Elisabeth posted a note earlier today about new media and podcasting in China, and how local coverage paints a picture that may be surprising to many in the West.

Chris raised a question in the comments, though, that is worth addressing:

“I thought I read that RSS was banned in China. Does anyone know if this has changed recently?”

There were multiple reports last year of RSS feeds being banned in China, and there’s been a lot of discussion recently about the draconian lockdown China may put on Olympic coverage.

You can check to see if your site is banned in China using WebSitePulse, a web server monitoring service. They have a Web-based form that checks your Website (or RSS feed) from Shanghai, Beijing or Hong Kong:

Podcasting News isn’t banned in China – at least not yet!

We tried the same test with the url for Amnesty International, though, and the form returned the message “couldn’t connect to host.”

If you know of other ways to test if your site is banned from China, leave a comment!