There are over 1 Lakh+ Websites and Apps banned in China. These apps and websites have paved their way all around the world, but couldn’t drill through China’s firewall.
As of October 2019, many domain names are blocked in mainland China under the country’s Internet censorship policy, which prevents users from accessing certain websites from within the country.
China and Its Doings:
The ban on China’s apps in India is a recent update, but the imposing of a ban on Websites and Apps in China is not a new thing. It has been a long time marketing strategy (according to me!) which is followed by the Chinese government for the proper usage of their apps.
It also seems to me that by imposing such a ban on the Chinese people, the government will be able to track all kinds of online activities. If the ban is imposed on the apps, the hardware information, messages, call logs, and even some sensitive information can be easily accessed.
Most probably to avoid such great intrusion to the privacy of the Indians, the government imposed the ban on the Chinese apps. So I wholeheartedly appreciate and support this decision.
Also, read: India banned 59 Chinese apps including your favourites TikTok, Helo, WeChat; finally at ease.
List of the Websites and Apps banned in China:
China is at the top of the list of the most populated countries, so I guess if the Chinese themselves only use their homemade apps, it would be a great economy booster as the revenues generated would be off the charts.
So without further delays, let me present to you a short list of 10 Websites and Apps banned in China:
1. Google:
On March 30 2010, all Google search sites in all languages was banned in mainland China; any attempt to search using Google resulted in a DNS error.
Google’s Internet mail service, Gmail, and Chrome and Google-based search inquiries have not been available to mainland China users since 2014. You just cannot use this amazing and versatile search engine in Mainland China. It is completely blocked and you might just have to suffer the consequences of strict legal action.
Probably China must be using their UC browser or QQ or something, purely a national thing!
2. Youtube:
YouTube was first blocked in China for over five months from October 16, 2007 to March 22, 2008. Even though YouTube is blocked under the Great Firewall, many Chinese media including CCTV have their official YouTube account.
In spite of the ban, Alexa ranks YouTube as the 11th most visited website in China.
Well, how am I supposed to kill time in China if they have banned India’s favourite video watching site! Like seriously dude, China is preventing so many rising YouTubers, that may arise from there. Instead of this app, they are satisfied (or made to be satisfied) with you.
3. Facebook:
No poking. Noposting.No friend requests.No walls. No tagging.
All these bans have come for free by the banning of the most popular social media website. Instead, they use WeChat! That’s quite silly, man, you can’t beat the original!
In China, Facebook was blocked following the July 2009 because Xinjiang independence activists were using Facebook as part of their communications network, and Facebook denied giving the information of the activists.
4. Wikipedia:
As of April 2019, all versions of Wikipedia are blocked in China. The Chinese Wikipedia was launched in May 2001.
All language editions of Wikipedia have been blocked in mainland China since April, the Wikipedia foundation has confirmed. Internet censorship researchers found that Wikipedia had joined thousands of other websites which cannot be accessed in China.
I guess this is India’s national “Holiday homework saving site”! It surely has saved a lot of procrastinators, who just live to delay work and China has banned this!
I mean, where else do they get knowledge from (haha!). Sources say that they use Baidu Baike (And the sources were, Wikipedia and google!)
5. Instagram:
Instagram was blocked intermittently starting in 2014 and now it is completely censored. Trying to access the app from within mainland China will result in an error message saying the feed cannot be refreshed.
This website is like breathing for most of the Indians! It is so simple to reach people via this amazing social media website.
Instagram, is just purely symphony for people around the world and China has banned it!
6. Twitter:
Twitter was first blocked in China in 2009. This was preceded by a number of riots in the western capital of the Xinjiang province.
Twitter is blocked in China however, many Chinese people remove the block to use it. Even major Chinese companies and national medias, such as Huawei and CCTV, use Twitter through a government approved VPN.
This is the club and hub of all the political or Bollywood issues. Whatever the issues that have been addressed until now in India, has all arisen from this very site. It’s always like he/she tweeted this/that on Twitter and thus the fight begins.
And china is away from all of this, it’s good to hear it. So they use Sina Weibo in the house!
7. Pinterest:
Pinterest has been blocked and completely removed since 2017, in all languanges. The site has followed the example of Facebook, Twitter and many others after the photo sharing site was blocked in China, according to data from censorship monitoring organization GreatFire.
This website created by Ben Silbermann is just used for the sharing of images and doing social media service (Yes that is also a good deed!). It is designed to enable saving and discovery of information on the World Wide Web using images and, on a smaller scale, GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboards, and instead of this, China is using Huaban!
I just don’t get it! If you are using websites with similar features and similar other things as well, just go for the original!
8.Quora:
Quora is banned partially in China since August 2018 in English languange. But in order to access Quora in most regions, they must resort to using a VPN. But no one gets jailed for using a VPN, even though the government officially frowns on it.
And the biggest sellers of VPNs are Chinese state-owned enterprises.
You ask it, Quora answers it. But you cannot do the same justice to this website back there in China. They don’t require Quora, as they are more interested in using Zhihu.
I hope it gives them all the answers to whatever questions they ask, cause quora do that, effortlessly but I doubt Zhihu.
9. WhatsApp:
Since September 2017, WhatsApp has been almost completely blocked in China. While sending voice messages, images or making video calls is only possible using a system like a VPN, text messages sometimes are able to get through the blockage.
The world’s no. 1 instant messaging app WhatsApp is blocked in China. Tencent-owned instant messaging app QQ is quite popular in the country.
Like WeChat, many chinese messaging aaps are used in place of WhatsApp.
10. Tinder:
The Tantan app is currently China’s biggest dating platform, with 90 million registered users and six million daily active users, according to Chinese tech news site 36kr.
Tinder is one of the biggest dating app that cannot be accessed in China. One of the most-popular dating app in China is Tantan.
Therefore, the easiest way to access Tinder from China is to set up and use a reliable and fast VPN. Although this can also be done from China, it’s much easier to install the VPN before you enter the country, as many VPN websites are blocked in China.
Conclusion:
Alright, China has banned all of these apps. Well done! But I don’t get one thing. One of the thing which caught my attention is that China has banned apps which are mostly American-made. I don’t really know as to why is China after America? Why is it so hell bend in being the No.1, let someone else do the job, dude!
The Websites and Apps banned in China are top ranking in their respective areas. Banning those Websites and apps which are harmful to the national security might be very good decision but there are some of them which connects us to our loved ones far sitting from us like Whatsapp, Facebook etc.
But now this country is going to have a serious breakdown in the economy. After the corona effect and the banning of Chinese apps, this country will lose most of its users. I mentioned in some of my articles that the parent company of TikTok, namely bytedance has concurred a loss of INR 450 Crore, and this is just the beginning.
In my opinion, China has done a lot of dominating stuff around the world, now it’s time to make it restrict to their country!
FAQ’s:
Q1. What are some Websites and App banned in China?
Ans. There are over 100+ Websites and Apps banned in China since 2000:
- Youtube
- Snapchat
- Quora
- Tumblr etc.
Q2. Is TikTok blocked in China?
Ans. TikTok is available in mainland China – now have an estimated two billion downloads worldwide, with about 800 million active users. The app was hugely popular in India before the government banned it on national security grounds.
Q3. Is Google allowed in China?
Ans. The block is indiscriminate as all Google services in all countries, encrypted or not, are now blocked in China. This blockage includes Google search, images, Gmail and almost all other products.
There are lot many Websites and Apps banned in China which are part of Google.
Q4. Is Amazon banned in China?
Ans. Amazon.com Inc. announced in 2019 that it would close down their business in China by 18 July 2019 to focus on cross-border selling to Chinese consumers. Customers can still enter the webpage amazon.com, but can only access products imported from Amazon sites located overseas.
Q5. Is Netflix banned in China?
Ans. Netflix is available for streaming in over 190 countries. Our library of TV shows and movies varies based on the country and will change from time to time.
- Netflix is not yet available in China, Crimea, North Korea, or Syria.
- They aren’t banned, they just have commercial contracts that prevent them from launching, and the market is controlled by big Chinese.
Q6. Is Club Factory banned in India?
Ans. E-commerce marketplace for fashion and accessories Club Factory has suspended its operations in India and puts seller payments on hold, a fortnight after the government banned it along with 58 other apps of Chinese origin over privacy and security concerns.