CHINA-CYBERSECURITY: CONTROLS ON INTERNET
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After the popular VPN service provider Green announced that the company would cease operations by 1 July, 2017, reports are circulating widely on Twitter and Weibo that a state ban on unauthorized VPNs is imminent. In January 2017, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that it would ban “illegal services” that carry out cross-border operations, including unauthorized virtual private networks (VPNs), until March 2018. No announcement has been noticed advancing the date of the ban. A Chinese human rights activist has said the ban is related to the upcoming 20th anniversary of Hong Kong being handed from British to Chinese power, which falls on July 1.
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