LINE blocked in China

Popular Japanese instant messaging application LINE has confirmed to Marketing it has been blocked in China, but said they cannot provide any further information at the moment.LINE services in China has been reported inaccessible since 1 July, the day of the annual pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong.When reached by Marketing, LINE global PR manager Hazuki YAMADA said: "Our service in Mainland China is currently experiencing a connection issue, which began on the night of July 1 (Japan Standard Time).""We are currently investigating the cause of the issue and trying our best to resolve the situation."Chinese LINE users can only get on the platform through network firewall, reported by several forum users.As of June 21, the total number of downloads for the three years old LINE has reached 1 billion globally.Service in Hong Kong and Taiwan have not been affected so far.