Hundreds of Chinese comments on Obama’s Google+ page could indicate a crack in the Great Firewall

US President Obama’s official Google+ page has recently been flooded with comments, but they’re not coming from where you’d expect. It’s not US citizens that are flooding the president’s page with comments of encouragement, criticism, or otherwise. In fact, a vast majority of the comments are being made in Chinese.

At first glance, it looks like the official Google+ page is being spammed, but taking a look at some of the comments left in English, you’ll realise that it’s Chinese citizens who have taken to the social network to decry their government’s appalling human rights track record.

One of the comments in English reads:

Dear President Obama，I’m sorry to write some irrelevant comments under your post. Due to my appreciation and trust to your country’s consistent respect to human right, I left this message, to implore the government of your country to call for the freedom of the blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng in international community , thank you!

The latest post plugging the new bumper stickers for the 2012 Obama-Biden campaign, and many of those preceding it, have been over-run with hundreds of comments about human rights issues, green cards, requests to pressure the Chinese government to release imprisoned activists, and more.

While Google+ has been blocked in China since its launch, it would appear that due to a glitch in the system, Chinese residents have suddenly found that they can access the social network on their mobile phones, and are using this time to leave comments on Obama’s page.

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As AFP reports, it can’t be verified if all of these comments are in fact coming from China, but the comments left in Chinese are written in simplified Chinese characters, the dialect used in mainland China.

Google+ isn’t the only social network that appears to have been affected by the glitch with Twitter, Facebook and YouTube reportedly all available in China, although Obama’s Facebook page and Twitter account do not appear to have been inundated by Chinese replies or comments.