<story><title>China Just Blocked Thousands of Websites</title><url>https://zh.greatfire.org/blog/2014/nov/china-just-blocked-thousands-websites</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>eob</author><text>Speaking entirely divorced from my opinion on China politically (as someone with strong US and TW ties, FWIW), I think the Great Firewall has been a brilliant economic move in retrospect. While it may have been an accidental side-effect, blocking so many foreign sites has enabled a flourishing of domestic internet companies of the likes that nobody but the US has seen unless I&amp;#x27;m mistaken.&lt;p&gt;And for a &amp;quot;middle class&amp;quot; of blocked sites, while not technically blocked, the packet delay is so great most people (except a dedicated few) will just shrug and figure that cross-continent internet connections must be too slow to be practical. Accessible, but only if you&amp;#x27;re willing to wait a minute. A brilliant political play, because it&amp;#x27;s hard to pin a charge oppression on anyone, since the information is technically there, but so slow nobody will access it.</text></comment>
<story><title>China Just Blocked Thousands of Websites</title><url>https://zh.greatfire.org/blog/2014/nov/china-just-blocked-thousands-websites</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>tbenst</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m currently in China. VPNs are very common and popular here. Many work very poorly unfortunately (Private Internet Access included). Astrill appears to be the most popular and best performing. A few high-end hotels that I&amp;#x27;ve stayed at route all traffic through a VPN to cater to their Western audience.&lt;p&gt;Many, many people with little technical ability use a VPN, especially in businesses dealing with the West.</text></comment>