The latest edition of the China Blog Block has again had the opposite effect. Indeed China can be thanked for in the past getting most of the local China bloggers off Blogspot. What will happen now? The beauty of blogging is it has very low barriers to entry. Typepad being blocked? Go and set up with any one of hundreds of cheap hosting services. Getting set up again takes little effort, although your archives may be lost. As many people as China employs to watch the net, with new blogs popping up all the time it is impossible for them to clamp down on them all. China's point isn't to block to divert attention to blogs. It is far less subtle: it is to prevent the blog being read. It will raise international awareness, but internally I doubt there's going to be much difference to the average Chinese blog reader. Especially as Typepad blogs and others tend to be in English.

Adam points out that China is blocking blogs that are China lovers. But obviously it is an unrequited love. Internet censors aren't going to delve into nuances such as which blogs "love" China, especially those that show love by sometimes pointing out what's wrong with the place. The current trend of black backgrounds as a form of protest is pointless. Tilting at windmills can certainly make the jouster feel better, but the windmill keeps turning over oblivious. While the ban is bad, it is ultimately useless on the part of China and useless to protest on the part of blogs. Deal with it, set up a new one (I'm happy to help with hosting if need be) and move on. Even with 40,000 censors China cannot stop blogs from continuing to pop up, many of which will not be to its liking. If something is worth saying then finding a way to say it is, these days, not hard despite the best efforts of the CCP.