Faceless on Facebook

image taken from commons.wikipedia.com from Facebook

www.facebook.com

M.A's commentary:
Facebook, I ironically first joined when I was in China in the fall of 2007. It was blocked sometime after the Olympics. I debated installing a proxy before I left the USA to get Facebook. I thought I wouldn't want it because it makes me feel homesick. But Skype is barely functional anymore, so I decided with everything blocked, I better have a proxy. Facebook is how you keep in touch with anyone. How do you know if you send your email to someone and you never hear back if they are still alive?

My neighbors that watch my house's kids are always on Facebook. If I need to have something checked on, that will be the fastest way to get a message. But at the same time because Facebook is so slow I am not addicted to it, I don't spend all my time watching what everyone else is doing or comparing myself to them, and I think that is healthy. But it is odd to me that the Chinese consulate in San Francisco has a Facebook page. And online China Daily in English has Facebook share buttons on all its news stories.

Indigo's commentary:
I think we all know why Facebook was banned. I think it was the summer or winter of 2009, and a group of activists planned their protest on Facebook. The Chinese government found out and suddenly Facebook was blocked. I remember it very clearly because I had only been using Facebook for a few months, and then poof! It was gone. It became a very big gulf in my life because it had been my only avenue of communication with friends, my counterparts never bothered with emails so I became distinctly cut off. At the time, using proxys to get to Facebook wasn't very difficult. But from what I have heard, even accessing proxy's is a challenge because they are continually shut down. But there will be a later post about this.

I can't fault the communist logic in understanding that by banning Facebook, they were able to quickly cut off mass amounts of people from connecting and communicating with one another. The Chinese were no longer able to have foreign friends and see the differences between the freedoms allowed elsewhere and allowed in China. Something like that could easily plant discontent with the Chinese situation. People were no longer able to join "groups" that were about Free Tibet or Anti-Censorship. If you are a government that has the legal ability to censor whatever you want as long as you deem it a danger, then wouldn't you probably block Facebook too?  So while it is unfortunate
, I understand why it is blocked. And I feel the need to point out that in China people are able to utilize other social media avenues.