China Is Already Blocking Google+

That didn’t take long. Tons of people haven’t even gained access to the Google+ field trialyet, but that hasn’t stopped Chinese authorities from blocking Google’s brand new social networking project, reports Ren Media.

Indeed, Just Ping and theGreatfirewallofchina.org website both confirm that plus.google.com is not accessible from mainland China.

The censoring itself isn’t too surprising; Chinese authorities aren’t too keen on U.S. social networks and block services such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Foursquare.

Still, I’m taken aback by how swiftly China responded to the formal debut of Google+, which until further notice is an invitation-only beta product (although, admittedly, one that has enjoyed a lot of international press over the past 24 hours).

Update: Penn-Olson says Google+ wasn’t blocked, just made impossible to use by slowing it down to a crawl, which essentially comes down to the same thing: censoring.