Google: Actually, We’re Not Blocked in China
Evidently Google’s Mainland China Service Availability page is not the best indicator of the availability of the company’s mainland China services. Though that page at the moment shows Google’s Web search, YouTube, mobile and ads as blocked in the country, they are in fact available–as a number of China-based Twitter users will tell you.
Why the discrepancy? “Because of the way we measure accessibility in China, it’s possible that our machines could overestimate the level of blockage,” a Google spokesperson told me. “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.”
An earlier version of this post noted that Google’s Mainland China Service Availability page inexplicably showed a number of the company’s services as blocked in China.