Really, China? Blocking the most square and businesslike social networking site in the world? The official social networking site of everyone’s dad? The CBS of social networking? Yeah, well, whatever, they did it. The move came after a LinkedIn member created a discussion group about the democracy movement in Africa and the Middle East, notably Tunisia. “Jasmine Z” set up the group, which featured somebody saying they hoped the democracy movement reaches China. That’s all it took, apparently, for the government to pull the plug.
All this according to Bloomberg, which also reports this Chinese censorship news nugget:
U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman Jr. was filmed at a protest in Beijing last week. The U.S. Embassy in a statement said that Huntsman and his family were “passing through” the shopping district and his presence was “purely coincidental.”
After a video of Huntsman at the event began to circulate on the Internet, Huntsman’s Chinese name is no longer searchable on micro blogs like Sina.com. A search on Sina’s micro blog produces a Chinese message which translates as “According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search results have not been shown.”
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