The Great Firewall is not kind to Google

Is Google blocked in China? Not officially. But using it there is an exercise in frustration. That's my experience, just back from three weeks in Shanghai.

Of course, Google Plus is blocked, along with similar social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and Blogspot. Skype is a redirect to Tom, a government-owned conglomerate which has backdoors to spy on the local populace.

But the instability of Google within China was staggering. Chronic page failures manifested on virtually every other click, with the familiar "Connection reset by peer" message common to firewall foul play. After a failure, all Google pages will fail to load for about 30 seconds before being ready again.

Access to GMail was equally frustrating.

Now there is talk in China of authorities using a "white list" to allow sites to function within China's borders rather than a "black list" to block specific sites. One must wonder how long the local populace will continue to tolerate such a direct affront to their personal liberty.