A browser launched by a Shanghai subsidiary of Qihoo360 is giving Chinese users access to social media sites outside the Great Firewall - with some fairly insane catches: sign up is with a national ID, it’s still heavily censored, slow, and has a suitably fierce T&C agreement.

I’ve read a lot of Chinese cyberlaw and tech co T&Cs over the years, this is one of the most comprehensive. Most firms don’t go into such detail about banned content, though all must comply with these under law. It’s massive, I translated some

When you search sensitive terms you get “no results found”. It also includes a T&C term that many firms have actually veered away from recently - banning ‘non-mainstream’ views on marriage, (used to target LGBT content).

Reviews on Chinese social media point out this isn’t the first proxy browser, but Qihoo owns 70% of this firm acc. to 天眼查, suggesting it’s a legitimate effort. Banned sites like YouTube, Twitter, Google and the overseas version of TikTok are included.

Its essentially an effort to censor the companies externally rather than internally, as they are in China. The result is usually bad. (I’m looking right at you, Bing. com 国际版). But perhaps unsurprising, as amid #TikTok spat, China is facing criticism over its own wide bans.