Google+ Has Been Throttled to Death – Now Blocked in China

Well, that was quick. Just six days ago, a number of western media outlets used a ping website to check the availability of the new Google+ social network in China, and wrongly jumped to the conclusion that it was blocked. At the time, I posted a rebuttal, which garnered international coverage, to show that plus.google.com was available but working slowly in China, and likely being “throttled” in the same way as is Gmail here.

But, no more. I’ve tested Google+ first-hand on all three of China’s broadband or mobile networks: on China Telecom broadband, China Mobile GPRS internet, and China Unicom 3G (pictured below) on my mobile, and on all of them Google+ no longer exists. It seems all the networks got the memo.

We have independent verification from another city, courtesy of the Shanghaiist blog, and also from a Shanghai-based expat who has identified this as a DNS block, not a more blanket domain-level blockage. Thus, plus.google.com can be resolved – but only if you change your DNS server manually to an overseas one, not a local DNS.

In light of this, let’s call today’s Google+ development a ‘DNS block’, rather than the wider domain block that is the usual Great Firewall tactic. Some lucky – or persistant, DNS-tweaking – souls will still be able to access it. This Harvard paper, ‘Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China,’ provides a good overview of the implications and effectiveness of DNS filtering.

Yep, that's blocked. On China Unicom 3G, Google+ is inaccessible too.

Previously, as I reported six days ago, Google+ was genuinely unblocked here, but working slowly, and with some page elements a bit borked and not showing up. Occasionally, images failed to show up on it. Just last night, Google+ was accessible here, and I successfully uploaded a whole bunch of mobile photos to Google+ via the Android app.

Google+ now joins the hallowed ranks of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LiveLeak, Vimeo, FriendFeed, Posterous, HootSuite, Seesmic, BBC blogs, WordPress free blogs, Orkut, Bebo, LinkedIn’s brief blockage (though, in a rare case, they returned from the brink), FlipBoard, a whole bunch of Google web apps, and thousands of dissident websites – all blocked in the country in an attempt to stop people here from using the sites for reading or communication.

If you’re in a different part of China, please confirm this blockage by reporting on the availability of plus.google.com at this HerDictWeb page and clicking on the ‘Test This Site.’ You might be lucky enough to be on different DNS settings that allow you to see the site.