China appears to be blocking Instagram over Hong Kong protests

China seems to have blocked Instagram. The reports of the blockade come amid large-scale protests in Hong Kong, with many participants using Instagram to share photos.

Reports of the blockade come from, among others, reporters from the New York Times in Hong Kong, Reuters writes. In addition, BlockedinChina reports that Instagram.com is blocked in parts of China.

Protesters in Hong Kong used Facebook’s photo and video sharing service, using the hashtag ‘Occupy Central’. That term has also been blocked on the Chinese social network Weibo.

Hong Kong protesters call for more democracy. The Chinese government regularly blocks internet services if information appears that does not suit the government. Recently, the privacy-oriented search engine DuckDuckGo was found to be inaccessible, but Yahoo’s photo site Flickr, Microsoft’s web storage service OneDrive and various Google services also did not escape the Chinese blockades. The service is still available via VPN, according to a screenshot from Tech in Asia.