Hong Kong: Internet censorship

[Update: It looks like] Hong Kong's largest telecommunications company PCCW sometime last week took the decision to deny its ISP Netvigator customers access to the website Not the South China Morning Post: ntscmp

Alarm bells! Alarm bells!

NTSCMP's website operates from a webserver in Florida, however, and is still accessble from non-Netvigator accounts in Hong Kong as well as by web users outside Hong Kong: ntscmp

PCCW (and the ISP Netvigator) is owned by Richard Li, son of Li Ka-shing. It has now emerged that HGC Broadband has also blocked its customers from accessing NTSCMP. HGC Broadband is owned by Richard Li's father. Li Ka-shing.

The Li family, father and son. Are we beginning to see a pattern here?

One is accustomed to reading about websites being blocked by the authorities in China. It is therefore very alarming to discover identical tactics are now employed in Hong Kong. If the agency is different, the result is the same: Internet censorship.

Try it yourself, but Netvigator account users will just bring up a white screen: ntscmp Netvigator customers' access to ntscmp via proxy server: browseatcollege

Mister B emailed Netvigator last Friday, but has yet to receive a meaningful explanation.

Here is something else. A suggested letter to Hong Kong's Office of the Telecommunications Authority:

I am a subscriber of PCCW's Netvigator service.
Recently, I have attempted to access the website www.ntscmp.com but was unable to.
At first, I thought the website was down. But then it came to my attention that the website was still running, but it had been blocked by PCCW. I was prevented by PCCW from accessing ntscmp.com from my Netvigator account. I confirmed this by accessing the website at work, and found it to be working normally.
The administrator of ntscmp.com claims the site is being purposely blocked by PCCW. HGC have also blocked the site.
I am very upset that PCCW has decided to censor what I may access on the internet. I am a paying subscriber and I am entitled to access any internet site I wish. I cannot easily switch to another service provider, as I live in Causeway Bay and there are few others.
Please do something about this at once. I believe PCCW may be in violations of its licence conditions.

Netvigator users and HGC Broadband subscribers and other readers to adapt this letter and send an e-mailed copy to: consumercomplaint@ofta.gov.hk as soon as possible. Thank you.

Please read updates: Part II and Part III and Part IV and Part V and Part VI and Part VII and Part VIII, and finally (?) The NTSCMP Affair: Hong Kong Internet Society.