China has stepped up its crackdown on software that allows internet users to access banned websites during a top political meeting this week, a leading provider of firewall-spanning software said.
Beijing imposes the world’s most widespread censorship of the internet, with internet users in mainland China unable to access everything from Google to news sites without using a virtual private network (VPN).
As thousands of delegates gather in Beijing this week for the annual Two Sessions, VPN software is finding it increasingly difficult to circumvent censorship and outages are becoming more frequent, even compared with previous sensitive political events.
Increased scrutiny
“Currently, censorship has increased due to political meetings in China,” said a representative from Astrill, a Liechtenstein-based service that is one of the most popular VPN services for foreigners in China. “Unfortunately, not all VPN protocols currently work properly,” they said.
“We are working intensively to get all services back to normal, but we do not have an ETA at this time.”