First off, I want everyone to know that we take this situation very seriously at Pyra and are doing what we can to raise awareness of the situation and do what we can to technically circumvent any unintentional blockage. In the interest of raising some international awareness I spoke to a reporter at Reuters Beijing. The story ran this morning on a number of sites. It was carried by CNET, Yahoo, ABC, Forbes, Times of India, CNN Asia, ZD Net and the South China Morning Post. My favorite headline is 'China blocks access to 'dear diary' website' from The Straits Times out of Singapore. It's always interesting to see other cultural takes on 'what blogs are' in print. A more complete list of site carrying the story is available here. I'm not sure I was quoted accurately in some of the edited versions of the story but the gist is correct. We are working on the apparent block, it's not a technical issue on our side, we are looking to speak with those who have the power to reverse this and have begun that process. I feel bad for the citizens of China and visitors who were abruptly cut off from their favorite blogs but have been encouraged by a few email I have received such as the one below:
Subject: Thank you!
I just want to say thank you to you and other folks at Pyra for going all the way out to raise the blogspot blockade issue with the Chinese government.
It is really kind of your guys to spare the time and effort helping out when most chinese bloggers are not Blogger-pro users.
Blogger has been a great tool for us foreigners in China to share our experiences and to help us make sense of the new environment we are in. Lately, as more Chinese people who can write English viewing our blogs and making comments on it, blogs have become a forum for intercultural exchange.
(do not publish my name. thanks.)
What can you do to help? The first thing you can do is talk about it on your blog. If you know business people in China, in the technology industry is even better, email them a copy of the story, explain the current situation and ask them to complain about the blockage. The more support from inside China the better. Perhaps, point them to CNBlog.org as well. That's about it for now, I'll post an update tomorrow about our technical efforts. T-salon is doing a good job of tracking the situation as well.
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