Fellow Plurkers, we have some very troubling news to report to our beloved community today. Like many other prominent sites such as Google, Youtube and Wikipedia before it, Plurk has now joined the ranks of sites that have been officially banned in China.
We first discovered the ban late last week while one of our A-Team members was conducting a routine check of our web traffic logs. He was surprised to see that site wide traffic requests from China came to a standstill on the evening of April 22, 2009. After investigating and conducting some further tests, we were able to confirm that Plurk indeed had been placed behind the Great Firewall of China, restricting access to the site from all of mainland China.
This is what it looks like when China thinks we are bad people:
What is most unsettling is that up until now, we still have received no information from official Chinese sources on what prompted the ban. Was it some Plurkers talking negatively about China? Was it some internal dissidents using Plurk as a means to communicate with other like minded people? The truth is, we are not sure. However, we have been working over the last few days to get some additional information from some of our Chinese users and from official sources on why Plurk was banned and hope to restore access to our growing community of Chinese users as soon as possible.
The ban clearly is bittersweet for us here Plurk. On the one hand, it confirms a few things to us:
1. Plurk is a truly revolutionary communication platform that has the power to help people converse with each other in real time about the things that are happening around them. Clearly some of these conversations our users have been having may have upset Chinese officials but we are not entirely sure.
2. It is also an indication that Plurk has reached a sufficient critical mass of users that it is on the radar screen of someone like the Chinese Government. We are proud to have our name amongst the likes of internet giants such as Google, Youtube and Wikipedia which have also faced similar censorship in the past. As more and more people are beginning to realize, we are working on starting a social communication revolution here and the world is finally taking notice.
On the other hand, we all feel very strongly against any form of censorship. Plurk is a communication platform that is meant to liberate and democratize social communication between anyone and everyone, no matter where they are in the world. Stifling discussion and restricting free speech is never a good way to go.
We are also not sure why Plurk has been singled out here when there are many other similar services which allow the free flow dialogue of information between users, both operating inside and outside China. Why is China threatened by Plurk? We need to find this out and if you have any information on why Plurk was banned or what we can do to have China lift the ban, please contact us.
Finally, we ask Plurkers to please help spread the word about Plurk’s ban in China. Tell your friends, tell local newspapers and media websites and help China reconsider its actions. We are confident that with enough support and awareness, China will lift this ban and Plurk will again be well on its way to becoming the worlds most beloved communication platform!
XiaoYan.
(It's so late!!)
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