Just as pictures from Hong Kong’s annual march for democracy began appearing on Facebook, a segment of the users of the social networking site in mainland China began blogging their troubles accessing the site altogether, seemingly fulfilling predictions made when news that a localized Chinese version of Facebook was in the works first surfaced last year. Zh-cn.facebook.com went live exactly two weeks before people began documenting access issues:
As these things go, experiences appeared to conflict with each other, leaving many left to conclude that Facebook itself was screwing them around.
Except for the new redirect to zh-cn.facebook.com, the situation at present appears to be mostly as it was, wherein tech-unsavvy Facebook users are left unable to access certain parts of Facebook containing so-called sensitive keywords. Ad hoc tests carried out by five friends of Global Voices Advocacy based in different parts of mainland China today showed that some Facebook groups can still only be loaded partway before freezing in an apparent keyword filter. Of the following Facebook groups, the fifth in order was consistently difficult (including with tests I ran myself) to access and appeared to result in a temporarily reset connection to facebook.com:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16929680703
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7765017060
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2257397452
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5187862317
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2248992944
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20894947280
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2222354198
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2561706410
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2229467649
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2213066526
If facebook.com really does end up getting blocked and users inside mainland China are forced instead to use zh-cn.facebook.com to set up groups like ‘Redress the Tiananmen Massacre’ or communicate with foreign media workers, will FB follow in the footsteps of its predecessors and filter or hand user-to-user messages over to Chinese police when asked? Or, with its robust user-created networks, will Facebook create an entirely new business model for penetration of the Chinese SNS market?
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Thanks John,
It was all very confusing…Still is…
It is still on and off for me in GZ. I cannot seem to access anything except the applications.I don’t know what the problem is….Still working on it…
posted on July 7th, 2008 at 5:35 am - #10052You raise some good points. With FB wanting to make a big move into China and all this this confusion happening I am at a loss, but anxious to see how it plays out…
[...] are unaware what they’re missing out on.) This doesn’t mean, however, that the apparent blocking of parts of Facebook isn’t annoying for many users or the creeping Olympic [...]
posted on July 11th, 2008 at 4:35 pm - #10119God, this is why I hate living in China..
posted on July 20th, 2008 at 6:46 am - #10246So you hate living in China, well that is exactly what they want. They dont want us to be here, they only want our knowledge in all industries and when they think they have enough information they will all get rid of us foreigners. Dont missunderstand me, I am talking about the goverment, not about the common people.
posted on July 21st, 2008 at 4:54 am - #10279So giving you partial access to certain internet sites is annoying and they know that, they are hoping to annoy us so long until we leave. Is it official? of course not and they will never admit this fact.
Not much you can do about it….
btw, didn’t have access to FB since Sunday July 20th 2008 in the evening ;)
[...] Will Facebook succumb to the Chinese internet censor? [...]
posted on October 31st, 2008 at 3:57 am - #13915[...] are unaware what they’re missing out on.) This doesn’t mean, however, that the apparent blocking of parts of Facebook isn’t annoying for many users or the creeping Olympic [...]
posted on October 31st, 2008 at 3:59 am - #13916