China is well known for making just about everything Americans use today. Well, in China, everyone knows just how good the Chinese really are...at being copycats. They have look-a-likes of just about everything, from Nike shoes to name brand purses and even their websites. Some of the most popular American websites are blocked in China due to one thing or another. Access to these are impossible without a VPN or proxy to break through the "Great Firewall of China". Sometimes, Chinese versions of the American websites are available (such is the case with Amazon, Wikipedia and Google) but with limited access. Some American websites, such as Instagram, are not blocked at all...yet. Others have more recently been unblocked, such as IMDB.com (March 2013). Despite this, the Chinese still prefer their own brands. Look at the lists below to see the uncanny similarities between the American websites and their Chinese counterparts. Click on any of the pictures to see more information about them or be taken directly to the website.
American Websites | Chinese Websites |
To see more websites blocked in China, visit the Wikipedia page. This page viewed from China looks a little different. The Chinese Wikipedia page seems much more sparse consisting of only four blocked websites. Click on the screenshot pictures provided below to see for yourself. You can also visit this pretty nifty website, http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/ , and type in the address of any website to see if it is blocked in China. I'm not sure how accurate it is though. When I typed in Facebook, it came back saying that it was indeed blocked. I then tried typing in the address of it's own site and it came back saying that it should be accessible in Mainland China. However, upon trying this out for myself, I found that it was blocked.