The Great Firewall of China blocks even its own creator

Fang Binxing is being mocked online, because he was forced to set up a VPN in front of a live audience to get past the Great Firewall of China, according to BBC. If it were anyone else, it wouldn't be such a big deal, but Fang Binxing isn't just anyone: he's known as the "Father of China's Great Firewall" and is one of the system's staunchest defenders. More amusingly, this happened during his lecture at the Harbin Institute of Technology in the mainland, wherein he talked about countries that also control what you can visit on the internet.

He reportedly tried to show his audience a South Korean website to demonstrate that the country also has censorship systems in place, when he was blocked by his own creation. To note, South Korea does block some URLs, including some porn websites and those related to North Korea, but it's not as pervasive as China's firewall. BBC says Binxing is being ridiculed on Weibo, a Twitter/Facebook-like social network in the country, not just for being blocked by something he made, but also for not leaving a backdoor "even for himself."