Chinese Authorities Deny Plans to Block VPN Access by February

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology dismissed in a statement on Wednesday reports claiming that the country's authorities told telecommunications companies to ban individuals' access to virtual private networks (VPNs) by February as false.

BEIJING (Sputnik) — On Monday, the Bloomberg news agency reported, citing anonymous sources, that the Chinese government had told state-run telecommunications firms, including China Unicom, China Mobile and China Telecom, to block access of individuals to virtual private networks by February 1, 2018.

"Our department did not issue such notice. Foreign media reports are factually incorrect," the ministry's statement read as quoted by thepaper.cn media outlet.

The VPN services are used to access websites blocked by the Chinese government, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.