UK-based newspaper The Guardian seems to be really pushing someone’s button in China as its website has been blocked in China today. It’s the second time this month that The Guardian has been hit by China’s Great Firewall – the site was blocked on January 8 and then unblocked in the country a few days later.
As the newspaper itself points out, today’s GFW block of The Guardian is very likely due to a story published this morning about more than a dozen family members of current or former Chinese leaders using offshore havens to stash huge amounts of personal wealth.
Tech in Asia has verified that The Guardian’s site is blocked in China, though its mobile app, which uses a different IP address, is still functioning in the country. The same thing occured during the site’s previous ban.
It’s unclear if The Guardian, which publishes only in English, will be unblocked in due course. The New York Times and Bloomberg were blocked in October 2012 for their own exposé of hidden wealth among China’s political elite, and have remained blocked ever since. However, blocks on the Chinese versions of Reuters and the Wall Street Journal were removed earlier this month.
It’s common for China’s Great Firewall to block Chinese-language media, but it’s more unusual for English-language material to be blitzed from the web.
(Editing by Josh Horwitz)
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