A man in Ezhou was fined RMB 200 for accessing TikTok and X via a VPN. According to an administrative penalty notice recently published by local police in Hubei, the man used a Huawei Honor phone and the VPN tool Clash at home to access overseas websites. He was punished under Article 6 of Provisional Management Regulations for the International Connection of Computer Information Networks of the People’s Republic of China. Outsider’s comment： Google, ChatGPT, and many other online services cannot normally be accessed from inside China. Even GitHub is occasionally inaccessible or unstable. This makes one thing striking about the recent OpenClaw boom: while many people are enthusiastically discussing the technology, almost no one mentions how they actually access the overseas websites where these tools are hosted. In theory, companies can apply for dedicated cross-border networks, but they are extremely expensive. As a result, helping Chinese users register overseas accounts such as ChatGPT has itself become a small business. Another fun fact: the regulation used in this case was issued in 1996 and revised only once in 1997, long before the creation of today’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Despite being labeled 「暂行」 (Provisional), it remains one of the most direct legal bases for punishing VPN use in China today.
A man in Ezhou was fined RMB 200 for accessing TikTok and X via a VPN.
Source (in Chinese): qz-l.com/64WQkx
#GreatFirewall #ChinaTech
