China is the most populous country in the world but it is also a place where a lot of surprising things are banned. Here are some of the top things that are banned in China.
Facebook banned in China
China isn’t the only country to have banned Facebook. The social media site has also been blocked by the likes of Iran, Egypt, North Korea and Mauritius at one time or another. It seems as though the Ürümqi riots in 2009 was the tipping point, as activists used the social media site to make arrangements. Reports in 2013 suggested that the site was partially unblocked in China but this hasn’t yet been confirmed.
Twitter Prohibited in China
If you can’t have Facebook then you can’t blooming well have Twitter either, can you? North Korea, China and Iran are the places where you currently can’t tweet. It has been suggested that a lot of Chinese computer users manage to use Twitter regardless of the ban. In 2010 a chap called Cheng Jianping got handed a sentence of a year of hard labour for retweeting a tweet about attacking the Japanese exhibition at the Shanghai Expo.
Hillary Clinton’s Book
Hillary Clinton’s censored in China
The latest book of memoirs by Hillary Clinton is called Hard Choices and it is banned from sale in China. This is presumably due to the controversial section about the country’s former leader in it, although it might just be that it isn’t very good. Many other books are banned each year, although there is said to be a brisk trade in smuggled books arriving the mainland through Hong Kong.
Google heavily restricted in China
Google isn’t permanently blocked by the Great Firewall of China but its services are periodically banned or heavily restricted. At the time of writing, it is believed that the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre is the reason why it is currently totally blocked. Many of the country’s businesses are reporting problems with carrying out normal transactions because they have to do without all of Google’s services right now.
Casinos
Casinos outlawed in China
You might have heard of Macau as being one of the planet’s biggest casino destinations. This is because casinos are banned on the Chinese mainland, so gamblers looking to win a fortune on the spin of a wheel of the flip of a card go to Macau to do it. Or to lose all of their money, I suppose.
Windows 8
Windows 8 not welcome in Chinese government computers
One of the most bizarre things banned in China is the Windows 8 operating system. In this case, the ban is only on using it on government computers. Apparently, this is to aid computer security and was revealed in a memo on energy saving products. The relation between Windows 8 and energy saving products isn’t clear.
The Big Bang Theory
Big Bang Theory Banned in China
It isn’t uncommon for saucy or controversial shows to get banned in China but what did The Big Bang Theory do to upset the Chinese Government? The show was wildly popular in the country, with over a billion views on the top streaming service before it was blocked.
Most Foreign Films
Most Foreign Films Banned in China
Foreign films aren’t exactly banned in China but only 34 of them are allowed to be shown in Chinese cinemas each year. Even those few that pass through get heavily cut by censors before they are shown to the public.
