Google computer reports China blockage, all humans report otherwise

As of this writing, numerous major American and European news outlets are reporting that Google is blocked in China, based on the information appearing on Google's Mainland China service availability page.

However no journalist has actually confirmed with a human being at Google that this information is correct. What's more, I've heard from several dozen people all over China who say that Google isn't blocked for them when they access it on their Internet connections from Beijing to Shanghai to Sichuan to Hunan.

I have yet to hear from a single person who can't access Google search in Mainland China. I am collecting people's responses via Twitter here. Also see the #googlecn tag. For a sampling see here, here, here, here, and here.

The most insane part of this whole non-story is that Google's stock fell 1.4 percent and Baidu's stock rose 3.5 percent. What's even funnier are all the financial analysts who commented to Reuters about the block...funny that is if you don't own Google stock...

Kudos to TNW and TechCrunch.

UPDATE: Mike Swift of the San Jose Mercury News has just posted this update on Twitter: "Google to Mercury News: Service Ok in China, and "it's possible that our machines could overestimate" a "small" block of last night."

UPDATE2: One person who e-mailed me from Beijing, who said it was OK to quote his e-mail but did not want to be named, just sent me the following:

"I can get google.co.uk, which I use regularly now, and the .com site seems to direct me to .com/hk. Search seems ok. Ive had times in recent few weeks when it didn’t work, and then did, but this morning seems pretty OK for me. however, my colleague sitting next to me, however, has had the google.com site do down a few times after searching for non-sensitive terms, and then seems ok a few minutes later.

UPDATE3: RWW has posted the following statement from Google:

"Because of the way we measure accessibility in China, it's possible that our machines could overestimate the level of blockage. That seems to be what happened last night when there was a relatively small blockage. It appears now that users in China are accessing our properties normally.

"Please also note that the dashboard is not a real time tool."

Comments

[Joseph]

There is no question that google and gmail have been acting squirrely in Beijing. On Thursday gmail was timing out (didn't work) and today (July 30)the main google search page wouldn't load for a time.

These are intermittent and feels like someone is "adjusting" the Great Firewall, causing temporary outages.

[Sam]

OMG, poor chinese. Does Google really decide to exit Mainland China fully?

[Yurtdışı Eğitim]

Google, Google, Google, the word on everyone's tongue at the moment. I wonder how this situation affects google.

[Ovais]

Well most of the peoples got disturbed when the Google blocks. But maybe there were some reasons on behind that. Maybe its possible that it was unblock in China.

[Stef]

Lets hope the fundamentals of freedom of information are upheld globally where possible

[fred dukas]

DOJ Hotwatch secret tracking of citizens

http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2010/12/dojs-hotwatch-real-time-surveillance-of.html

[Richard Lewis]

I hope everyone got to see Rebecca on C-SPAN's "The Washington Journal" this morning. If not - all is archived for future viewing. Her honest, non-political knowledge and educating manner is rare for such a political program. I, personally, couldn't get pass her pleasant smile. Just listening to her was like reading a fine book that encompassed truth while educating. She was Fabulous.
Richard Lewis
PoDunk, Arkansas (unfortunately)

[Rebecca MacKinnon]

Aw shucks Richard, I'm blushing.
Thanks so much for your kind words. Glad you enjoyed the show!