The latest platform to be blocked in China appears to be Twitch after its rose to third most downloaded free app last month. Its fame came after it was used in China as the main source to watch Asian Games as the local media did not cover it. The surge in its popularity now seems to have been the reason behind its blocking.
Twitch rose to fame last year when Fortnite was released and it literally exploded on Twitch where majority of players started streaming Fortnite on Twitch. Currently Ninja is the highest paid celebrity in e-sports around the world and he streams Fortnite on Twitch. Players from around the world stream different games on Twitch around the clock but the number of Chinese streamers has been very low from the start.
China has very strict rules when it comes to internet and internet surfing. It has the most blocked websites and apps in the world with Google and most of its services blocked for the last eight years. Twitch now sadly suffers the same fate.
This happens most of the time when China blocks any western platform that starts gaining traction in China. Google, YouTube, WhatsApp and Facebook are all blocked in China and now Twitch has joined the list as well. This came into view as most of the Chinese people were unable to find the app on local App Store and in most parts of the country it was not accessible to people who had already downloaded the app.
Upon further investigation, it was revealed that the blockage was deliberate and was not due to some sort of online problem. It was the only media source, which was allowing them to watch the e-sports matches happening in the Asian Games. This caused it to become the third most downloaded app in China and thus put it on the radar of China’s online monitoring authorities and caused it being blocked.
Google has been out of China for nearly eight years but it now wants to get back in and is reportedly working on a new censored search engine exclusively for China. There is no official word on this at the moment by Chinese authorities and Amazon, who owns Twitch so far.
Twitch now joins WhatsApp, Skype, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter among many others affected by internet censorship and hence blocked in China.
