From TIME Magazine’s China Blog:
Today a prominent mainland blog site, bullog.cn, was blocked, which may also be connected to Charter 08. A few of the liberal outlet’s bloggers wrote about the document, and at least four signed it. I spoke briefly with Bullog founder Luo Yonghao this afternoon. He said he wasn’t sure why the site was blocked, and wouldn’t speculate on a Charter 08 connection. C.A. Yeung of the Under the Jacaranda Tree blog noted in December that Bullog had dropped two of its bloggers, apparently for writing about Charter 08.
[Update]
The Associated Press also writes more on bullog.cn’s shutdown:
“I got an e-mail from the Beijing Communications Administration this afternoon, saying the Web site contained harmful comments on current affairs and therefore will be closed,” he said, declining to elaborate.
It was not known whether the shutdown of bullog.cn was permanent. The site, home to some outspoken social and political commentary, was closed temporarily last year during a key Communist Party congress after criticism of the meeting was posted.
[…] A cache version of bullog.cn viewed Friday night did not reveal any particularly outspoken content, though the site likely had ties to a bold online petition circulated last month called “Charter 08.” The document called for a new Chinese constitution guaranteeing human rights and was signed by more than 300 lawyers, writers, scholars and artists.
Bullog.cn is not the only website to get hit in the latest Internet crackdown in China. Evidently, 14 new websites have been targeted by officials. Emma Graham-Harrison from Reuters reports:
China has widened an Internet crackdown on “vulgar” content to target 14 new sites, including Microsoft’s MSN, and chided fellow American giant Google for not doing enough to clean up.
China’s ruling Communist Party is wary of threats to its grip on information and has conducted numerous censorship efforts targeting pornography, political criticism and web scams, but officials flagged tougher steps this time.
MSN was cited for the large amount of inappropriate images on its film channel and some “selected pictures” in its social messaging section on a list posted on the website of the government-supported China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center (http://ciirc.china.cn).
Microsoft could not immediately be reached for comment.
The campaign coincides with efforts to stifle dissent and protest as the economy slows and China enters a year of sensitive anniversaries — particularly the 20th year since the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Luo Yonghao (罗永浩), a former English teacher in the Beijing New Oriental Foreign Language School, is the founder of Bulllog.cn. Here is a CDT translation of his new year’s message post on Jan. 1, 2006:
I hope all good people have a happy new year, I hope all bad people have a miserable new year; I hope all people who are not so good and not so bad can arrange their new year as they wish.
I hope all peace-loving people live in peace; I hope all war-loving people live within two neighboring countries with equal military strength but with no nuclear weapons.
I hope all ultra-nationalist angry youth will be enlightened, I hope all liberal angry youth will stay angry until there is nothing in this world for them to be angry about. I hope those idiots who lost passion for life too early but think themselves as mature will not confuse the liberal angry youth with ultra-nationalist angry youth.
I hope political prisoners in all countries will be released. I hope those countries with no political prisoners will not just be satisfied with the fact that their own country has no political prisoners.
……
I hope Chinese public officials know who pays for their food and clothes. I hope tax payers do not avoid paying even if they are not happy about it.
I hope all corrupt officials will live in greater fear, I hope those officials who are not corrupt can hold on.
I hope Chinese peasants can migrate freely in their own country, I hope city residents who oppose peasants migrating into cities one day can realize that they had no conscience.
I hope those migrant workers who can not get their wages can find a good lawyer to help them. I hope those who intentionally withhold overdue wages of migrant workers are hit by lightning, no matter how watchful they are.
I hope all websites will not have key words filtering, and I hope all websites which set up this filtering do not do so voluntarily….
Important dates and events (translated from Bullog’s Wikipedia entry)
07/31/2006 The website (Bullog) was officially launched
08/08/2007 A blog “I don’t support Beijing Olympics” was launched (on Bullog).
08/18/2007 “I don’t support Beijing Olympics” was shut down
10/19/2007 (During the CCP’s seventeenth national congress) at 2pm, the website was forcibly closed.
04/19/2008 Bullog PV (pageviews) first reached a million.
05/2008 After the Wenchuan Earthquake, Bullog raised millions of RMB in disaster relief in a very short period. Luo Yonghao led his team to the disaster area to aid the victims.
06/14/2008 The famous blogger “shengren benzun” was removed from Bullog.
11/24/2008 Qian Liexian’s blog was shut down. In the month before, Qian Liexian’s updates were exceptionally active, almost 5 posts each day.
12/17/2008 Bullog’s public bulletin suddenly announced it would stop updating nine authors on the front page, but would continue to put their names in the directory.
12/24/2008 Ran Yunfei’s blog was shut down. Before that, Ran Yunfei wrote posts everyday.
01/09/2009 afternoon Bullog’s domestic server got shut down. Bullog International also cannot be accessed.
Here are some more CDT past translations from bulloggers:
Read also Rebecca MacKinnon’s Bullog.cn goes down.. unlikely due to smut.
