Professor Chander Comments on Google Outage in China for TechNewsWorld
Professor Anupam Chander commented for TechNewsWorld about a temporary shutdown of Google services in China linked to a high-level Communist Party meeting there. For much of the day on November 10, Google was unavailable in many parts of China, leading to speculation that the Chinese government blocked the service in order to prevent dissemination of information about the Chinese Community Party's National Congress.
"The blocking of Google signals to Chinese users that someone -- probably the government -- is denying them information, and in that way diminishes the perception of the government," said Chander. He added that, at the same time, "China's on-again, off-again censorship of Google makes it difficult for Chinese users to rely on that service, and thus diminishes its attractiveness."
Professor Anupam Chander is a leading scholar in the law of globalization and digitization, and has written widely on international law and cyber law. He is also Director of the California International Law Center at King Hall.