'Tis the summer season for choking off VPNs

August 17, 2024 @ 7:04 pm · Filed by under Censorship, Communication, Language on the internets

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"The mysterious slowdown of VPNs in China", Drum Tower, The Economist (newsletter), Gabriel Crossley (China correspondent) (8/15/24)

Every summer Communist Party bigwigs leave Beijing and go to recharge in the resort town of Beidaihe on the coast. This coincides with the silly season for China watchers. There is little hard news, so rumours fly. Some are baseless speculations about the health of Xi Jinping, China’s supreme leader. Others are more well-founded, such as a report that Hu Xijin, a prominent nationalist commentator, has been muzzled on social media (probably for accidentally overstepping the party line). And some are true but harder to explain: like the fact that virtual private networks (VPNs) are getting slower.

A VPN is a piece of software which makes it appear as if a computer or mobile phone is located in another country. They are an unfortunate necessity for many of us who live in China, because the government blocks online content it does not like (using a system known as the “great firewall”). VPN users can evade the censors and view blacklisted websites such as Facebook, Google and X.

But this summer popular VPNs became less reliable. Foreigners who live here are complaining. So are many Chinese. On Weibo, a social-media site, netizens said their “ladders” over the great firewall (as VPNs are known) seemed to have broken. A tracking tool run by GreatFire, a censorship watchdog, suggests the problem is widespread. Over the last 60 days, a VPN from a company called Astrill has been running 47% slower than in the previous 60 days. Another, run by ExpressVPN, a big provider of the software, has been 70% slower. It is probably the Chinese government disrupting the networks.

Technically it is illegal to use a VPN in China without official permission. But things are usually less strict in practice because the government finds VPNs useful too. Without them foreigners would be less likely to visit and local businesses would struggle to find overseas customers. So in the past officials struck a balance. They only throttled VPNs during important events, such as the meeting of China’s legislature every spring.
 
No such events are happening now. So the timing of this crackdown is a puzzle. In general, though, China’s censorship regime is getting tighter. Subjects that were once safe to talk about in a critical way online, such as the state of the economy, are now deemed sensitive. Perhaps the government has started to think the risks of VPNs outweigh the benefits, says a co-founder of GreatFire. If anyone knows the answer to the puzzle, they are probably sunning themselves on a beach in Beidaihe.

This is a significant phenomenon.

It reminds me of the years after the Tiananmen Massacre before the internet was widely used and people relied on fax machines to spread urgent news, all the fax machines were required to be turned off in the weeks before and after 6/4.

 

Selected readings

  • "China VPN redux" (7/17/24) — with lengthy bibliography
  • "Beidaihe:  Use by Communist Party" — the summer retreats (aka "summer summits") of the top leaders of the CCP are highly secretive, and strange — sometimes extremely dangerous and destructive — things happen before or after they take place (e.g., the demise of Marshal Lin Biao, on September 13, 1971 and the mega explosions with the force of tactical nuclear weapons that occurred at Tianjin on August 12, 2015, especially when it is known that contentious issues are in the air.

[Thanks to Mark Metcalf]

August 17, 2024 @ 7:04 pm · Filed by under Censorship, Communication, Language on the internets


3 Comments

  1. David Marjanović said,

    August 18, 2024 @ 1:27 pm

    I'm surprised they're just slower, though, as opposed to completely turned off. Slowing them down seems to me like it would be more difficult.

    Perhaps usage of VPNs has increased so much that the innertubes are getting clogged?

  2. David Cahill said,

    August 19, 2024 @ 7:04 am

    If I may interject here, these VPN slowdowns are a bit exaggerated. I have been using Astrill VPN for years in China (around 15 years). It's unofficially acknowledged that Astrill is the best. The Chinese Govt DOES have the ability to mess with VPNs when they want to and possibly disable them altogether. (One visit to Xinjiang in the 2010s was the only time my VPN wouldn't work – I think it was around the time of the riots, when the entire province was punished, including Han Chinese, with the internet blackout.) I have not had any problems using Astrill this summer except for about 3 days following the Paris Olympics opening ceremony which ruffled the prudish around the world – Catholics for the mock Last Supper and the Chinese Gov't censors, who were a bit embarrassed and scandalized at the sheer creativity of the French; apparently the commentators on Chinese TV grew silent – they were simply at a loss for words (I didn't watch the ceremony as I don't watch TV but heard all about it). During these few days, my VPN still worked more or less okay, but I had to keep changing servers every 5 minutes. A few days later, it was working fine again.

  3. Philip Taylor said,

    August 23, 2024 @ 11:29 am

    From The Economist :

    "The internet is not beyond the law!” warned police in Fujian province earlier this month. They had recently arrested a man, identified as Mr Gong, for using a virtual private network (VPN). This is a piece of software that can make it appear as if a computer or mobile phone is in another country. VPNs thus allow netizens to bypass the “great firewall”, as China’s system of online censorship is known. By using one, Mr Gong had allowed “false foreign information” to flow into China, the police claimed.

    It is illegal to access a VPN in China without official permission. In practice, though, users are rarely punished. That is because the government understands the practical benefits of VPNs. Without them, foreigners would be less likely to visit and local businesses would struggle to find overseas customers. So Mr Gong’s case has come as a surprise. According to the police, he had last used a VPN four years ago. The chattering masses online believe the authorities are making an example of him.

    The big question is whether, in general, the government is taking a firmer line on VPNs. Over the past few months several popular ones have become less reliable. Users have grumbled about difficulty accessing blacklisted websites, such as Facebook and Google. Our “ladders” over the great firewall have broken, say commenters on Weibo, a social-media site.

    A tracking tool run by GreatFire, a censorship watchdog, backs up these complaints. Over the past 60 days a VPN from a company called ExpressVPN, one of the biggest providers of the software, has been running 41% slower than in the previous 60 days. Another VPN, from a company called Astrill, has been running 11% slower over the same period. In total, eight of the ten VPNs tracked by GreatFire have become more sluggish in China.

    Such disruptions have happened in the past. But they have usually coincided with important political events, such as the meeting of China’s legislature every spring. No such events are happening now. Another explanation points to China’s censorship regime, which has got tighter in recent years. Subjects that were once safe to talk about in a critical way online, such as the economy, are now deemed sensitive. Perhaps the government has started to think that the risks of VPNs outweigh the benefits, says a co-founder of GreatFire.

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