The great Chinese firewall fell?

Network users living in China report that today they have access to Facebook. The case concerns both mobile devices and desktops. Even HTTPS works.


Facebook started having problems with China back in 2009, when the social network was blacklisted because with its help, activists posted in the public domain details of upcoming protests.
')
The source of the news is George Godula, marketing specialist at Web2Asia. He first mentioned on Twitter that he accessed Facebook through an iOS app. However, with the help of Safari and broadband connections, nothing worked.

Later, by email, he said that some users of the China Unicom operator were able to log in to Facebook from mobile devices (IOS) without using VPN (VPN was the only way to go to the site). And some of his friends in Beijing were able to visit the social network using the Unicom broadband connection, using only a PC browser.

There are about 500 million Internet users in China, and at the moment the most popular social networks are those that were created in China - for example, Sina Weibo. The government is actively monitoring them.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for Chinese users are blocked. Some people, by the way, are wondering if buying Instagram will help Facebook somehow gain a foothold in the country, because Instagram is still in the white list.

In March, Mark Zuckerberg went to rest in China, which immediately caused a lot of rumors about the fact that he came for a reason - this is a sign of the emergence and strengthening of Facebook positions in the country.

What caused the opportunity to visit Facebook (there was a random failure of the firewall, or now it will always be the case) - is unclear.

UPD 1 . Facebook refrains from official comments.

UPD 2 . Well, it was a failure, and now everything is back to square one. Jeremy Godkorn, the founder of Danwei.com (a research company that monitors the Chinese media and the Network), reports that it was a minor technical error that was already fixed. He especially noted that China is not at all the market where Facebook can currently succeed.

- Any attempt by Facebook to enter the market openly or quietly crawl along with smaller services (such as Instagram) is doomed to failure. And lead only to the world of pain.

According to him, the only worthwhile thing Facebook can do in China is to buy some notable startups or invest in them. If he finds them.

via