The fate of Facebook in China it seems isn’t that great. While it may be one of the most popular social networking websites out there today, Facebook in China is actually banned. If you haven’t heard about this website yet, Facebook is a social networking site that enables one user to connect with another user over mountains and oceans. It is quite convenient as it provides easy access to one’s friends and family no matter what the distance is. The only thing required is an internet connection and a Facebook account on the other side as well.
A lot of theories have cropped up to explain the banning of Facebook in China. Some believe that the Government is dictatorial and doesn’t want its citizens to access any information from the outside world through social networking sites like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook in China. They believe that since the Chinese government already regulates web content there preventing the free flow of information, they are trying to enforce their views on the people and stopping them from finding the truth.
But like most conspiracy theories, the notion that the banning of Facebook in China was some sort of a grand master plan to prevent the freedom of information is completely absurd. One cannot deny the fact that the Chinese Government has certain strict guidelines to judge whether a particular information is sensitive or not and ban it on such grounds. But the main reason for the banning of Facebook in China was something else entirely.
More than 140 people were killed and more than 828 people were injured during a riot that took place in the Xinjiang province in China on July 5th of 2009. More than a thousand members of the Muslim ethnic minority were performing a peaceful protest. Soon the peaceful protest escalated into a full blown riot where many were injured and killed. Banning Facebook in China was only a small part of the plan to stop such protests from getting organized through mediums like social networking sites.
Many websites like Facebook were banned at first near the region of the riots but soon all the access to Facebook in China was stopped. This protest along with many others were said to be organized through sites like Facebook. Therefore the real reason for banning Facebook in China was to block the flow of information between the rioters and the organizers of the riot.
Do feel free to write down your comments below to share your own views about the ban 🙂
No, you are wrong – Its because facebook is just shit. You dont become the next superpower by tossing it off on facebook all day. That and the fact that facebook would earn the lions share of advertising revenue while chinese homegrown websites (which of course are all connected somehow to the government) would lose out. Its money as much as anything else. Theres a dick load of people in china clicking away. generating income for companies. Theres no way thats going into an american companies pockets.
via VPN in Beijing, China.
its redicolous..