Typepad confirms: all its blogs blocked in China

Typepad's Anil Dash now confirms that all Typepad blogs (...typepad.com as well as ...blogs.com) are defintely blocked in China. He emphasizes this is something that has been done to Typepad, not by Typepad:

Until access is restored, the only recommendations we can make for workarounds is to use any web proxies which are available for routing requests to TypePad through another site. In addition, third-party services for processing syndication feeds aren't currently being blocked, so if you're using another service to enhance your TypePad-published XML feed, it's likely the feed will still be available to audiences in China.

To be clear, the availability of TypePad-powered sites in China isn't something we have control over, but we do hope that full access is restored quickly, as it was last year.

UPDATE: Anil has clarified in the comments section of this post that some typepad.com blogs appear to be accessible in some places, while all blogs.com ones seem to be blocked.

Wozy, writing in Chinese at CNblog, recounts a recent email exchange he had with somebody at Typepad who wrote the following:

“We are aware of this problem and are looking at things we can do to help. However, since these blocks are put into place by the Chinese government, we honestly do not have very much control over the situation.

Right now, the best suggestion we have is to try accessing your blog through either unipeak.com or proxify.com. We will continue to work on this issue, so thank you for letting us know you're experiencing this problem.”

This is a more explicit response than the official Typepad blogpost, which doesn't actually name the Chinese government or recommend specific proxy services.

Wozy writes that since Typepad is a fee-paying service, and since his main readership can no longer access his blog, he had no choice but to move his blog. He describes how he decided after much comparison-shopping to go with the free hosting service weblogs.us.  He also points his readers to the RSS and feedburner feeds of his blogs, which (for now anyway) circumvent the Chinese censors.

UPDATE (6/29, 3pm EDT): CNblog reports Weblogs.us is now blocked too.

I have yet to decide whether and when I'll move this blog to a new host. I have good friends who invest in or work for Typepad's Six Apart.  As a non-technical person, I love the service's features and user-friendliness. So I feel really torn.

Meanwhile, people in China who can't or don't want to use proxy servers can subscribe to the content through their RSS readers (XML feed here) [CORRECTION: rss and Atom feeds are also blocked if not run through a 3rd party service], or click here to read it through Feedburner.

Comments

[今日评论员]

I heard that typepad was unblocked but blogs is not. source: http://thehorsesmouth.blog-city.com/read/trackback/1360017.htm

[Anil]

We've been hearing as well that some TypePad.com sites are accessible, but not some on blogs.com. Our engineering team is working to see if there's a technical solution we can use to route around the problem, but it's likely any service hosting significant amounts of web content can be blocked fairly easily at the government level in China.

[Gordon]

Actually, if you had bothered to do just a little bit of research on this, you would have found that Typepad sites are not completely being blocked as they are accessible in Shanghai as well as Chengdu, where I am.

As for the RSS feeds, when a site is blocked it generally affects the RSS and Atom feeds as well.

[Gordon]

Clarificatioin: XML and ATOM feeds are blocked through RSS readers. You can still access them through third-party hosts.

[Rebecca MacKinnon]

Thank you Gordon for the clarification on the feeds. Duly corrected. As for my alleged failure to do adequate research, I appreciate your added information. When I wrote this post, it was because Anil, a Typepad staffer, had announced on the Typepad blog that "all Typepad blogs" are blocked in China. Some bloggers in China were telling me the same. So I took Typepad's word for it, assuming they had checked out the situation thoroughly before making a blanket announcement. Now Anil has clarified that not all seem to be blocked. That obviously changes things. It's great that everybody blogging from different parts of China can help set the record straight.

[Anil]

To be clear, it appears the status changed between when the original post was made and when I posted my comment here.

[Gordon]

Rebecca,

Noted. From my observations, it would appear that they are targeting these sites from a local level. I have been able to access every Typepad hosted site that I've tried to open - except yours (without a proxy).

While I can access Typepad sites, some of my readers from other provinces are reporting that they are still blocked in their localities.

As I experienced yesterday and this morning, they have also taken a liking to blocking access to chat rooms which they do not have control over and they are watching it very closely.

[Rita]

How to get access to Typepad that did not block.

[bobo]

China will eventually allow more content

[panasianbiz]

I stumbled across your blog while I was doing some online research. I had the privilege of living for many years in Eastern countries, and I am truly dismayed about this development. I had hoped China was getting more open. Guess I was wrong.