A locked user on Twitter posted a social media (unknown to me) screenshot that says, in some part of Fujian province, there is a whitelist of websites: only websites on that list can be accessed.
I searched and found out that three days ago, the same message was posted and discussed on reddit
(rough translation)
It means you can only visit the websites in the whitelist. In Fujian province, this has happened for three months.
First I thought it was retaliation because I filed a complaint that the internet provider overcharged me, but then I noticed that my workplaces and my home have the same problem.
After many phone calls, the provider finally told me that they have received many complains. I asked if there is an end to this. They said no, it will be like this from now on.
Right now, the effect of the whitelist is that I can’t access a vast number of websites. Let me summarize:
Could not access Warcraft Logs (WCL) for a month. After three phone calls, I can now.
Biquge - a website for reading and sharing novels — lost
All websites for movie and TV shows are gone
So, as long as it is not considered mainstream, there is a high chance you can’t access it.
PS: all the above is on PC, it has nothing to do with that mobile app.
But a few days ago, I could not use WCL on Wechat.
More PS: there is no software on the PC, it is an internet problem. There has been a few nights around midnight when I clicked the websites, I could get to them, but when I refreshed 1 or 2 minutes later, they were gone again.
More PS: It looks like the whitelist is only applied in the Quanzhou district of Fujian. Fuzhou is still safe for now. (Fuzhou is the capital city of Fujian)
I hope this experiment won’t be too successful and won’t get extended to the rest of the country.
On Reddit, there are 69 comments for now. Some noted that Quanzhou is the epicenter of fraud criminals, some others noted that Quanzhou is very close to Taiwan. Some said this is good for the accelerations. It is a theory that the country is on track to be destroyed, and acceleration is good. Often netizens call the dear supreme leader the commander in chief of the acceleration.
Today, on twitter, there are more screenshots on the topic.
In the new screenshots, some people commented: “This is like taking my life away. If I can only visit the websites listed, I would not know what to do.”
One user from Quanzhou said, “I can access websites in school all right but not at home.”
Other said: “Whitelist is a euphemism. It is just an internet prison.”
So far, only few people are expressing outrage, in small chatrooms. The majority of people in China are still unaware of the experiemnt. And even if they know, what options do they have but to accept the new prison?
Some clear-eyed netizens realized the vast difference between TikTok and Douyin that runs on virtually the same software. Chinese people can’t access TikTok, and foreigners can’t post on Douyin (they can see it). This is a post from Weibo today:
(rough translation) Let me share with you my experience on TikTok. Even though the walls were always there, the contrast between Douyin and TikTok highlghts the existence of the wall more than ever.
The first reason is that they grew into different looks because of the different environments (I don't think the content of TikTok video has more value).
The second reason is that, because it is short videos, once you open TikTok, you don't need to search like in google. Life from all over the world just rush to you one after another. You can see the cultural differences of the world. The different accents from different regions of the world is very much like what we have in China between South and North. Even though in essence it is the same, in Douyin you can only see China, there is no other countries. It is as if there were only China
We can still be very happy just playing among ourselves, but we are not allowed to see other countries. This is 2022, with the advance of technology and the good life we have, we are still as closed-minded as before. People even start to push away foreign cultures, this makes me feel very sad.
On Douyin, when people show the video of Koreans eating Bibimbap, they laugh at the simplicity of the food. (As if we had not eaten simple food such as rice with onions and soy sauce).
When people show the video of a Geisha, they would say this are prostitutes disguising themselves as ghosts.
There are many examples like this. When we first see a different culture, our first reaction is not curiosity, but contempt, without knowing any background. Some people even deliberately make other country and culture look ugly in their video to attract clicks.
There are many examples. Like the video on Africa food, "get the salt there", "get the eggs there". (I found a video on twitter about street food in India using these phrases, and it is indeed very racist. In every Indian food video posted by this account, they would say that the cook went to pee and continued cooking with his unwashed hands, with no evidence.)
We Chinese are very sensitive about foreigners insulting us, but we are very discriminant of the languages and foods of other countries shared on Social Media. This is very different from the kindness on TikTok when people are sharing their own languages, foods and clothes.
Meanwhile, even though we are a big country, the life of ordinary Chinese is disappearing in the international arena. What we posted could not be seen by foreigners. To them, we became a symbol. We could not tell our stories to the world from our own perspective
I hope these problems can be solved one day. We can see the world, and can be seen by the world. The exchange of cultures can be more tolerant and friendly. Frequent cultural exchange can generate new cultures. We don't want to hate others for no reason.
There are lots of comments that concur with the main post. The followings are rough translations of selected few.
There are lots of video of Chinese streets reposted on TikTok. The comments are all very friendly discussions and admiration. I really love it.
Some thinks that the wall is justified because the Chinese have no ability to think independently. They think that opening up will make it worse, without ever opening up to see the results. They have lived in the pig pen for too long and developed a sense of superiority.
It is true. If I say something nice about Japan, they will say something else is nice in China. I have no idea what the connection is. There is no way to talk to them. A bit more conversation, they label me as "country-hater".
It is definitely a step backwards when you can't accept the cultures outside. The capitalists are happy that they monopolize the market so that the profit does not get out of China. But those who are being put into a pig pen and can only eat the trash fed by the capitalists are brainwashed to be happy of being the frog at the bottom of the well.
On one hand, we detest the stereotypes of Chinese held by foreigners, on the other hand we can't get the the diversity of our society out to the world, let alone communicate with the outside world. All the messages towards outside are controlled by the government. Of course "China" becomes a symbol.
Things are happening fast, so I am not waiting till month end to give some updates.
In newsletter 25, we introduced Ren Zeping, the economist who proposed a birth fund to improve low birth rate in China. His Weibo Account is suspended, as reported by RFI in Chinese. Someone does not like him acting too smart.
In Newsletter 26, a big V was visited by police from neighbouring province to be threatened to delete his post about an incidence of a truck being stopped on a bridge. According to Chinese media, the police arrested one 21 year old young man. Netizens are not satisfied because there were about 10 people in the three cars (all with clear shots of license plates).
Shanghai, a city that prides itself with mature and humane management that is on par with Western world, is serious in cracking down COVID virus. A video on twitter shows a mother shouting and crying outside the Shanghai Global Harbor shopping mall. She is desperate to get to her young kid but the mall is in lockdown and the police stopped her. The lockdown is very sudden. It is probably just someone who was in close contact with some suspicious cases stopped by. People commented that there is no childcare facilities in the mall and no one knows how long the lockdown will last. A very realistic squid game indeed.