San Francisco — YouTube, the video-sharing Web site owned by Google Inc., confirmed its website has become unaccessible in China, once again facing the ire of the China’s hard-line policies, a company spokesperson said Tuesday.
Last year, during the March riots in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, China barred access to YouTube, although the California firm offered no explanation as to why Chinese authorities were jamming access to the popular video-sharing service.
“We do not understand the reason for the blockage,” said Scott Rubin, a spokesman for the Internet search engine that owns YouTube.
Rubin said the network began slowing Monday, came to a halt by Tuesday morning and was still out in the evening, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
“We acknowledge that there are reports of people being unable to access YouTube within the People’s Republic of China,” the spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. “We are looking into the matter and working to ensure that the service is restored as soon as possible.”
The company declined to comment further on whether it was speaking with the Chinese government about the matter. Marsha Wang, a Beijing-based spokeswoman for Google, declined to comment today.
The barring of YouTube service is reported to have originated from a recent round of videos posted last week depicting handcuffed Tibetan monks and protesters being beaten by a Chinese police officer.
According to Xinhua, the state-run Chinese news service, Tuesday accused the Tibetan government in exile of faking the wounds, but did not mention YouTube, the Mercury News said.
A Chinese government spokesman told the BBC that China is not afraid of the Internet, but declined to confirm whether YouTube had been blocked.
The Xinhua News Agency quoted an unidentified government source stating supporters of the Dalai Lama were “fabricating lies” by master-minding a video to “deceive the international community.”
A Chinese government spokesman was asked about YouTube at a news conference Monday afternoon. “We encourage the active use of the Internet, but also manage the Internet according to law,” the spokesman replied.
T. Kumar of Amnesty International USA said the blockage “fits the pattern of Chinese authorities censoring information.” China routinely blocks Web sites it finds objectionable.
Last March, Chinese authorities temporarily barred access to YouTube after video clips appeared showing the biggest unrest in the Tibetan capital Lhasa in 20 years, that triggered a virtual lock-down of the city by security forces.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the protests in Tiananmen Square. YouTube, which enables people to upload and watch videos, has been blocked in countries including Turkey and Indonesia.
An attorney for Google, which is based in Menlo Park, Calif., testified before a congressional panel last year that in October 2007, China shut down YouTube while the Communist Party Congress was being held in Beijing.
On March 9, Reporters Without Borders expressed outrage at “the systematic violation of press freedom and free expression in Tibet.” It suggested China to allow foreign journalists to freely visit Tibet, to grant Tibetan media more free expression, and to end jamming international radio stations broadcasting in the Tibetan language.
The press freedom group said that the Internet in Tibet slowed as the March 10 anniversary approached.
China had 298 million Internet users at the end of 2008, according to the government-backed China Internet Network Information Center. It passed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest Web market by users in the first half of last year.
Earlier, YouTube has been blocked by other countries, including Burma, Brazil, Iran, Morocco, Pakistan, Thailand, and Turkey.