Marca

Marca Blocked in China and North Korea: Censorship Methods and Workarounds

What Marca is

Marca is a Spanish-language sports newspaper launched in 1938 by the Hoy newspaper group. It is now owned by Grupo Unidad Editorial, part of the larger Planeta Media conglomerate. The publication has evolved from a print broadsheet into a major digital news platform, covering football, tennis, basketball, and other sports with substantial daily traffic from Spanish-speaking audiences across Latin America, Spain, and the diaspora. Its digital edition reaches millions of users monthly, making it one of the Iberian peninsula's most influential sports media properties.

Why it's censored

Marc is blocked in China and North Korea, but for distinct reasons reflecting each regime's censorship apparatus.

In China, Marca faces indirect censorship through the Great Firewall system. The Chinese government does not explicitly target Spanish-language sports media; instead, the blocking reflects broader restrictions on international news sources and content deemed to carry political messaging hostile to the state. Foreign news outlets—particularly those originating from NATO-aligned nations or EU countries—are routinely deprioritized or blocked as part of China's information control strategy enforced by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). Marca's parent company's European ownership and occasional coverage of human-rights-adjacent topics (athlete activism, international political figures) creates sufficient friction to warrant filtering.

North Korea's blocking of Marca stems from absolute information isolation. The regime permits virtually no uncensored foreign news access to the general population. Media consumption is controlled by the Ministry of Culture. Marca, as an external news source, falls under automatic prohibition regardless of content, consistent with North Korea's treatment of all non-state-sanctioned information channels.

Technical blocking methods

Marc's blocking differs significantly between the two countries.

In China, blocking typically occurs through DNS tampering and SNI (Server Name Indication) filtering. Users attempting to reach Marca's domain often receive null responses from DNS resolvers, or the request is intercepted at the SNI level before the TLS handshake completes. IP-level blocking is less common for lower-priority foreign sites, making DNS and SNI the primary vectors. The Great Firewall applies these techniques dynamically; blocking intensity fluctuates based on political events and broader censorship campaigns.

In North Korea, blocking is enforced through absolute network isolation. The country maintains a single national intranet (Kwangmyong) for domestic users; external internet access is restricted to political elites and government institutions. Marca is simply unreachable because international internet gateways are not accessible to the general population. No sophisticated filtering is required—access is denied at the infrastructure level.

User workarounds

For users in China, standard circumvention techniques apply. VPN protocols that support obfuscation (such as OpenVPN with obfs plugins or proprietary tunneling protocols designed to evade DPI detection) are more reliable than standard IPsec or WireGuard configurations. Users also employ proxy chains and DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) to bypass DNS filtering. The cat-and-mouse dynamic means methods require periodic adjustment as the Great Firewall evolves its detection capabilities.

North Korea presents no practical workaround for ordinary citizens; access to international internet infrastructure is not available.

Alternatives

For Spanish-language sports news in censored regions, users in China sometimes access El Mundo Deportivo (Catalan-origin sports outlet, also blocked but occasionally less aggressively filtered) or AS (another Spanish sports daily, similarly censored). However, none of these alternatives enjoy reliable, unblocked status in either China or North Korea.

Outlook

Censorship of Marca is tightening in China as part of broader restrictions on foreign media access tightened between 2019–2024. North Korea's isolation remains absolute and shows no signs of easing. Neither jurisdiction has indicated policy shifts toward greater information openness.