Several different regions in China encountered internet shutdowns from May 20 to May 31. The Epoch Times learned from an anonymous source that Chinese authorities were doing a test to temporarily shut down regional networks with a “one-button” operation ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
A Beijing-based journalist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Epoch Times that in Guangdong Province, Shanghai, Chongqing and other places, netizens recently experienced internet shutdowns. He got confirmed information from relevant government departments that these were the result of a so-called “nationwide one-button internet shutdown test.”
He added that the cell phone and network signals were very poor in Beijing in the past several days, “to the point we have to put off all live programs involving offsite communication,” he said. Some journalists for foreign media outlets had to rely on network cards from some Southeast Asian countries to communicate with their headquarters. Otherwise, they would have had difficulty sending emails back to their home countries, he said.
According to China Finance Online, Guangdong Telecom experienced a large-scale network failure around 11:00 am on May 31. Many netizens from Shantou, Jinping, Haojiang, Chaoyang and other areas reported that their metropolitan area network stopped working, and the result from network diagnosis indicated that DNS (Domain Name Server) resolution had issues, meaning, it was difficult to access certain sites that may have been blocked or censored.
China Economic Net reported a similar situation in Shanghai. On May 29, Shanghai Mobile collapsed around 11 a.m. Not only did 4G stop working, but even the basic functions of sending text messages and making phone calls were disabled.
Chongqing was probably the first city to experience network failure. Netizens in Chongqing complained on WeChat, a Facebook-like social media, that internet was down roughly from 11 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. on May 20.
China has taken a series of actions to tighten internet censorship ahead of the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square Massacre.
On June 4 of 1989, Chinese soldiers opened fire at unarmed civilians in the early morning on Tiananmen Square to end the pro-democracy protests. Chinese authorities announced the next day that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had successfully “suppressed the riots,” and “not a single person died” during the whole process.
The bloody crackdown has always been a taboo topic in the past 30 years. Starting in late April, before the anniversary this year, the censorship has reached an unprecedented level and accuracy. For instance, any picture showing the Tiananmen Square would be removed from social network by robot censors; Wikipedia was blocked in all languages; video-sharing sites Bilibili and AcFun suspended real-time comments with the excuse that they needed to perform “system maintenance.”
The “one-button internet shutdown” could be seen as another censorship tool at times of emergency.
Even Twitter became part of the censorship campaign this year. It suspended more than 1,000 accounts of Chinese dissidents days before the anniversary. Twitter had to offer an apology on June 1, saying that these accounts had been suspended as part of routine operation to target accounts engaging in “platform manipulations.”
Although Twitter promised that it would make sure to “overturn any errors,” many Twitter users reported two days later that their accounts have not been restored and they had to register a new account.
From The Epoch Times