Reddit appears to be blocked in China, joining sites like Google, Facebook and Twitter on a list of foreign-owned websites inaccessible in the country.
Internet users in China began reporting their inability to access the world’s most popular discussion forum since as early as Friday.
That Reddit is blocked hasn’t surprised many users of the freewheeling message board, but the question is: why now?
“One thing we always have to bear in mind when it comes to actions like this is that the system is primarily paranoid, and only secondarily rational,” David Bandurski, co-director at the China Media Project, told Inkstone, referring to China’s censorship regime.
Bandurski compared the Chinese censorship system to a hyperactive immune system, which tends to overreact when facing sensitive information, as opposed to responding with proportional force.
“In this case, certain posts on Reddit dealing with an issue that has become hypersensitive within the system — Xinjiang could be a good example, considering deliberations now at the UN — could trigger an overreaction,” Bandurski added.
The apparent censorship of Reddit coincided with the start of a UN panel discussion on China’s draconian security crackdown in the western region of Xinjiang.
On Friday, Gay McDougall, a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, said China has turned the region into a sort of ‘no rights zone’,” citing reports that the panel considered credible.
The UN panel generated a surge in discussions about Xinjiang on the various sections of Reddit, known as subreddits, and thousands of comments.
In 2009, Facebook and Twitter were swiftly blocked in China after riots erupted in Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang.
Bandurski attributed the censorship to the role the social media platforms played in spreading information about the riots.
Since the blocking of Reddit, users said they had to turn to censorship bypassing technology, such as Virtual Private Networks, to access the site.
“I’m pretty annoyed that reddit has been blocked, though I must say that I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did,” said Reddit user u/PipForever.
Reddit users from several Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shenzhen said they could not access the site on Monday. A small number users reported intermittent access to the site on Monday afternoon, but said it was otherwise accessible even without the use of a VPN.
Under President Xi Jinping’s presidency, China has tightened its ideological control and further limited access to information.
Before blocking Reddit, the Chinese authorities censored the comedian John Oliver, after he mocked Xi.