[Claudus]

So, combining these two statements, it seems that they blocked both sites 30 minutes before the article was posted in Chinese?

If that's true, it's disappointing the Times didn't do a simultaneous release in anticipation of the block.

"HONG KONG — The Chinese government swiftly blocked access Friday morning to the English-language and Chinese-language Web sites of The New York Times"

"By 7 a.m. Friday in China, access to both the English- and Chinese-language Web sites of The Times was blocked (...). The Times had posted the article in English at 4:34 p.m. on Thursday in New York (4:34 a.m. Friday in Beijing), and finished posting the article in Chinese three hours later after the translation of final edits to the English-language version."

[w1ntermute]

> So, combining these two statements, it seems that they blocked both sites 30 minutes before the article was posted in Chinese?

Their censors probably read the English version and preemptively blocked the Chinese site as well, (correctly) assuming a translation would be posted.

> If that's true, it's disappointing the Times didn't do a simultaneous release in anticipation of the block.

I'm not sure how helpful that would've been. It would've still given them only a few hours in the early morning before the site was blocked. And posting the Chinese version at the same time probably would've resulted in the block coming faster too.