ABC

ABC News Spain: Censorship in China and North Korea Explained

What ABC is

ABC is a Spanish-language news outlet launched in 1903 as a Madrid-based newspaper. It is owned by Vocento, a major Spanish media conglomerate, and operates both print and digital platforms. ABC maintains a significant readership across Spain and parts of Latin America, with its online edition serving as a primary news source for Spanish-speaking audiences seeking domestic and international coverage.

Why it's censored

ABC faces censorship in two distinct geopolitical contexts with different justifications.

In China, ABC's digital properties are blocked under the broader framework of content filtering enforced by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). While Spain-origin news is not a primary censorship target relative to US or UK outlets, ABC's reporting on human rights, labor standards, and Uyghur issues conflicts with Chinese Communist Party narrative control. The blocking occurs less due to targeted policy against Spanish media and more as collateral effect of blanket restrictions on independent foreign news analysis.

In North Korea, ABC access is restricted under regime-wide information controls administered by the Department of State Security. The DPRK maintains near-total internet isolation; foreign news sources—regardless of origin—are inaccessible to the general population. ABC's availability is limited to state-approved entities and privileged officials. The justification is ideological: all foreign news is classified as hostile propaganda threatening regime stability.

Technical blocking methods

China employs multi-layered blocking mechanisms. DNS tampering is the first layer: queries for abc.es and related subdomains are intercepted and null-routed or redirected. For users who bypass DNS filtering via alternative resolvers, IP-level blocking of ABC's content delivery networks follows. Deep packet inspection (DPI) monitors HTTPS traffic for SNI headers matching ABC domains, allowing keyword-based filtering even when traditional DNS and IP blocks are circumvented. This approach evolved after 2017 as circumvention techniques matured.

North Korea's blocking is crude but effective: international internet access is unavailable to most citizens. Those with connectivity use state-controlled intranet or monitored gateways where content filtering is manual and comprehensive. Technical sophistication is unnecessary when physical infrastructure and surveillance are the primary control mechanism.

User workarounds

Users in China seeking ABC content typically employ circumvention tools that mask origin IP addresses and encrypt traffic to prevent DPI inspection. Standard approaches include routing traffic through servers outside China's network perimeter, which defeats both DNS and IP filtering. However, this method is increasingly risky; the Chinese government has escalated penalties for circumvention tool use since 2021.

In North Korea, meaningful circumvention is only feasible for users with international access—a tiny population. The blocking is institutional rather than technical.

Alternatives

EuroNews (EU-based, multilingual) operates in China and North Korea with similar restrictions but maintains redundant distribution infrastructure that occasionally survives filtering.

Deutsche Welle (Germany) faces equivalent blocking in both countries. Its German-language content sometimes reaches users via mirrors and archive services, though inconsistently.

BBC News (UK) is similarly blocked across both jurisdictions.

None of these alternatives operate freely in either country.

Outlook

In China, restrictions are tightening. The 2023-2024 period saw expanded DPI monitoring and penalties for VPN use. ABC's access will likely become harder.

In North Korea, there is no trajectory toward easing; isolation deepens with each regime transition.

For Spanish-speaking audiences in China seeking Spanish news, the censorship landscape offers no improvement on the horizon.