China censors Clubhouse app

Just some days ago, we reported on the growing popularity of Clubhouse, the audio-only social network app in China. Now we have heard that China has blocked the app in China, adding it to a list of censored apps.

Users in China reported that they could not get access to the app when they tried in on Monday. They received error messages. Some of them said they could only access the app by tunneling through the digital border using a VPN, or Virtual Private Network. Searches for “Clubhouse” on Weibo, the popular Chinese social media platform were blocked

They must have considered it a rare privilege to be able to speak openly about the ruling government and politics in the country, free from the usual constraints of the country’s tight control of the internet.

In a discussion between Xiao Qiang, founder of China Digital Times, a website that tracks Chinese internet controls and the New York Times, he said “Clubhouse is exactly what Chinese censors don’t want to see in online communication — a massive, freewheeling conversation in which people are talking openly. It’s also a reminder that when there is an opportunity, many Chinese have a desperate need to talk to each other and to hear different view points.”

Bloomberg reports that the ban may have caused by Chinese-speaking users discussing issues like the China-Taiwan relations and the government’s genocide of Uighur Muslims.