My journals are becoming a brief connectivity issue log for users in China to access dA.

Anyway, I'm updating to let you know that we can connect to dA normally now. It seems to me that banning image hosts is not a typical behaviour of our authorities so I suspect this is not a polical decision but rather a technical issue. (However, I heard there were acts of banning not the main host but image hosts, such as Flickr. I did not investigate on this.)

previous journals regarding this issue:

DeviantART banned in China 2008-12-14 to 2008-12-21

Some of dA's servers looks like banned in China 2009-02-01 to 2009-02-02

To any Chinese who might be reading this:
1. Yes we can use proxy or some software. But the software I know of (naming it explictly can get this page banned so...) are also based on proxy. And proxies are not safe. Information can be intercepted by the proxy host owner.

2. Please don't blame me for my efforts to get the situation as widely known as possible. I am totally aware that this will increase hostility from overseas, which can possibly get us more bans.

It breaks my heart to see how many Chinese are so indifferent to this, calling me things like 'malcontent' (in a negative way). Most people just utter some complaint against authorities and turn to proxies.

The truth is, yes there is hostility against us. I read many harsh and ignorant comments about this issue. But such people are everywhere in the internet. You get abuse on the internet much more than in real life. But I also get intelligent and contributing feedbacks from people outside China, offering help, expressing their regret to lose Chinese artists and so on.

My own fellow Chinese, the issue is not only about losing dA - we can use proxies, who would want to steal our dA account (provided, that is, if we are not paying subscriptions)? Or we can quit loving art. It's about generally we might need more democracy - if you don't think democracy is needed here, at least allow those who don't agree with you have their opinion. And I will try to sound as neutral as possible in the future, reminding everyone that this is, after all, my own personal decision to post these journals and my own personal account of the events.