Chinas infamous tool of internet censorship the Great Firewall appeared to fail last week, allowing hundreds of web users in the Peoples Republic to access and post comments on US president Barack Obamas Google+ page.
Googles social networking service is blocked in China like many other sites including Facebook and Twitter for fear that it could provide a platform for social and political dissent. The Communist Party enforces its stance with a range of country-wide internet monitoring and IP-blocking technologies collectively known as the Golden Shield Project.
However, the leader of the Western worlds Google+ page was flooded with users posting in the simplified Chinese of the mainland from Friday, with content reportedly focused on issues of democracy and censorship in China.
Of those posting in English, some were clearly just happy to be there, while others used their time on the site to asking for freedom for political prisoners such as blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo.
Several more claimed they were staging their own tongue-in-cheek Occupy protest on the presidents Google+ page.
Another, clearly astonished at the sudden influx of Mandarin on the site, wondered aloud whether Google had been bought by Baidu overnight.
Some claimed that Google+ had been available in China since the beginning of the week, although most comments in Chinese appeared on posts on Obamas page from Friday through to Sunday. Its pretty clear from reading them that hes more popular in China than in the US at the moment.
The party may be over for those Obama-mad Chinese web users, however, with online censorship monitoring site greatfire.org claiming that the pages are now being blocked as usual.
Its still unclear what caused the failure of the Golden Shield. While its one of the most sophisticated and large-scale systems of its kind on the planet, its not infallible although this has certainly been the most high-profile breach in recent memory.
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