Medium, a blogging platform, was banned in China on April 12 by the country’s censors.
The confirmation that the platform was added to the growing list of prohibited websites in the Asian giant by the "Great Firewall of China" came from GreatFire.org, a site that monitors efforts by China to censor portals. The site was blocked 81 percent in the last 90 days.
Engadget reported that the ban was not surprising because the platform, which originally began as an easy and quick blogging tool, has evolved into a bigger source of news from known publishers and independent journalists. Medium plans to earn money from the platform by soliciting advertisements from companies such as Intel, Nest and Bose.
Medium’s importance in news dissemination would place the platform in the dragnet of Chinese censors. Other large Web sites banned in China include Google, which bypassed the Great Firewall for two hours in late March, Dropbox, Facebook, YouTube and Dropbox.
Although there is no official explanation why Medium was blocked, ABC reported that it possibly is linked to a post in the blogsite last week about the Panama Papers leak which provided details on the offshore money of several national leaders and their kin, including China. Beijing has censored news about the Panama Papers leak.
Last week, Medium announced a dozen media outlets would start to publish on the platform which would allow content from publications with websites block by the Great Firewall in China.