Did the Great Chinese Firewall fall?

Netizens living in China report that they now have access to Facebook. This applies to both mobile devices and desktops. Even HTTPS works.


Facebook started having problems with China back in 2009, when the social network was blacklisted because activists shared details of upcoming protests with it.

The source of the news is George Godula, a marketing specialist at Web2Asia. He was the first to mention on Twitter that he had access to Facebook through an iOS app. However, with Safari and a broadband connection, nothing came of it.

Later, he announced by email that some other users of the China Unicom operator were able to access Facebook from mobile devices (IOS) without using a VPN (VPN was the only way to access the site). And some of his friends in Beijing were able to visit the social network using the Unicom broadband connection, using only a PC browser.

There are about 500 million Internet users in China, and currently the most popular social networks are those that were created in China - for example, Sina Weibo. The government is actively monitoring them.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are blocked for Chinese users. Some, by the way, are wondering if buying Instagram will somehow help Facebook gain a foothold in the country, because Instagram is still in the white list.

In March, Mark Zuckerberg went to China to relax, which immediately sparked a bunch of rumors that he had come for a reason - this is a sign of Facebook’s appearance and strengthening in the country.

What caused the opportunity to visit Facebook (this firewall malfunction was random, or will always be so now) is still unclear.

UPD 1 . Facebook refrains from making official comments.

UPD 2 . Well, it was a failure, and now everything is back to square one. Jeremy Godkorn, founder of Danwei.com (a research company that monitors Chinese media and the Web), reports that the matter was in a small technical error that has already been fixed. He especially noted that China is not a market at all where Facebook can currently succeed.

- Any attempt by Facebook to enter the market openly or quietly crawl along with smaller services (such as Instagram) is doomed to failure. And only lead to a world of pain.

According to him, the only worthwhile thing Facebook can do in China is to buy some notable startups or invest in them. If he finds them.

via