China blocked all Google web domains throughout the country for long periods on Friday, the search giant has said.
Google Search, Gmail, Google Drive and all other web products were largely blacked out and, in a statement to Bloomberg and Reuters, Google said it had “checked and there’s nothing wrong on our end.”
Google’s own Transparency Report website, which shows usage levels around the world, showed a sharp decline to Google sites in China on Friday.
The country has censored Google before, during a stand-off in 2010, but has never taken the drastic step of blocking the popular Gmail email service too.
The outage left countless users without access to email throughout the nation and could be a watershed moment for the issue of web censorship in China, according to one watchdog.
via China blocks Google Search, Gmail and Drive | News | TechRadar.
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Zhong Li is a tech journalist who covers the latest developments in artificial intelligence, robotics, and biotechnology. Zhong Li is passionate about exploring the ethical and social implications of emerging technologies.