Thursday, January 26, 2017

China fortifies its Great Firewall with crackdown on VPNs - after Xi Jinping called for 'global connectivity'

China has fortified its Great Firewall with a crackdown that will make it harder to access the dozens of overseas websites that are banned in the country, such as Facebook and Twitter.

The “cleaning up” operation, which would make it more difficult for some foreign businesses to operate websites in China, was announced after Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, spoke of Beijing's desire for increased globalisation at the Davos forum last week.

Authorities are rolling out a 14-month crackdown targeting China-based providers of virtual private networks (VPNs), which help people access popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. The websites are blocked on the Chinese mainland.

The new rules, which force domestic VPN providers to register with regulators, come after a series of crackdowns on the Chinese Internet which observers see as part of wider assault on freedom of speech. Full story...

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