Beijing : Users trying to access Yahoo! Inc .’s main website from mainland China faced disrupted service on Tuesday as the government sought to restrict the flow of information amid student-led protests in Hong Kong.

The www.yahoo.com site was inaccessible in some parts of the country, according to Greatfire.org, a group that monitors Internet censorship. The pattern suggested a “man-in-the-middle attack," in which an attacker intercepts data that Internet users exchange with Yahoo’s servers, the group said.

Yahoo’s search page had remained free of restrictions in China even after Google Inc.’s website was blocked and access to its Gmail service was restricted ahead of the 25th anniversary of the 4 June 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. China has sought to control information emanating from Hong Kong, where student demonstrators have protested since 26 September to demand free elections of their city leader.

Yahoo spokeswoman Sarah Meron didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment on Tuesday. China’s foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond to a faxed question about the disruption.

Yahoo’s mail and news services remained available in China on Tuesday, according to Greatfire.org co-founder Charlie Smith, who uses a pseudonym out of concern of Chinese reprisals. The disruption resembled the that faced by Google, whose website became inaccessible in China before Gmail was blocked, he said. Access to Yahoo’s Hong Kong, Taiwan and Canada portals from within China was also disrupted.

Yesterday, Facebook Inc.’s Instagram photo sharing service became blocked in China. More popular photo sharing services such as that of Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat service are already tightly controlled, while applications from Line Corp. and Kakao Corp. also face restrictions. Twitter, Yahoo’s Flickr and YouTube are inaccessible as well. Bloomberg

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