Written by Maja Dezulovic
A few bricks were lifted from the Great Firewall of China for three days during last week in Beijing as China hosted the World Internet Conference from the 19th to 21st of November.
The conference was a meeting of representatives of local Internet giants, such as Alibaba and executives from international tech corporations such as LinkedIn and SoftBank. Chinese authorities block access to Western social media and news websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, but occasionally lift these controls for the attendees of high profile international events. This was also done earlier in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum which was hosted in the Chinese capital.