How to avoid the Great Firewall of China in Live Streaming.

Many people who have been to China either for business or leisure would have known that the famous “Firewall of China” is implemented by the Chinese government to regulate, control, and censor the internet in China. Under censorship, many websites that are non-Chinese including applications, software, and platforms have blocked in China. This means that you are not able to use online services like Google search engine, Gmail, social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and the list goes on.

Although most travelers can use the VPN (Virtual Private Network) to access those block services. It is not so straightforward when it comes to hosting live streaming events from other countries and target the Chinese population in China.

Before I continue the topic on how to avoid the Firewall in China in Live streaming services. It is good to know the history of why China has implemented such a censorship policy to their own citizens. 

It all started in the mid-1990 era where the internet has introduced and available in China. At that time, the Chinese government has launched an initiative called the “Golden Shield Project”. This series of projects including the famous “Great Firewall in China” comes with the purpose to collect relevant data, do surveillance, carry out security protocols and censor any internet content that has a strong western influence in politics and other agendas.   

The Firewall project has served its purpose to the Chinese government that controls the flow of digital information via the internet into the country and ensures that the internet services available in China correspond well with the Chinese government’s political policy and narrative. 

But thanks to this Firewall policy, it has created many local Chinese technology companies to compensate for the lack of internet services to the local Chinese population. Internet service providers like “Didi” aka Chinese Uber, “Weibo” aka Chinese Twitter, “WeChat” aka Chinese Facebook, and “Baidu aka Chinese Google search are just a few examples that have millions or even billions of users in China.

When it comes to hosting live-streaming platforms in China, you can either choose to collaborate with Top Live streaming service providers like Kuaishou or Douyin for entertainment events, Taobao Live which is a giant e-commerce company to host live streaming marketing events, or Vhall webcast platform for business events.

If you prefer to use your company’s website as the platform to host live streaming events in China. You will need to apply for an ICP (Internet Content Provider” license from the Chinese government to allow your website to bypass the Great Firewall and broadcast in China which is not easy to get approval even you have a local Chinese business partner to help your company in the application. The best method is to get a CDN (Content Delivery Network) provider to help you in broadcasting your live streaming events to the Chinese population in China.  If you wish to know more on how to broadcast your live streaming events from Singapore to China. You can call Spring Forest Studio and we will be glad to help you further.