reporters Barred by China on Eve of Anniversary (Huffington Post)
1989 Tiananmen Square Protest (YouTube)
Tank Man Documentary (PBS)
I wish I could be in Tiananmen to check out what was going on right now. For anyone there, please comment below and tell us the latest news on what's going on in Beijing!
