Tue

07

Jul

2009

First Twitter, now Facebook: banned in China

China · SNS · Facebook

非死不可/fei si bu ke - a transliteration of Facebook in Chinese for "doomed to die"

As of today 8pm Chinese time Facebook seems not to be accessible from most parts of China Mainland anymore. On the China Telecom connection of our Shanghai office the service vanished around 7:45pm. In Beijing and Guangzhou the service is blocked as well, only Hong Kong reports that they can still access the website.

How to still access and unblock Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and other blocked websites from China:

After microblogging service Twitter was already inaccessible during the last few days, Facebook now seems to be the latest victim of Chinas moves related to the recent incidents in its north western province. The recent bans and the blocking of Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and even hickups with Google products and MSN are a major pain for companies and individuals working in China. Previous blocks of Western Web 2.0 services that were banned in China were sometimes only temporary but this time we are afraid the block will be permanent. The only reliable way to access blocked websites like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and many more is by using a professional VPN service (SSL not PPTP).

 

We have tested several commercial VPN solutions and found WiTopia Personal VPN (http://www.witopia.net) the best deal.  Their $59.99 / year personalVPN™ – SSL (openVPN) has the best performance and is more reliable than the PPTP version, as PPTP is commonly blocked in China. We are even expecting that PPTP will be entirely disabled soon and only available again after individual companies specifically register for it. If you want to get connected to the rest of the world again its the only way - go for it!

Comparison of private VPN solutions to access and unblock Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and many other websites from China:

 

Other options apart from WiTopia include Strong VPN with the USD 75/year Lite PPTP product or SmallVPN.

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33 Comments

  • #1

    Star Cyd (Tuesday, 07 July 2009 18:42)

    I am blocked getting in touch with my family! When will FB and Twitter will lift the ban?

  • #2

    crazy gurl (Tuesday, 07 July 2009 20:32)

    this is the only way i keep in touch with my friends,,unblock the FB

  • #3

    kns (Wednesday, 08 July 2009 04:43)

    this is seriously wtf

  • #4

    soph phunt (Wednesday, 08 July 2009 04:55)

    omg!!! this is pure torture-_-''
    i cant live without fb,
    how do i keep in touch with my frends??!!
    this is realli annoying!!! i just dont get it!!!!

  • #5

    Paul (Wednesday, 08 July 2009 05:15)

    So does anyone know any proxies to get around it? Yeah I am addicted to mafia wars on facebook~~

  • #6

    G.& H. (Wednesday, 08 July 2009 12:47)

    even though China blocks web sites there is no need to hate the place, we are travelling throughout China for a year and we love the place the internet is such a small part, we have a blog and can't access it, its only for our family to see that we are ok and having fun, but obviously can't access it so we just email or ring them. Remember there never used to be internet!

  • #7

    chris (Wednesday, 08 July 2009 13:37)

    um it's probably temporary
    and you don't have the emails/phone numbers of the people you contact on facebook? well that's unfortunate.
    "how do i keep in touch with friends???"
    you can call them, email them, IM them, send them a post card, etc.
    woow.

  • #8

    trvs (Wednesday, 08 July 2009 16:17)

    OMG it was just my bday and fb closed dow nthe day b4 FML plain sucks...

  • #9

    hobochinks (Thursday, 09 July 2009 12:40)

    SERIOUSLY!!!! WTF!

    This house is a fucking prison!
    On Planet Bullshit!
    In the galaxy of This Sucks Camel Dicks!

  • #10

    Ricci (Monday, 13 July 2009 17:06)

    don't worry, be happy :)
    you need to be patient her in china. FB will be running soon again on all of your computers.
    ehm, soon can be anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of month.
    it's not the end of the world, yep chris is right, call, send an e-mail, IM them (with MSN, Skype, ICQ, QQ...), send the postcard, write a nice letter
    be a little bit creative.

  • #11

    Meimei (Thursday, 23 July 2009 14:53)

    Why did they block facebook? What am I going to do? AHH! A worlk without facebook isn't worth living! Ok maybe not at least there's still ice cream :) But this is seriously messed up!

  • #12

    joseph (Saturday, 25 July 2009 02:18)

    People need facebook to live and if you ban people will be so bored because RESTAURANT CITY IS AWSOME! Pople need youtube for movies and what if a caucasian person goes to china and they dont know what the china links to watcch movies and they need youtube so unban it. PLEASE!

  • #13

    joseph (Saturday, 25 July 2009 02:18)

    People need facebook to live and if you ban people will be so bored because RESTAURANT CITY IS AWSOME! Pople need youtube for movies and what if a caucasian person goes to china and they dont know what the china links to watcch movies and they need youtube so unban it. PLEASE!

  • #14

    chendalong (Sunday, 02 August 2009 15:20)

    this is too easy

  • #15

    randomguy (Sunday, 09 August 2009 04:52)

    Shit, man... "Punished for being a medium"? Why don't they just cut off the freakin' internet?

  • #16

    Sarmad (Sunday, 09 August 2009 12:49)

    oo

  • #17

    tunato (Sunday, 09 August 2009 13:57)

    INTERNET BARRING
    It’s time we should have some international law about networking websites and socializing on internet. Internet had sneaked in our societies and daily life that make the present era to be known as Cyber age. If we talk about the blocking of Facebook in China particularly, it’s a personal loss to me. I came across my school buddies situated globally. Some of them from whom I haven't heard for as long as 13 years, but suddenly because of facebook I got in touch with them. It’s such a satisfying feeling to know about people you knew once & you’ve been given a chance again to come close to them. If I’m allowed to do something for a considerable period of time and I'm not involved in any malicious activities (which I believe neither the facebook administrators will be), & suddenly one fine day I’m told that I’m not allowed to pursue my favorite pastime. I take it as an invasion of my privacy and rights. I strongly oppose terrorism in any form and by the definition of terrorism itself according to Princeton University's Wordnet "Terrorism is the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear". Which I see is just what happened here and authorities banning a certain website on the same pretext. How strange!
    Furthermore if we take example of trade networking websites, platforms and numerous alibabas. If we follow the same rule it should have been banned in most countries in name of protectionism and economic interests. Had that happened I’m sure that at least I would not have been in the same neither position as I’m today nor I think would be the majority of 6.776 billion individuals on this planet. My point is if some group of individuals or even governments will start barring internet on the pretext of saving their ideological interests the whole concept of global room will come under threat.
    Here I would also like to suggest 2 point simple solution:
    1) International Internet Security Watchdog Body to be formulated and strict code of conduct to be launched for webhosting that will not only handle the menace of pornographic websites but also hunt down people or individuals using the blessing of technology for vested interests.
    2) As earlier mentioned I see internet as a blessing of our time and should be exploited to its full. It can serve as a global platform where more and more people can reach out, discuss, rationalize and find solutions of problems rising from conflict of interests and ideologies. Where we can get a more accurate sample based on wider selection of population & where we can make an effort to bring humanity together thus maintaining the sanctity of our global room.

    Disclaimer: I would like to make it clear here that the above article was not meant to support some group nor criticizing anyone or any government, just the way I feel about the issue and realizing my responsibility as global citizen an effort towards one world.

  • #18

    gareth (Tuesday, 11 August 2009 16:23)

    it doesn't surprise me. They already banned it in other developing countries.

  • #19

    Ralph (Wednesday, 19 August 2009 08:34)

    why single out Facebook?

  • #20

    Mirko (Wednesday, 19 August 2009 17:46)

    What the heck !! I need now other websites to get in touch with my friends back home, but nothing is as simple as facebook!

    Did China tought of the students studying abroad at china???

    How can they just do this ....same with youtube,,,
    just cut the freaking shit out and its done!
    Dont block the rest 10000000000 things other people like and want the have as entertainment!

  • #21

    fg (Thursday, 20 August 2009 06:22)

    i dont u wht hell r going on .almost all sites r banned ....including youtube facebook....only few f them r not banne god grace .only chinese sites still ther................

  • #22

    shahbazian (Friday, 21 August 2009 06:30)

    SHIT FUCKING SHIT GODDAMNING!!!!

  • #23

    coqi (Saturday, 22 August 2009 05:03)

    im getting realy tyred of having to work around the internet sites. i want to be able to come home from work and talk to my son on facebook, unfortunatly this is not an option anymore. could someone please tell me if they have found a way to combat this
    thanks

  • #24

    No one (Friday, 28 August 2009 10:59)

    Whats the point in blocking Facebook? This will probably make people protest even more.

  • #25

    alex (Monday, 31 August 2009 07:39)

    i've got vpn so i don't have any problem with it

  • #26

    Yuri (Sunday, 13 September 2009 02:47)

    wtf! I live in US and I´m a big boss on mafia wars... now i´m in china f**** angry cause I dont know what´s going on with my crew...

  • #27

    Robb (Monday, 14 September 2009 10:26)

    The Chinese versions of Facebook like renren (formerly xiaonei) still seem to work fine. I'm not suggesting you learn Chinese and use them, just saying why block Facebook and not the local sites?

  • #28

    shady (Monday, 21 September 2009 04:52)

    please i need to use facebook

  • #29

    shady (Monday, 21 September 2009 04:55)

    please i need to keep in touch with my family. i bless you

  • #30

    kevin tandra (Thursday, 24 September 2009 10:32)

    TRUEEE! DAMNNNNN

  • #31

    Chris Blake (Wednesday, 28 October 2009 08:20)

    Hey, thanks for this post, it's helped me out a load (I hope!). I have gone for the reccomended wicitopia vpn because I use a mac and it's been a hassle finding a vpn.

  • #32

    alex (Wednesday, 18 November 2009 02:56)

    shit man,if somebody kill a man with a knife will they ban all the knives in china?

  • #33

    gr8luv (Monday, 30 November 2009 11:40)

    LOL @ "非死不可" Good one. :D

    I'm using Freedur to access Facebook, it works well. Facebook isn't something I can give up right now, so I've been trying all kinds of methods to access it.

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