Great Firewall

British  

noun

1. informal a system that prevents access to websites deemed undesirable by the government of the People's Republic of China

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Etymology

Origin of Great Firewall

C21: a play on the _{Great Wall of China}

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Great Firewall

They reflect the country’s longstanding efforts to control public discourse, including setting up the Great Firewall in the early 2000s.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 24, 2025

Resourceful activists have been finding new ways to get around this but even those few cracks in the Great Firewall - like AirDrop - are now slowly being plugged.

From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2023

A number of accounts on Twitter have collected videos of the unrest from those behind China’s Great Firewall and posted them.

From New York Times ● Nov. 30, 2022

But the system, which also lets the FSB security service spy on Russian citizens, is a relative sieve compared to China’s Great Firewall.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 13, 2022

Even when a prosperous and rising China sought to close itself off from the global internet with a Great Firewall and vast censorship, the digital byways still erupted periodically with fury and criticism.

From Washington Post