Access to the popular social networking service Twitter and email service Hotmail has been blocked across mainland China, two days before the 20th anniversary of a bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square. Indignant users filled chatrooms with protest, after access to Twitter was denied.
"The whole Twitter community in China has been exploding with it," said Beijing-based technology commentator Kaiser Kuo. "It's just part of life here. If anything surprises me, it's that it took them so long."
Other internet users reported not being able to access Windows Live, a service offered by Microsoft which also owns Hotmail, and also Flickr, an online photo sharing service owned by Yahoo."This is so frustrating. Now I feel China is exactly the same as Iran," said a financial professional and avid Twitter user in Shanghai, referring to Iran's May ban of popular social networking site Facebook.
Thursday is the 20th anniversary of June 4, 1989, when tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square before dawn to quell weeks of protest by students and workers. China has never released a death toll from the crackdown on what it classes as a "counter-revolutionary" conspiracy.
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