The Chinese government is reportedly going to force ISPS to block virtual private networks (VPN) from February 2018. The VPNs are used by Chinese internet users to bypass blocks from the Chinese government. E.g. Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are blocked in the country.
China already tries to prevent usage of VPNs by blocking individual services in the country, but now Chinese ISPs would be forced to blocked them as well, according to anonymous sources of Bloomberg.
A block by providers would stop VPNs on a larger scale than currently possible. The measures target regular Chinese internet users, enterprises and educational institutions are still allowed to use a VPN, as long as they are registered with the government.
Kaiser Kuo, former head of communications of the Chinese internet company Baidu, has posted on Facebook that he thinks Chinese VPN users won't just accept the change.
" The number of people using them in China is really small, but really vocal—and I don't think they'll just take this lying down," he writes. "Dark days ahead."
