Formerly one of the few Western social media sites to be on this side of the Great Firewall, Pinterest has now been blocked in China, joining the ranks of Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. Anyone wanting to access it will have to resort to using a VPN.
The site previously experienced only partial censorship on posts filtered by the government; now it's been whacked with a complete ban. And just in time for China's Two Sessions, where government officials gather to discuss the future of the Middle Kingdom. It's yet unknown if this impacted the decision to shutter the site.
For laymen, Pinterest allows users to 'pin' different posts to their wall, generally images with brief bits of text attached. It's often used to bookmark items people want to buy as well as share ideas and recipes. Not surprisingly, the spite has spawned multiple Chinese clones since it gained popularity in 2012, most notably Alibaba's Fa Xian.
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