Facebook and Twitter Blocked Due to Riots

After the unfortunate events that occurred recently in Xinjiang, the Chinese government has decided to block access across China to Facebook and Twitter, in addition to the already blocked blog websites, including Blogger and Wordpress.  According to "official" sources, the extremists who rioted in Xinjiang were being coordinated by messages on social networking sites, so the government's response was to block the whole country.  Not so surprising for a country that doesn't value freedom of expression, but rather inconvenient for us.

We apologize if we are unable to respond to Facebook messages or post pictures.  Hopefully the government will restore access to those sites soon.  Recently, access to Google was blocked for a few days as the government wanted to send a "message" to encourage Google to block porn sites (and who knows what else).  Fortunately access was restored quickly.

It is strange to us that as China modernizes, the crackdown on the internet seems to be getting worse.  We can only hope that those in power do have the nation's best interests in mind, though we don't always agree with their methods.  The riot in Xinjiang will only exacerbate existing ethnic tensions in a country where irrational nationalism is all too common.  Our own home countries, Canada and the US, have their own spotted history dealing with racial violence, so we can hardly stand on a moral high ground when it comes to these matters, but we send them our pryers and well wishes as they try to deal with this situation and restore peace.