To update on a post late Wednesday, MSN Spaces is not being blocked in China and the blog written by Nina Wu, sister of illegally detained filmmaker Hao Wu, is still available.

AsiaPundit received an update from Microsoft on the status of MSN Spaces in China. There was an outage of the service for those who were using China Telecom’s ISP service - but there was no outage for users of CMC and other ISPs. Further, the problem with China Telecom has now been resolved. The above screen shot was taken minutes ago in Shanghai without a proxy.

If authorities were to request a block, it would likely be done by Microsoft at the server level and users in China would receive a notice similar to the one below.

That said, Nina Wu’s post suggesting a block also suggests that other odd incidents are happening.:

Lately, I have not received any replies to the emails I send out. Some “frequently mailed” accounts have stopped communicating. The phone is acting funny too, sometimes it will suddenly stop ringing; sometimes I pick up and no one answers on the other end. I have even been cut-off mid-conversation and heard high-pitched noises. Yet, I am still able to make sense of these disturbances. In the past few days, however, there occurred some really absurd events. I am shocked and confused, I really can’t think of other words to describe the way I feel. Dear God! Please don’t destroy the last dregs of respect that I have for my adversaries.

Is it worth it to go to all this trouble for such a vulnerable and insignificant person as me?

AsiaPundit believes that Nina is under surveillance. However, at the moment, he will suggest that MSN has too much of a presence for authorities to shut the service without causing embarrassment for the Party itself. State media have noted that the MSN service is overtaking local Chinese providers. It isn’t invulnerable, but it would take a severe incident for a shutdown of the service.

AP will now apologize for being a geek. The above is a jargon-filled distraction from the main issue.

Hao Wu is still imprisoned without charge. Tomorrow, he will have been detained for a full two months.

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