Fang Binxing, the creator of China’s online censorship infrastructure, has recently had to bypass his own system. This reportedly happened when he tried to display a website during his speech at the Harbin Institute of Technology in China.

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According to local reports, the “farther” of the Great Firewall was going to show the audience a South Korea website reflecting the views of South Koreans trying to build similar system to China’s firewall. However, Fang Binxing failed to do so, because he was blocked by his own censorship infrastructure. As a result, he had to solve the problem by setting up a virtual private network in order to circumvent the blockade, within sight of the lecture attendees, and only after that they could access the desired website.

It should be said that using VPNs to circumvent the Great Firewall of China and access the outside web is a common practice used by many Chinese who want to access western online services like Facebook and Twitter. Of course, this practice is illegal and punished by authorities.

Many countries in the world also employ a system of online censorship through the court-ordered blockades of piracy websites by ISPs (the list of such websites normally starts with The Pirate Bay). The existence of such a system forces Internet users to employ circumventing techniques like VPNs, proxies, Tor, etc.

Local media reports revealed that the Harbin Institute of Technology terminated a planned discussion session after Fang Binxing was criticized within his speech. Moreover, he was later resoundingly mocked online for having to fight his own creation. Chinese users labeled the incident as an embarrassing display of the Chinese censorship regime.