Fang is the architect of China’s pervasive net-nanny system that controls what Chinese can see on the Internet, and what content is allowed on Chinese websites. It’s popularly called the Great Firewall of China. Needless to say, Fang is none too popular among Chinese Internet users.

Predictably, tweets about the shoe attack were promptly blocked, as were web searches for the person documenting the prank.

The BBC has a more complete report.

In the interests of global understanding, perhaps George W. Bush can give Fang lessons on shoe-ducking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFX-dKpcDz8

I can still use FB, but now I have to go through the Tor proxy network. Whatta pain.

China’s net nannies have been on a campaign recently to lock down the Internet, obstensibly to shut off access to pornography, but coincidentally to limit access to sites critical of the government. Given the recent riots in Xinjiang between Muslim Uighurs and local Han (the ethnic majority in China), one can only guess why Facebook has been banned here.

The media site, www.danwei.com, is now also blocked, too. Danwei’s writers are openly critical of Internet censorship in China, and provide links to news sites that are less biased than the official government sources.

For example, if you believe CCTV-9, the international arm of the state TV media, everything is just peachy keen in Xinjiang, where more than 150 people were killed earlier this month and where the army is patrolling the streets to prevent more outbreaks of ethnic violence. CCTV-9 interviewed a Westerner who teaches at a university in Urumqi, the provincial capital, and who said categorically that there were no problems on campus and everything is back to normal. We also got to see a queue of Chinese residents stuffing 100-yuan notes into a donation box — the whole scene was patently contrived for the telecast.

Of course, life in Urumqi is not so rosy, and outside media — including Youtube.com, blog sites, and one supposes also Facebook — would provide Uighurs a chance to get the real news out to the world.

JISHOU, HUNAN — Sometime this evening, the Chinese net nannies blocked access to Google.com, part of the government’s ever continuing struggle to combat (officially) pornography and (unofficially) access to sites critical of the government.

True to form, the state’s censors are using Google as a poster child to warn those who might want to buck the censors.

CCTV, the state-run television, had a report earlier this week blaming Google for “providing ‘vulgar and unhealthy’ content.” The report featured an interview with a young man – later discovered to be a CCTV intern — who said his roommate had become addicted to porn thanks to Google’s help.

State censors then blocked the intern’s name (Gao Ye 高也) from permissible searches at Google China, the Chinese (net nannied) version of Google.com. Google.cn apparently agreed last week to restrict access to porn, so we can still use it. But, the Great Firewall of China is now blocking the international site,Google.com, which joins youtube.com, blogger.com and blogspot.com on the no-no list.

Experts suggest that the government’s anti-porn crusade is a smokescreen to block access to politically sensitive websites. We lost access to Youtube, for example, after videos of Chinese soldiers beating Tibetan monks showed up there, and blogger and blogspot went dark around the time of the 20th anniversary of the Tian’anmen Square Massacre earlier this month.

Blocking Google.com might serve the same function, or as the articles at Danwei.org suggest, the sudden crackdown may be retaliation for national and international protests about new forms of government censorship.

A few weeks ago, China announced that by July 1 all computers sold in China must have a web-filtering program installed called Green Dam Youth Escort, supposedly to prevent children accessing porn and violent material. Chinese netizens instantly cried foul, and most have mocked the program as a thinly veiled attempt to censor the Internet. (One example of mockery is shown here: Green Dam Girl (绿坝娘) is pulling down Windows XP Girl’s knickers.)

Another group of Chinese netizens proposed a national boycott of using the Internet on July 1, the deadline by which manufacturers must provide Green Dam on new computers.

Computer experts at the University of Michigan then alleged Green Dam was a security risk, allowing external computers access to a user’s files and Internet browsing history. The UMich analysts recommended users uninstall Green Dam ASAP.

Representatives of a US software firm, Solid Oak, accused Green Dam’s developers of stealing code from Solid Oak’s own Cyber Sitter web-filtering application.

Finally, the US government weighed in on Monday, saying it had grave concerns on how Chinese Internet censorship would affect trade and access to information.

China, however, remained resolute yesterday in requiring Green Dam on new computers.

Blocking Google.com, then, may be a way for the Chinese censors to show us all who’s boss, in a virtual pissing contest. (Though, as I have reported earlier, there are ways to circumvent the Great Firewall of China. It’s cumbersome, but it works.)

On a more personal level, losing access to Youtube and Blogger/Blogspot was a nuisance, but a minor one. Losing Google.com, however, means I cannot easily access my photos at Picasaweb or use www.gmail.com to read my email and access my contacts files. [I can still check my gmail using Thunderbird and Yahoo! Mail, though. Only Web traffic is being restricted so far, not POP/IMAP/SMTP traffic.]

It’s impossible to say how long Google.com will be blocked. When I arrived last August, I found that Livejournal.com was blocked, then sometime this spring the ban was lifted. In true authoritarian form, Chinese censors giveth, and they taketh away.