October 21st, 2007

Life without YouTube in the PRC

So you may have heard that YouTube is blocked in the PRC. Those of us who live here have come to depend on YouTube for little 2-minute clips of entertainment which keep us smiling throughout the workday. So now what do we do?

Well, I was all set to recommend Divx’s Stage6 as a substitute. It worked on Friday. I’ve been getting into it because it has such superior video quality and also hosts long videos. However, as of yesterday, it, too seems to be blocked. I turned to a TechCrunch article on YouTube alternatives and found that many of them are not loading for me. Here are my results (Oct. 21, 10pm in Shanghai).

Accessible Video Sites

Inaccessible Video Sites

Of course, if you want Chinese video, those sites still work. Tudou is #1, but I prefer Youku (Danwei lists more choices).


13 Comments
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Posted at 10:57pm.
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13 Comments:

  1. Carl Says:

    Wonder if the block will end once the Congress ends.

    October 22nd, 2007 at 3:18 am
  2. Matthew Stinson Says:

    Stage6 loads for me, only really really really slowly. Perhaps it’s getting too much traffic from China now?

    By-the-way, since Feedburner is blocked now, is there any way you could change the “Newest Entries” RSS clips on the front page of Sinosplice to use your blog’s built-in WordPress RSS instead of a Feedburner feed? It’s not a big issue, mind you, just a minor annoyance.

    October 22nd, 2007 at 6:14 am
  3. Jacki Says:

    Stage6 also works for me, but like the other comment, very slowly.

    I’ve been finding full episodes of all the American shows I watch on tudou no problem, though, which at least is keeping me sane. :)

    October 22nd, 2007 at 10:53 am
  4. HR Says:

    That’s weird. I’m here in Taiwan province and everything seems to be working just fine.

    October 22nd, 2007 at 2:20 pm
  5. ash Says:

    Is there no technical workaround to get Youtube working again?

    October 22nd, 2007 at 5:41 pm
  6. Carl Says:

    Using a VPN like hotspotshield.com will allow you to access these sites.

    October 23rd, 2007 at 5:19 pm
  7. Matthew Stinson Says:

    HR, are you making a joke? ;-)

    Any luck getting Stage6 to work for you, John?

    October 23rd, 2007 at 10:49 pm
  8. John Says:

    Matthew,

    Actually, as of tonight, Stage6 is working for me again. So maybe it wasn’t blocked after all.

    October 23rd, 2007 at 11:08 pm
  9. TD Says:

    Voice of America recently began putting Mandarin video content on Youtube–perhaps a reason for the block?

    October 24th, 2007 at 6:45 am
  10. changye Says:

    Hi John,

    I suspect that Youtube was blocked probably because Dalai Lama was awarded a US Congressional Gold Medal on October 17. I cannot access Youtube since October 17(US time). I also had a trouble searching on Yahoo, except for Yahoo China, on the same day. Youtube, come back!

    October 25th, 2007 at 11:39 am
  11. changye Says:

    I don’t think that Youtube will be resurrected in China in the near future, because so many “unfavorable” video clips for CCP are being uploaded there. Actually, I have been wondering why Chinese authority didn’t block the “dangerous website” until now. They should have done that much earlier.

    October 25th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
  12. Lola Says:

    http://rutube.ru/

    http://www.jewtube.com

    http://www.blinkx.com

    better then nothing!

    October 28th, 2007 at 9:32 am
  13. Kate Says:

    For such a long time has youtube been inaccessible, that I am increasingly wondering what’s wrong with it. Strangely enough, many links to the related information of its being blocked are also inaccessible. Nice seeing your blog. It seems that I’ve found what i’d like to be confrimed here: China banned it. Isn’t it rather typical..Thx

    October 30th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
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