Net Bizarreness in China

UPDATE: A day after writing the above post, I just returned from dinner with Jeremy Goldkom, who runs a Beijing-based blog about Chinese media and technology. Jeremy informs me that it's not likely that most of the sites I found blocked are blocked by the government - and he keeps track of such things. More likely, the individual ISP used by my hotel either blocks the sites or has trouble accessing them. However, Goldkom told me, it is true that many blogging sites - including Blogspot and Typepad - are blocked by Chinese officials. Which is why I still have to email blog posts to my colleague.

So I wake up in Beijing - yes, on purpose - and get on the Net in my very nice hotel that caters to Westerners. And the wireless Internet works very nicely, except for all the Web sites I can't get to - presumably because they are blocked.

First of all, I can't get to the blog tool that allows me to post here on Portfolio.com. I had to email this post to a colleague.

Then I tried going through various favorites. USA Today and New York Times sites are blocked. Facebook and MySpace, blocked. Craigslist, blocked. I can get to My Yahoo and see headlines from all kinds of news sources, but when I try to click through to half of them, I can't.

Portfolio.com is no blocked. At least not yet...