Reports suggest China may have blocked access to Facebook
(Updated at 10:45 p.m. PDT with ping information from CNET China, and at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday with further information.)
Rumors began to surface late on Tuesday that Facebook could no longer get past the Great Firewall of China.
The company has acknowledged the situation but could not confirm a reason why. "We are disappointed to learn of reports that users in China are having difficulty getting access to Facebook," representatives from the social network said in a statement. "We have not made any changes to our site that would create access problems and are looking into the situation."
As early as Tuesday morning, a Wall Street Journal report suggested that Facebook members in China were having issues accessing the site, but the story gained little traction and suggested that technical difficulties may have been to blame.
China-based users of Twitter, many of them expatriates from the U.S. and Europe, painted a more suspicious picture. "Facebook is blocked in China," one said later on Tuesday. "There are going to be a lot of very p***ed off people here. What next, Twitter?"
"I'm on China Netcom and have the same issues with Facebook IP numbers, so it's not just China Telecom," another Twitter user said in response to theories that Facebook downages were related to Internet service providers.
However, Rick Martin, my colleague at CNET China, reports that access to the social-networking site is "off and on," but it "doesn't look like a block." Martin pinged the site and got a "unusual result"--30 percent packet loss. "Which kinda reflects the behavior I'm seeing--sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't," he said.
The story flew under the radar for much of the day; the first I saw of it was a blog post from CollegeHumor co-founder Ricky Van Veen. "They could have remained on if they had played by China's rules and allowed the government to censor their content," Van Veen wrote. "But unlike Google and Yahoo and everybody else, Mark Zuckerberg refused to play by their rules and told them to go f*** themselves. Hats off to you, Mark."
CNET News.com could not immediately confirm that assertion on the part of Facebook.
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
I can log in via a proxy server in the USA with no problems. I usually have to use a proxy server at various times for various sites deemed *unholy* by "The Peoples Ministry of Correct Humor, Legitimate Amusement, and Acceptable Behavior", and so on.
In China, we thank God for the Undernet! May it live long and prosper!
hopefully for the time being..?
I'm in Shanghai. Facebook was working earlier today but I guess it's blocked now.. o.o
I hope more news pop up about this.
I noticed Facebook was blocked late yesterday night. Its a sad day for me as all my friends and family in the UK use Facebook on a daily bases. I've tried to use a proxy but I find them slow, plus for some reason I can't submit messages..
Daniel (considering leaving China altogether)
China stop blocking FACEBOOK and YOUTUBE.
Just cause u did, don't expect me to rely on your Tudou or Youku.
They don't have the things I'm looking for.
Just cause u did, don't expect me to rely on your Tudou or Youku.
They don't have the things I'm looking for."
Good point there.China could probably be trying to adopt their sites.Which is no surprise.People like me here in China,no choice but to take these corrupted system and go with the flow.
Thanks to China i now can't get into facebook ._.
Places like Australia hasn't blocked facebook. Why does China have to?
Its so unfair, is it just cause China wants to earn money so that people that live in China have to pay money just to call overseas instead of just leaving an instant message on facebook?
That is just ****** up. I pity this country.
Same along with youtube, WHY DO YOU ***** HAVE TO BLOCK YOUTUBE?!?!?!
WHY NOT BE LIKE HONG KONG? -.-
- by tokoG November 4, 2009 6:02 AM PST
- I've been living in HK for 11 years and this week i the first time in 4 years I am back in China for business. 4 years ago, there was no FB. Anyway, I've been trying to long on from Shenzhen for over 10 times for the last 3 days, all failed. I don't think it's the connection problem. I also tried in different places like in Starbucks and from my mobile using 3G connection but all failed.
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(14 Comments)Why FB hasn't investigated on this yet? If they identify the technical problem there is a next step to what to do. Basically China is the biggest market for FB. So FB marketing is slacking off?
I am pretty positive this is a censorship in fact, when I googled "Facebook blocked in China" I also couldn't access to some sites.