Why can't Chinese use Facebook or Twitter????
By Jassie Ho
@JChooo (59)
Guangzhou, China
January 22, 2018 9:46pm CST
I , a Chinese, was really confused that why can we Chinese can't use the Facebook, Twitter in China mainland now.
Why can Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, not mainland?
Few months ago, I just can sign in the ins with a VPN
But now even there is no VPN for me to.......................
Tell what do you guyssssssss think about it??????????
7 people like this
11 responses
@amitkokiladitya (171927)
• Agra, India
23 Jan 18
Is that so? I was unaware about this. Any specific reason for this?
1 person likes this
@amitkokiladitya (171927)
• Agra, India
23 Jan 18
@JChooo you mean they previously had access but not now
2 people like this
@Bhaskarjhborah (735)
• India
23 Jan 18
I think facebook didnot have the required license or something that is required for websites in china.
1 person likes this
@kaka135 (14931)
• Malaysia
25 Jan 18
I was quite surprise when I found out many of these popular sites are banned in China. Besides the censorship, I am not sure if they want to protect the local brands, such as QQ, Baidu, WeChat. I believe these are very famous brands in China, right? If I am not mistaken, every site that is banned has its substitute too, though I think it would be good if all the sites are allowed.
I think it's really not fun when a site is totally banned in your country. Medium is banned in my country, and I don't really know why but it's due to political issue as I read from the Internet. Every time when I came across an article from Medium and I would like to read, but I couldn't, I might have missed out some good information out there.
@rohitrocks26 (2)
• India
4 Feb 18
There are TWO principal reasons these sites are blocked: fear and protectionism. The question seems to assume that the Party's fear is the main reason these sites are blocked, but protectionism is just as big a factor.
The CCP will not allow free speech for all the reasons authoritarian states don't (not the least of which is the Party's desire to control public knowledge of officials' assets!). Free speech could present an existential threat to the Party. This reason for blocking foreign-owned user-generated-content sites is often talked about.
Protectionism is just as big (but much less talked about) of a concern. Two reasons for protectionism here:
1. The CCP wants to develop China's own industry rather than feeding China's users and money to Silicon Valley. (Note: They have no problem with IP infringement/theft on this front.) It's about money, jobs, and development.
2. They want to keep China's infrastructure independent of outsiders. The Snowden leaks make clear why they would want this.
