Some time ago, it became known about the 996.ICU repository, where Chinese and not only developers collected information about how they have to work overtime. And if in other countries employers do not particularly pay attention to this, then in China there has already been a reaction. The most interesting thing is not from the government, but from the tech giants.
The Verge reports that a number of companies, including Tencent, Alibaba, Xiaomi and Qihoo 360, are blocking access to the repository at the browser level. By the way, these companies have previously been accused of bad attitude towards employees.
When you try to open the desired address, a message is displayed: βThe website you are currently visiting contains illegal information. Please close the page." Why this information suddenly became illegal is not reported.
At the same time, the problem manifests itself mainly on Chinese browsers. It is assumed (although not yet proven) that using the international versions might help. However, no company has yet responded to The Verge's inquiry about the situation. And users in China believe that it's all about the initiative of individual corporations, since strictly one repository is blocked, and not the entire service. At the same time, it is interesting that for some users proprietary browsers Xiaomi and 360 Browser block access to 996.ICU, for others they do not. It probably also depends on the geographic location of the user.
Sarah Cook, Freedom House's senior analyst for East Asia, believes that such selective blocking could be a way to solve the problem "with little bloodshed", since GitHub is widely used by programmers in China for professional reasons. In other words, this is an attempt not to interfere with IT giants and their businesses, but at the same time to ensure the implementation of political prohibitions.
Source: 3dnews.ru