Did you touch Xi Jinping planting? The clubhouse was eventually blocked in China.

The voice social network service (SNS)’Club House’, which was popular in mainland China, was blocked in China due to the possibility of free political discussion.

On the 8th (local time), the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that it is believed that the Chinese authorities began blocking access after the clubhouse became popular in China. On that day, users of the clubhouse in mainland China were denied access, such as a sudden disconnection during chat and an error message.

Afterwards, thousands of users reconnected through the Internet bypass program, a virtual private network (VPN), but some of them were unable to use the clubhouse because their mobile phone account authentication was not in progress, WSJ said. The clubhouse, which was launched in April 2020, can only be joined by talking with audio, not text or video, and receiving invitations from existing subscribers.

Chinese users said they were expecting crackdowns, saying that the censorship by the Chinese authorities was the reason for the access failure. A Chinese reporter told WSJ, “I thought I could survive after the Lunar New Year,” but said, “If the authorities hadn’t responded to the Xinjiang Uighur human rights debate, it would not have been like an expert.”

Just before the connection was cut off, the Chinese state media Global Times criticized the clubhouse as “political debate is too unilateral and suppresses pro-Beijing voices.”

Recently, clubhouses have become very popular in China. This is because they can freely talk about political issues that are taboo by the Chinese government, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang Uighur human rights issues. The’invitation code’ required to enter the clubhouse was traded for a fee on Taobao, Alibaba’s e-commerce site.

There was also a dialogue group called “Waiting for Jack Ma” waiting for Ma Yun, who had rebelled against the Chinese financial authorities and suddenly disappeared in front of the public, WSJ said.

The number of clubhouse users in mainland China is unknown. Chinese authorities did not respond to WSJs whether they would block access to the clubhouse.

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