The Real Blogger Status

China has always been a subject of legend and mystery, in "Western" (non Asian) culture. Recently, one unique Chinese artifact - the Great Firewall Of China - has become a subject of legend and mystery too. For both bloggers (publishers of both Blogger and other blogs - and of various web sites) and bloggees (readers of both Blogger and other blogs - and of various web sites), and for people inside China and outside, the GFWC is the subject of discussion in both techie and non techie blogs, forums, and web sites. People inside China wonder Why can't I see my Blogger blog? and people outside China wonder Why can't my readers, inside China, see my blog? And those are the simple questions. People inside China, more realistically (and echoing some of the questions seen occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken ) ask Why can't I see all of my Blogger blogs? or Why can I see my Blogger blogs, but not my neighbours Blogger blogs (my FaceBook page, my Twe...

During the course of the 17th Communist Party Congress, look for censorship of Chinese access to BlogSpot.Com, and similar web sites, to continue. In Why China shut down 18,401 websites , The Christian Science Monitor, September 2007, reported The Chinese authorities are in the midst of an unusually harsh crackdown on the Internet, closing tens of thousands of websites that had allowed visitors to post their opinions, according to bloggers and Internet monitors in China. To remind the citizens that they are being watched, the government has animated characters Jingjing and Chacha performing. We don't want to get shut down so we shut down anything that could be offensive. says one Chinese ISP employee. Our upstream provider [the company that owns the servers] told us verbally there should be no commentary, no blogs , no bulletin board services, because the government is going bananas. If Chinese bloggers continue to complain of lack of access to their BlogSpot blogs, expect for thi...

PKBlogs goes down periodically. It looks like they're down right now. I use PKBlogs so I can package the URL of my target with my advice, as in http://www.pkblogs.com/bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com/ 2007/03/connectivity-problems-with-blogspot.html Clicking on that URL takes you directly to my blog (when PKBlogs is up). Other than that, you can use any other proxy server, to access any blog or web site, anonymously and safely . Google for "free proxy server" , and pick one. You'll have to type the URL of the target (your blog) each time unfortunately.

We see various problem reports in Blogger Help Group. My blog is gone. My blog is half gone. My blog is not found. I'm being told that I'm not supposed to see my blog. There's nothing there. All of these complaints may, or may not, come from any of several problems. Active Filtering Passive Filtering Local Filtering Network Problems Diagnosing The Problem More Information Active Filtering You may try to view your blog (or maybe go to Blogger, to setup your blog), and get 403 Forbidden This is, most likely, a Blogger problem (or a problem with your host, if your blog is hosted outside Blogger). You could get something like "403 Forbidden". It may say "Bad customer! Naughty!", or something similar. Some ISPs, possibly influenced by political pressure, are filtering some websites, or all of Blog*Spot . There are two ways of filtering Internet traffic. Each have different technologies, and different results. Active filtering. Passive filtering. Active fi...