The websites of The Washington Post and The Guardianappear to be blocked in China as the country’s government tightens its so-called Great Firewall censorship apparatus as it navigates a politically sensitive period. Until this weekend, the two newspapers were among the last of the major English-language outlets that were still regularly accessible from mainland China without the use of virtual private networking (VPN) software, according to the censorship tracker Greatfire.org.
Chinese internet authorities went into overdrive ahead of the 30th anniversary of the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, prohibiting users of the popular WeChat social media service from posting keywords or pictures related to the event.
