So, as one of my commenters wondered, where's the Metropolitician? I tried his blog from home and from work-- no dice. Has he been banned? Has he been incarcerated ever since that ugly incident involving the drunk Korean dude (I can no longer link to those blog entries because Metro's blog doesn't appear to be there anymore)?
No Metro? Half-Koreans should be concerned. I do hope all's OK.
For what it's worth, Mike Hurt's other blog, Feet Man Seoul, is still up and running.
UPDATE: Richardson, who's in the US, says the Metro's site is still up. I just did a Unipeak, and sure enough-- I see Mike's site through the proxy. So... is his blog being blocked?
UPDATE 2: A reader named Mark writes in:
Hi Kevin:
[As far as I can tell], all Blogs.com blogs are being blocked at the moment. I have been unable to read my hometown newspaper blog for about a week now.
I almost suspect it is a going away "present" from the MIC... one last "screw you" before dissolving into the great nothing.
- Mark
Well, good fucking riddance to the MIC.
_
It's still up, just checked.
ReplyDeletethere was a thread on Dave's yesterday about it. it's blocked for some people and not for others. I can see it no problem.
ReplyDeleteIt also seems to be ISP specific; I can't access it from home (KT) but have no problems from the commercial line we have here in the office, which is courtesy of the Korean ISP that services Osan Air Base).
ReplyDeleteI was on the phone with KT yesterday, since the problem has gotten worse, specifically since last Friday. To their credit, they seemed concerned with the problem.
ReplyDeletekorea.blogs.com seems to be the site that's the issue. The guy on the phone with me specifically checked the list of places banned by the MIC and blogs.com and SixApart (same company) is on it. And korea.blogs.com is specifically at issue (although it doesn't seem to be really active).
THAT site is blocked on the other services, although other blogs.com sites are not. KT seems to have simply blocked them all. It was explained to me that since KT is also government-affiliated, they're more zealous about complying with MIC requests than private companies are. Which explains a lot of things.
Also, it is possible that KT was simply overzealous in blocking the offending site. It's blocked on the private sites as well, so they must have gotten the memo. Maybe it's KT's fault that they used a shotgun to swat a fly.
In any case, they're still checking, as there are possibly other issues exacerbating things. He's supposed to call me back.
But for now - yes, blogs.com and SixApart sites are on the ban list, and KT seems to be on the case about not blocking perhaps hundreds of thousands of sites because of a couple bad apples.