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

When AI systems train on content from the Chinese internet, it is already scrubbed as part of China’s so-called Great Firewall, the system Beijing set up years ago to block online content it finds objectionable.

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

“If more videos or information jumps across the Great Firewall of China, then obviously it’s outside the control of China’s online censorship machine.”

From Washington Post • Dec. 2, 2022

Though both are banned in China, Wang hopes his reports will trickle over China’s Great Firewall and into the country.

From Seattle Times • Oct. 19, 2022

A more severe step would be creating an analog to China’s Great Firewall, which restricts access to foreign websites on the outside and strictly controls what is allowed inside.

From New York Times • Mar. 7, 2022