Is The Great Firewall of China Really ‘Great’?

Even if you find ways to avoid it, Facebook is really something you cannot resist. This may be not applicable for all but only for some. You are always tempted to log on to the site and check life updates and statuses of your network of friends and acquaintances. Some think life will be on its highest level of dullness if they missed logging in to this site even for a moment.

Indeed, Facebook has its own charisma to everybody and anyone who starts using it will eventually be addicted to it. With over a billion of registered users with at most 800 million active users a day, Facebook is surely one of the best virtual hang-outs.

On the other hand, China has made something the Facebook addicts will surely disagree. Facebook is not accessible in any place in China since July 2009. Though you can still go to the site using its URL, it might take centuries but it will not load successfully. They call them “The Great Firewall of China”, who is responsible for this. They find the site just inappropriate for their people. It might be a little confusing, but we just do not know why it happened. Even Twitter and YouTube are also affected and some Google searches are also prohibited. Not only had this, “The Great Firewall of China” even blocked Bloomberg and the New York Times. It is hard for these sites to be accessed since China has a very advanced technology to detect access attempts. The main reason why they blocked these sites is that social media, particularly Facebook, can be a medium for activists and anti-socials to express their thoughts which could eventually be very influential to other people. Posts and opinions are uncontrollable so they decided to fully block the sites. However, these restricted sites are still accessible with the help of VPNs.

Without these VPNs, are there no more social media networks in China? No. They have their very own version of Facebook and Twitter. They launched Weibo and the site has successfully attracted many online Chinese users. Amazingly, The Great Firewall of China shows a full control of its people and technology.