simplypreposterous

Your numbers are a bit off though. Google has around 20% market share, while Baidu has around 60% market share according to several sources (http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSSHA11273420080125)

About Chinese people not using twitter... um... they don't twitter in English, but do you ever read the Chinese posts? There are seriously a ton of Chinese twitter users, especially in Beijing and Shanghai. Some of the people i connect with in a daily basis are all Chinese. So i don't know where your stats come from on the number of Chinese users.

And actually, there was a time last year when Baidu was being blocked until Baidu came over and paid some 40 billion RMB to the gov't to get unblocked. But that doesn't matter?

The government says it is upset with porn results showing up on google, but if no one checks google.com as you say, then how is it that the government lying about it's reasons is not an issue?

Furthermore, if your theory is also right, then if google and twitter get blocked, that means the government is mostly targeting foreigners and expats. Now how is that not an issue? If we come here to help build China up, to teach them how to do business more effectively and efficiently, we come to teach their kids English so they can learn to do business in the world's most widely used language, we come to help expand their education system, etc etc, but they still try to control the free access to our information, then that IS an issue.

Also, a lot Chinese people I know were really upset about the Green Dam, another form of restriction? Again. how is that not an issue?

I think the fact that google got hit hard recently with complaints about pornography was a strategy from the Gov't to try to sidestep the popular issue of the Green Dam. The gov't is very adept at covering up an issue by pointing to a different one (hint: every time Japan is brought up as an issue, notice how people forget what they were complaining about in the first place).

Anyways, i think it's definitely an issue because of what you're saying.

Cause I run my businesses almost entirely through google. I have PPC campaigns, google apps, google docs with information from our company that we need accessible at any given time, also search and google alerts, etc etc.

It's not that people's panties are up in a bunch, it's that it's extremely frustrating living in a country where anything can happen from day to day that negatively and adversely affects your business.

Namely, it isn't blocked anymore. It wasn't blocked as of around 10:30 Beijing time. It was blocked for a total of around 40 minutes (from personal observation).

You are correct most Chinese people don't use google.com to search. Most use baidu.com, but in Q1 google.cn reached 30% of mainland searches, which is not a small amount. I'm sure you're aware of the recent CCTV furore over using an intern as a stand-in 'average internet user' and links to Baidu's advertising sponsorship of CCTV.

I'd agree that most Chinese people also don't use Twitter. Most also don't use fanfou, etc. And anyone in the West searching for comments from Chinese internet users in the first place would run into a language barrier pretty quickly.

Gmail.com was blocked. This is the domain most Chinese internet users type in to get to Google Mail, localised versions or otherwise. Hotmail.com was also blocked over a short period of time several days ago.

You are correct google.cn remained unblocked. Google.com is now unblocked, see above. That would have been a real pain for any visiting business or businesspeople that depended on Google services for communication.

I do agree in a general sentiment that the West gets China way off the mark regarding Internet access.

But, as an individual involved in making decisions which VC firms (institutional macro asset/investment vehicle allocation) to funnel money to, I'm stunned that someone in VC would a) ignore or completely omit analysis of <why> this internet block happened, b) point out that it affects different strata of population (and visitors) with wildly different levels of influence and c) don't suggest anything more important to observe - despite the fact you do say there are more important factors.

I'd be interested to know.

In my opinion, this was a shot across the bow, YMMV.

2) this DOES matter, not as much from a censorship perspective, but because it creates a difficult business environment. if there are no clear standards, and no system of warnings before a service is shut down, then it will discourage much of the foreign investment that is critical to continuing the growth that china is experiencing. this is the challenge that China faces in balancing free market capitalism and tight control over content, and will always be a source of tension and uncertainty for anyone trying to operate a web business in China.