Brainshark in China
Root Cause
Great Firewall of China
China has censorship over the internet gateways where traffic travels between China and the rest of the Internet. Through a combination of firewalls and proxy servers at these gateways, they can analyze, manipulate, and block internet traffic. Censorship is mandated through a combination of Chinese legislation and technology and is subject to change at their discretion.
Impact to Brainshark
Reported performance issues:
- Inability to view content in China
- Noticeable latency in content playback in China
Blocked Content
It is important to note that China can censor and/or block any content at any time without transparency. There is a small possibility that the Brainshark website IP itself could be blocked. According to a Harvard study, at least 18,000 websites are blocked from within mainland China, including 12 out of the Top 100 Global Websites.
To understand some of the variables involved in how content is blocked, see below:
Site Performance
Brainshark is hosted in Watertown, Azure US-East and US-West. Due to the number of hops and network latency, the website is slow in China and other Asian countries. China internet has other factors that contribute to additional slowness as described here:
- https://mlytics.com/blog/why-your-website-is-slow-in-china/
- https://wedodesign.com.au/websites-loading-slowly-china/
- https://www.chinafy.com/tools/global-speed-test
*Note: “Foreign websites typically load an average of 5-8x slower in China irrespective of how they're built, or where they're hosted.”