Gutenberg.org Blocked by GFW?
Gutenberg.org, the website of Project Gutenberg, “the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks,” is blocked for me here at Beihang University in Beijing. I tried a few different Chinese proxy servers too, all with no luck. Of course, non-Chinese proxy servers served up Gutenberg.org just fine.
/URLFAN (Chinese) has a post dated April 24, 2006, concerning the Technorati block that also states that Gutenberg.org has been blocked.
Usually if a website is blocked it is pretty obvious what the reason is: porn, anti-government, ability for users to generate uncensored content; but I really can’t see why Gutenberg.org would be blocked as it doesn’t seem to fit into any of these categories (but then neither does BBC News, which is also blocked most places in China). I suppose it is most likely that there are some books on Gutenberg.org that China’s leaders find politically sensitive, or maybe they just don’t like the idea of books they haven’t officially approved being freely available to the masses.
I remember going to Gutenberg.org a few times when I lived in Weifang, and I never had any problems accessing it then.
December 7, 2006 at 12:54 pm
[...] CHINA – Gutenberg.org Blocked by GFW? “Gutenberg.org, the website of Project Gutenberg, “the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks,” is blocked for me here at Beihang University in Beijing.” [...]
December 8, 2006 at 2:26 pm
I was always under the impression that the BBC was blocked because it offers its content in Chinese. Most of the other Western news services don’t, and so they are mostly inaccessible to the vast majority of Chinese even without censorship…
December 9, 2006 at 5:51 am
Try oursite at http://www.bookyards.com
we have many of the same books as Gutenberg, as well as links to many other libraries.
Your input on whether our site is blocked will be appreciated.