Tweeting across China's great wall
Updated on 06 July 2009
Twitter users in China are using applications that allow them to circumvent official efforts to block their communications. Lewis Hannam reports.
Reports from China today suggested social networking site Twitter had been blocked by authorities following the Xinjiang riots.
But attempts by authorities to close down the communication that Twitter affords are being undermined by applications which uphold the network - even when the official Twitter website has been blocked.
People using Twitter in China have switched to using sites such as @dabr to keep Twittering, after authorities tried to stop people from talking to each other via Twitter's technology by denying access to the official Twitter website.
Users of these third party sites simply sign in with their Twitter username and password. Sites such as @dabr work because the server it runs on is from outside China, and it is that server which is linked to Twitter.com.
Sixty per cent of the people using @dabr today were based in China, its English developer David Carrington revealed.
He said: "This application was originally developed because I didn't like the way the official Twitter site looked on my phone.
"This application uses Twitter to work, but it is not registered as Twitter.com - so when a government blocks Twitter it still works.
"It is good that it is being used in this way - although my website is open source so I know other people have used it, but I can never be sure the extent to which it is being used.
"Twitter provides an application for third-party programs like Tweetdeck and Thwirl to read and publish tweets without having to go to the Twitter.com website.
"Those applications will also be blocked in China because they must directly talk to Twitter.com to work.
"But @Dabr works because the server the site runs on is already outside China and it is that server which is talking to Twitter.com.
"In theory, the site 'dabr.co.uk' could be blocked, but as I mentioned - there are many copies of my site up and running created by Chinese users just in case that happens."
One Twitter user in China explained: "we use third-party clients of Twitter, like dabr.co.uk, official Twitter site was banned this afternoon."
Other sites such as Slandr, Twitstat and Tweete also operate on a similar basis.
