It’s looks like LINE getting blocked in mainland China was just the beginning. LINE competitor KakaoTalk has reportedly been blocked as well, along with non-messaging services like Microsoft’s OneDrive and Yahoo’s Flickr service.
“adding new friends, the use of certain emoticons, checking notices, and Plus Friend are not accessible”
The country’s own WeChat (Weixin in China) service continues to function without issue as do other messengers with a few notable exceptions like Facebook Messenger that has not been allowed in the country to begin with.
A PR representative at KakaoTalk told BusinessKorea that “Pre-registered users in China can still 1:1 chat, free call and share images with existing friends on KakaoTalk, but many features such as adding new friends, the use of certain emoticons, checking notices, and Plus Friend are not accessible at this time.”
So why are these being blocked? Well there are a number of possible reasons, one of which are the protests taking place in Hong Kong that are demonstrating to maintain a certain level of independence from the rest of China. Since WhatsApp is very popular in the region, it’s odd that it continues to function normally (at least as of this writing). Hopefully this continues to be the case as time goes on.