64lu wrote:

Smarty8347 wrote:

Wait…How is Zyte here? I'm confused.
Not to be rude.

I seem to remember them saying they use: “A VPN but better and more techy”

Smarty8347 wrote:

64lu wrote:

Smarty8347 wrote:

Wait…How is Zyte here? I'm confused.
Not to be rude.

I seem to remember them saying they use: “A VPN but better and more techy”

Ok… I'm going to question, is that allowed? To use it, and get access to outside internet.
(It probably is, but I have no clue.)

64lu wrote:

Smarty8347 wrote:

64lu wrote:

Smarty8347 wrote:

Wait…How is Zyte here? I'm confused.
Not to be rude.

I seem to remember them saying they use: “A VPN but better and more techy”

Ok… I'm going to question, is that allowed? To use it, and get access to outside internet.
(It probably is, but I have no clue.)

it's fine

-Zyte- wrote:

Poppy_Tacos wrote:

-Zyte- wrote:

Poppy_Tacos wrote:

mtech22 wrote:

Poppy_Tacos wrote:

Wat???????

Scratch is being blocked in China.

No

No what?

Wdym

What do you mean?

Poppy_Tacos wrote:

I mean no

ThatOneWeirdDude wrote:

Saying Hong Kong is an independent country is only offending the ccp, im pretty sure the citizens dont care.

cyx2015s wrote:

ThatOneWeirdDude wrote:

Saying Hong Kong is an independent country is only offending the ccp, im pretty sure the citizens dont care.

WE CARE! WHERE DID YOU FOUND EVIDENCE THAT WE DON'T CARE ABOUT IT?

LankyBox01 wrote:

Oh gosh.
So… all the accounts from china (20K) will be inactive.
But the good news is: The Chinese people are allowed to use VPNs

apple502j wrote:

Seems like it's not that simple. They also need to remove any content against China.

四度视频, posted by DownsGameClub wrote:

- Taiwan and Hong Kong are listed as separate regions from China (a big no-no when dealing with anything China these days…)
- Projects and Studio promoting the current Hong Kong's movement (“Five Demands, Not One Less”)
- Projects failing to put Taiwan on a map of China, especially on a “Learn Chinese” project (this part confuses me the most - they should have done more research in understanding the project wasn't directed at defaming China in any sense)
- Projects putting the blame on China's government for various things, such as the US-China Trade War (was mentioned in the video, but this is outside the One China Policy stuffs)

ScratchCatHELLO wrote:

LankyBox01 wrote:

Oh gosh.
So… all the accounts from china (20K) will be inactive.
But the good news is: The Chinese people are allowed to use VPNs

Actually, isn't it 3M+? Or is 20K the number of active accounts?

ScratchCatHELLO wrote:

apple502j wrote:

Seems like it's not that simple. They also need to remove any content against China.

Yeah. According to this post, the following things are why it may have been banned:

四度视频, posted by DownsGameClub wrote:

- Taiwan and Hong Kong are listed as separate regions from China (a big no-no when dealing with anything China these days…)
- Projects and Studio promoting the current Hong Kong's movement (“Five Demands, Not One Less”)
- Projects failing to put Taiwan on a map of China, especially on a “Learn Chinese” project (this part confuses me the most - they should have done more research in understanding the project wasn't directed at defaming China in any sense)
- Projects putting the blame on China's government for various things, such as the US-China Trade War (was mentioned in the video, but this is outside the One China Policy stuffs)

Flowermanvista wrote:

ScratchCatHELLO wrote:

LankyBox01 wrote:

Oh gosh.
So… all the accounts from china (20K) will be inactive.
But the good news is: The Chinese people are allowed to use VPNs

Actually, isn't it 3M+? Or is 20K the number of active accounts?

“3M” is a figure taken from the Stats page, which was derived by just hovering over China on the “Scratchers Worldwide” section - of course, this only shows all accounts ever registered with the location set to China, not all active Scratchers there.

The “20k” figure is an estimate of active Chinese Scratchers produced by taking the percentage of Chinese Scratchers (5.72%) and combining it with the “Monthly Active Users” stat. In my case, I took that percentage and combined it with the yearly peak of the Project Creators stat - 5.72% of 606,557 gives an estimated 34,695 active Chinese Scratchers - of course, this number would fluctuate along with Scratch's (surprisingly regular) yearly popularity cycles.

-Zyte- wrote:

Poppy_Tacos wrote:

-Zyte- wrote:

Poppy_Tacos wrote:

mtech22 wrote:

Poppy_Tacos wrote:

Wat???????

Scratch is being blocked in China.

No

No what?

Wdym

What do you mean?

cyx2015s wrote:

ThatOneWeirdDude wrote:

Saying Hong Kong is an independent country is only offending the ccp, im pretty sure the citizens dont care.

WE CARE! WHERE DID YOU FOUND EVIDENCE THAT WE DON'T CARE ABOUT IT?

PrincessPandaLover wrote:

cyx2015s wrote:

ThatOneWeirdDude wrote:

Saying Hong Kong is an independent country is only offending the ccp, im pretty sure the citizens dont care.

WE CARE! WHERE DID YOU FOUND EVIDENCE THAT WE DON'T CARE ABOUT IT?

Hong Kong isn't actually an independent country, it's a region of a country under a separate government (like Puerto Rico to the United States).

ScratchCatHELLO wrote:

Checked this on four sites that check whether china is blocking any given website. All four returned positive.

gummibear45 wrote:

But why exactly is Scratch banned?

DownsGameClub wrote:

SausageMcSauce wrote:

Byron_Inc wrote:

(…)
Well, it's because there's content that's about Free Hong Kong and No Chinese content on Scratch. I'm an active user in the Chinese sub-forum, so I know about this. I even saw the video that triggered all this mess.

Just a question, what did the video contain (unless it mostly contains content not allowed on Scratch)?

I skimmed the Chinese forums, and it appears to be this video that was uploaded over on BiliBili (a Chinese version of YouTube). For context, this comes from a source named 「四度视频」, lit. Four Degrees Video, which appears to be a short-video type news source.

The translated description (via Google Translate) of the video is as follows:

Four Degrees wrote:

Recently, Four Degrees Video received reports from parents that the official website of the scratch platform, a children’s programming tool commonly used in children’s programming education in China, contains a lot of content that insults China, spreads rumors, and discredited China, and the platform is even included in some provinces and cities as an open source platform. Promoted in the primary school information technology textbook. As an open source platform, does the developer’s ideology affect platform users? Is it possible to penetrate further? Children's programming is an outlet, but it cannot be a “monster”. The localization of the underlying architecture and application platform of programming education should be put on the agenda as soon as possible.

Essentially, the video is about how the Scratch Website supposedly promoted things that tended against China's current polices, especially the “One China Principle,” in which the only “China” that exists is the Mainland and it governs its territories (i.e. Hong-Kong, Taiwan, and Macau). The video describes different complaints about the different ways this policy has been breached by Scratch, particularly:

• Taiwan and Hong Kong are listed as separate regions from China (a big no-no when dealing with anything China these days…)
  
• Projects and Studio promoting the current Hong Kong's movement (“Five Demands, Not One Less”)
  
• Projects failing to put Taiwan on a map of China, especially on a “Learn Chinese” project (this part confuses me the most - they should have done more research in understanding the project wasn't directed at defaming China in any sense)
  
• Projects putting the blame on China's government for various things, such as the US-China Trade War (was mentioned in the video, but this is outside the One China Policy stuffs)

Honestly, I'm very surprised they decided to follow through on the decision to ban Scratch. But I guess they thought the free speech that was allowed on the website went a bit too far…

(Edit: Thanks @Broyn_Inc for the spelling correction)