Facebook Blocked in China?
A brief update: some of our contacts are reporting the Western social networking site Facebook is down in China. Herdict confirms this, listing 40 inaccessible reports and one accessible one. If you currently live in China, give facebook a test and let us know the results.
If Facebook is blocked, it would be the first time in a while. The site isn’t particularly popular among Chinese netizens, who have their own Chinese-language carbon copy in Xiaonei (is Xiaonei still accessible in China? We currently live in the US, and Herdict has no data for it). Facebook does have instant messaging and twitter-like components that make it a quick way to pass information on to large social groups, but it managed to withstand all the blockings earlier this year so the fact that it’s being blocked now — if indeed it is — may hold some significance.
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Facebook has been down at my home here in Beijing all morning, inaccessible even using witopia. As for Twitter, I’ve switched over to Hahlo and that seems to be working fine.
I can’t access Facebook from dalian since 6 July. I can access Xiaonei.
I haven’t been able to access facebook since yesterday, early evening. I’m in Beijing.
More disconcerting is the suspension of Fanfou. Apparently they had posted an apology for their inability to support updates; now the entire site seems to be unavailable.
YES. I CANNOT LOG ON THE FACEBOOK. COM CURRENTLY. IT SEEMS HAVE BEEN BLOCKED IN CHINA.
Blocked in Harbin
Facebook still seems to be down since last night.
I wonder what the “reason” will be this time?
(of course it will have nothing to do with the social unrest out west)
Sorry if this is a repost but I cant see any comments on this now so I’ll type it again with some more thoughts.
Being one who informed China Geeks of the blocking of Facebook I did some searching around on the net before I even contacted these guys.
The Chinese government has said that Facebook, as well as other sites, have been put on the block list. Due to the use of these sites to help organise gathering of people for the riots. I’m not saying this is the reason that it is blocked but it’s the reason they have given.
Youtube has been blocked in China for a cople of months now. Well at least in the North East. This has been able to be avoided by the use of some aplications…so I’m told…. However Facebook seems to be still blocked while trying to use a proxy or other means.
As entertaing as they maybe, I for one can live without videos of prison inmates dancing to Michael Jackson songs, the Star Wars kid, “Numa Numa” guy and seeing if random objects will destroy a blender (or vice versea), but I use Facebook as my primary contact with frineds and family back home. All of my photos are placed on here of my travels and my Chinese life.
Now I’m not going to moan about it as I will move on. It’s just surprising that even in my head, at first, I felt more compassion for those of us who have lost our “Social Life” with this web page down than that of the thousands, if not millions, of people who are directly or indirectly involved in the trouble that is the reason for the site being down. Sure, I want the site back but it’s time for some of the people to look at things in perspective. Maybe more energy should be put into the events happening n the North East of China then that a few webpages have been blocked.
facebook blocked in Shanghai since Tuesday …. I can live without it, although its a bit buggered when someone sends me an email through it…
next they’ll block linkedin.com ………… oh god I HOPE SO
No Facebook here in Guangxi for several days now. Bummer! I wanted to make a clever comment on there letting everyone know what I was cooking for dinner, what I was watching on TV after dinner, what time I was going to bed, how my evening bowel movements were, what shampoo I used, etc….
[...] is blocked, and if you’re the kind of person who lives in China and enjoys using Facebook, it might be [...]
facebook is still out in nanchong, sichuan province since july 7 or 8. i also use it to keep in touch and share my photos with family and friends back home but i couldn’t agree more with mike fish [assuming sarcasm] - i don’t care that your cat coughed up a hairball and stop sending me drinks that i can’t actually drink!! - i do enjoy checking out what friends have been up to or hearing from old co-workers
i forgot to add that i do enjoy your site - good work and thanks! can anyone tell me what happend to the peking duck?
Andy, the point is that the blocking of these websites/the flow of information is one of the many ways that we are prevented from just that: helping.
Anyway, I have been getting Facebook through a proxy server, in Bejing, but every time I try out any kind of post — wall post, pictures, videos, changes to my profile, even messages — nothing is left there once the page reloads. As in, I get there, and then can’t communicate anything. So that’s my Facebook update.
To Katy,
You can try using free-gate or hotspot shield launch.
in my travels in china, i have been blocked from face-book in guangzhou and in shanghai. it’s annoying me to no end!
still blocked - anyone know a workaround?
hmm facebook block even with freegate now!!!