Facebook doesn't work in China. Facebook and China: relations are becoming increasingly tense. How does blocking happen?

Steps

Via VPN

    Find a VPN service that suits your needs. A "VPN" (Virtual Private Network) is an encrypted connection to a remote server that allows you to access the Internet by bypassing restrictive firewalls. "VPN" affects all your traffic, which means Skype and other messaging services will also not be blocked by firewalls. VPN is not free, but in addition to the annual fee, you can choose a monthly subscription, which is very convenient for tourists. The following is a list of the most popular VPN services:

    • StrongVPN
    • ExpressVPN
    • WiTopia
    • BolehVPN
    • 12VPN

  1. Make sure the VPN you choose works in China. Some of the largest VPN servers have been blocked by the Chinese government and are no longer available. Check the company you are registering with and read reviews about their online service.

    • BestVPN.com is a site that has the most up-to-date information on the most reliable VPN services currently available in China.

  2. Download the required program. Some VPN services, like WiTopia, will provide you with a VPN client that you need to install on your computer. Other services, such as StrongVPN, will provide you with connection information that you can enter into the connection manager on your Windows or Mac computer.

    • Ideally, you should download and install a VPN program before traveling to China. Most well-known VPN programs block, preventing you from registering or downloading a client. Setting up a VPN outside of China will make it easier for you to contact support if problems arise.
    • Some VPN services provide mobile apps that you can use on your iPhone, iPad, or Android device.

  3. Connect to a VPN. Launch the client or enter VPN information into your operating system's connection manager. The VPN clients provided by these services are already configured and only require your login.

    Go to Facebook. Once your VPN is connected, you will be able to access any blocked site that was previously denied access, as well as use any Internet program such as Skype. You may notice that your connection speed will be slow, but this is normal due to the distance between you and the VPN service.

    Through proxy servers

    Article information

    wikiHow works like a wiki, which means that many of our articles are written by multiple authors. This article was produced by 27 people, including anonymously, to edit and improve it.

March 20th, 2014 , 11:58 pm

Many, seeing that I respond to comments and personal messages on Facebook from China, ask me perplexed questions - HOW???
As you know, China is known for its censorship of some Internet resources.
So, here at the government level Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and some other resources and social networks are prohibited, in addition, Google services work in a rather peculiar way. As for the search, only the Google.com.cn segment works, the results are replete with hieroglyphs, and it is not always possible to download Google.com.ru. In addition, Gmail sometimes “glitches”, completely refusing to load or work on some mobile devices.
What to do if you come to China for some time, and you need these resources due to your line of work or you simply cannot live without them?
There is an exit.


A regular anonymizer or something like a VPN will help you.
The anonymizer will allow you to access sites banned in China from your computer, replacing your real IP address.
True, it is not always possible to use an anonymizer to fully use sites that have an authorization system (Facebook, Twitter, Gmail). In addition, using the anonymizer you cannot use applications on smartphones and tablets.
Then there is only one way out - VPN.
What kind of nonsense is this? In a nutshell, the essence of a VPN comes down to the following: you are provided with a VPN server somewhere on the network (accordingly, you get some kind of IP). Your traffic goes to it in the form of an unreadable message... On the VPN server, the traffic is decrypted and the request is transmitted to the site. The site provides a response and transmits it to the VPN server. The server again sends the information to you in encrypted form. In general, this is bullshit that allows you to use all the benefits of the Internet that you are used to in China - Facebook, Twitter, etc.
To do this, you need to install some kind of VPN manager on your gadget, configure it and connect it if necessary, using, for example, Facebook. There are many such programs; before traveling to China, I installed VPN-Express on my iPhone.
The program itself is free, but if you use the Internet a lot, you will need to pay for traffic.
When registering an account with VPN-Express, 300 MB is provided for free, and then for money.
True, 1 GB of traffic costs 66 rubles. Considering that in normal life outside of China you are unlikely to need a VPN, the costs are not that high.
Setting up the program is quite clear and simple. Basic settings, at least in iOS, are carried out automatically; you just need to manually click “OK” to confirm the creation of the profile.
Then everything is simple. If you are in range of WiFi, 3G or mobile Internet and you need to log into Facebook, go to the “General Settings” of your smartphone, there you will see the VPN tab, enter it and move the slider to the “ON” position.
That's it, Facebook is working))

By the way, LJ, Instagram, Vkontakte, WhatsApp, Viber and everything else works great on its own.

Why was Facebook banned in China?

The Chinese government prefers to control the information that citizens access and requires companies to provide them with the ability to censor news feeds and view user correspondence. Since Facebook (like other corporations) does not agree to this, the Chinese authorities disabled access to it back in 2009.

If you try to access a website or open an application while connected through a Chinese Internet provider or mobile operator, automatic blocking will occur. If you turn on VPN on your phone or laptop, the traffic will pass “through” the provider’s channel and it will be impossible to track it, and therefore block the user’s access. As long as you are connected to a VPN, no one will monitor your traffic or restrict access to information.

VPN for Facebook in China is used not only by guests of the country, but also by local businessmen, since through it they conduct sales and communicate with partners from other countries.

How to choose a VPN for Facebook

Until recently, there were many providers, but after the blocking of 2017, there are not many reliable services left in China. However, those who continued to work offer a wide range of options. In 2018, you can access Facebook from China from any of your devices: iPhone and Android mobile phones, tablets, laptops, computers.

There is an option to install a VPN client on your device or use a browser extension if you only need the web version of Facebook and messenger.

Express VPN for Facebook

The choice of those for whom it is important to be in touch in any region, from any device. This is the world leader in the VPN industry, and although its services are more expensive than others, users often choose it for its exceptional reliability and the highest speed of information transfer.

Also check out the features and offers of VPN providers Ivacy and - they work quite well in China, but often the applications have to be configured manually. But their prices are usually lower, and the functions are very interesting.

How to log into Facebook in China from a phone?

It’s easier with laptops; you can try connecting through a browser extension. But viewing the feed and using the messenger from the smartphone screen is not so convenient, so you need to install a VPN client that will manage the traffic. Most VPN services offer traffic splitting: the Facebook application in China will work through the VPN, while others will be launched bypassing it so that work does not slow down.

If you find a free service that promises access to Facebook in China, download an additional paid one; if you don’t need it, you’ll get your money back.

FAQ

Is there an analogue of Facebook in China?

In some ways, the student social network RenRen is an analogue, but there you can only contact students. The pan-Chinese social network with messenger is WeChat, but all messages are monitored and there will be no connection with your friends there.

Is there Facebook in China?

Yes, but only through a VPN connection. Without a VPN, neither the service nor the messenger will open. Everything works with a VPN, and such services have been used by millions of national visitors and local residents for almost 10 years.

Where to download VPN for Facebook in China?

The most reliable way to do this is from official websites; you can go to them from our portal. But what is more important is not where, but when - everything needs to be done before entering the country, then it will be much more difficult, since you will need a VPN connection to download the VPN client. Solvable, but if you think about it in advance, it will be easier.

Block IP addresses associated with Telegram, which was blocked in Russia for refusing to provide encryption keys to the authorities. Millions of entries have been added to the registry of banned sites. The first to be uploaded were the network addresses of Amazon and Google. Later, users noticed problems with the Odnoklassniki social network, Viber messenger and Spotify streaming service. Due to technical reasons, ATMs of various banks do not work from time to time. At the same time, Roskomnadzor does not consider this damage to be significant.

The most famous example of Internet blocking is the Great Firewall of China. Since the 2000s, access to Facebook, Google, YouTube and other well-known resources has been closed in the country. The official reason is the fight against extremism. We talked to Russians from China about how they live in a country with limited Internet access.

The beginning of problems

Alexander Maltsev

editor-in-chief of the online publication about China “Magazeta”

I came to China almost 20 years ago, in 1999. And at that time there were no big problems with the foreign Internet, it just took a very long time for everything to open and hang up compared to Chinese sites. And even now, despite the fact that speeds have changed since then, foreign Internet is much slower than Chinese. Chinese videos load many times faster than foreign ones, even unblocked ones.

In the early 2000s, news appeared about the blocking of popular resources: Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook. And of course, for foreigners living in China, this came as an unpleasant surprise. Other sites were also blocked - for example, those with opposition political topics. Then online proxies began to gain popularity, where you could type in a website address, and it would open in a separate frame. And finally, VPN arrived. VPN in China is a must-have tool that almost every expat living here and some Chinese have.

How does blocking happen?

Currently, almost all major foreign social networks and information resources that are not accountable to the Chinese authorities are blocked in China. Twitter, Facebook - wherever you point, everything is blocked. Many instant messengers are blocked, such as WhatsApp and Telegram. When a resource is blocked, the user is not warned in any way that this site is blocked. The site simply does not respond, and the browser throws an error. You can check empirically or on special websites whether it is available only in your country or throughout China. Naturally, this causes great discomfort, especially for foreigners.

As for the indigenous population of China, their restriction on using foreign sites is not so much in blocking as in the language barrier. Much fewer Chinese speak English compared to Russia. On the other hand, in China their own alternatives very quickly appeared: instead of Wikipedia there are several other similar encyclopedias, the largest of them is Baidu, instead of Facebook there are many different social networks - for example, Renren.com, instead of Twitter - Weibo, instead of the messenger - WeChat. By the way, the latter is a super application that combines a payment system, a social network with a friend feed, and communication.

Therefore, the Chinese themselves are not very tormented by the lack of direct access to foreign sites. For those who want to bypass blocking, this is not difficult. In online stores and marketplaces, such as Taobao, you can type the words “VPN” or 翻墙 (“fan qiang”), which translates as “get over the wall,” into the product search. There are many different applications with VPN and proxies for phones and desktops that allow you to quickly and cheaply bypass all obstacles.

Life with a VPN

Since I am a foreigner in China and work on the Internet, I use a VPN. It practically does not turn off - only in cases when I need, for example, to use Chinese resources, since with the VPN turned on, Chinese resources are bad and slow, and sometimes do not open at all. You won't be able to watch videos on Chinese hosting with a VPN. We also use local analogues: even foreigners actively use WeChat as a messenger and means of payment.

But Telegram is not banned everywhere in China. It all depends on the provider and region. For some it doesn’t work at all, for some only push notifications work, for some only messages are visible and not pictures, for others everything works without problems. Empirically, we noticed that Telegram works better when it is linked to a Russian mobile number.

WeChat has a huge number of channels for expats living and working in China; discussions about which VPN is the best and how to bypass blocking are, of course, popular there. Therefore, foreigners quickly find ways to bypass the Great Firewall of China.

Rules of the "Golden Shield"

Daria Baranikhina

The Chinese Internet is, in principle, not the fastest thing. As far as I know, it is in the second hundred in the ranking of countries by Internet speed. Even if you use sites on Chinese hosting, they will work much slower than, for example, in neighboring Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan.

And the main feature that primarily affects foreigners is blocking. The government program, within the framework of which constant monitoring and blocking of more and more new resources is carried out, is called “Golden Shield”. In English it sounds like Great Firewall. But it is important to understand that this is not a ban, but a blocking. If it were a ban, we would not have the right to use blocked sites. Now we are simply limited by the government in using the site, but not limited in any way in how to bypass it. There are no sanctions for this. Therefore, we freely buy VPN services and VPN accounts and use the sites that we need.

Many resources are blocked: from Google and its services (Calendar, Maps, Gmail) to social networks Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the WhatsApp messenger. There are resources that open in China, but with limited functionality or blocked materials. For example, if we want to find information about June 4, 1989 in Wikipedia, we will be kicked off the page. This is an event that claimed the lives of more than a hundred students who demonstrated in the main square of Beijing. China is trying by hook or by crook to forget about this event. There is even a version that it was for this reason that Google was blocked many years ago.

The Golden Shield rules also apply to Chinese sites. They are not allowed to cite foreign sources without special permission from the Chinese authorities or a special license.

Reasons for blocking

The main version of Facebook blocking is anti-Chinese sentiment in some groups; there are many anti-communist groups that have begun to organize meetings offline. Another reason was the database of Chinese users, which was located outside of China, which did not suit the authorities. Facebook did not agree to transfer the data and was blocked. Another story with Instagram, which was blocked not so long ago, in 2014. A few days earlier, the “umbrella revolution” began in Hong Kong - local residents took to the streets after they were informed about the new electoral reform. Hong Kongers posted videos and photos on Instagram straight from the scene. WhatsApp and Viber are now working for sending text messages. Voice messages, images and videos are not supported.

VPN is the only way to bypass blocking. Services are paid if you need guarantees of stability. Market leaders have a standard price of $60 for six months.

WeChat as a replacement for everything

I moved to China in 2012. Only YouTube, Twitter and Facebook were blocked then. Even Google, which was blocked in 2010, still provided access to services, such as mail on Gmail. Considering that the mail was working, and I didn’t use social networks very actively, I can’t say that I experienced any discomfort when I arrived in China. The discomfort began later, when messengers began to be blocked and the speed slowed down. For example, the same Yandex - it is not blocked, but it works much slower than a regular Chinese site. There are decent Chinese alternatives to search engines, but I and my foreign friends have no particular desire to use them when we need information in English or Russian.

But the Chinese have a huge bow for the messenger. WeChat is something you can’t live without in China, and something you really miss abroad. WeChat combines the best qualities of a messenger, social network and application with video and audio calls. In recent years, WeChat has become a way to pay for any services in China. WeChat Pay works in the mountains, forests and small villages. As a guide, I travel a lot, and I have never had a single case where I was unable to pay with my WeChat wallet. The app is indispensable and is constantly evolving. This is probably an example where the Chinese analogue is ahead of blocked messengers in terms of functionality and convenience. The only problem is that relatives, friends and colleagues from Russia are not on WeChat. There is an inconvenience: WeChat does not work when VPN is enabled. If we want to stay connected with the outside world, then we will not be able to log into WeChat. And vice versa. You need to constantly switch.

Get on Instagram

Marina Yushchenko

English teacher

In China, Internet censorship blocks some sites, I will tell you about the problems that I have encountered from personal experience. Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Odnoklassniki, Twitter, services on the Google platform, YouTube and others do not work. I was without Instagram for the first two days after my arrival, and since I can’t imagine my life without it, I quickly learned from my compatriots how to solve this problem. I just downloaded free applications from the App Store, first it was Betternet, then VPN Master - I still use it now.

For a phone, just download the application and turn it on before accessing prohibited applications. But still, even with a VPN, the speed is very low, but thanks for that. A laptop requires a router with a VPN, I didn’t bother with this, but my compatriots often buy it. If you want to watch a movie at home, some online movie sites may also be unavailable.

Before arriving, I changed my LG Android to an iPhone, and this was not at all because I knew that everything was blocked here, but because I wanted to take high-quality photos, but I am happy with this decision. The guys who come to Google with Androids generally buy new phones to solve the problem of bypassing blocking.

Everyone probably knows about strict Internet censorship in China. Worried about the content of information received by citizens, the leadership of the Celestial Empire came to the conclusion that it was necessary to control its flow. Thus, throughout the country, access to Wikipedia, some Google services, and even Facebook and YouTube is completely or partially blocked.

Naturally, not only the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom, but also its guests suffer from such a ban. Luckily, you can access Facebook in China using a few simple methods.

Method one: anonymizers

In previous articles we have already covered the topic of anonymizers. These servers are used for one purpose - to access sites under fake IP addresses corresponding to being in other countries. This is a good way to hide your location, which most Internet users have already mastered.

In principle, you can use anonymizers in China to access Facebook. But they have two significant drawbacks: they are very slow and very ugly. All these frames and advertisements simply interfere with the free browsing of the social network, leaving an unpleasant aftertaste. Yes, and anonymizers, alas, do not always work. So this method of accessing Facebook definitely cannot be called reliable and convenient. It's better to use other options.

Method two: VPN

A much more convenient way for users to bypass the work of the Golden Shield project (which is what the Great Firewall of China is officially called) is to use a VPN.

What is a VPN? It stands for Virtual Private Net, i.e. virtual private network. Its purpose is to provide the user with access to the Internet, bypassing firewalls. VPN servers that exist today are services that are usually provided on a paid basis. The fee is not very high - $7-10 per month of use. But the list of available servers is quite large. The most popular and reliable of them:

  • HideME,
  • StrongVPN
  • Astrill,
  • 12VPN,
  • WiTopia.

Not all servers operate directly in China, so you need to spend some time to find one that actually works. If you don’t want to understand the capabilities and nuances of VPN on your own, you can simply turn to knowledgeable people. They will quickly set everything up, and there will be no more problems using your favorite Facebook.

Method three: special programs

Finally, there are special programs that allow you to bypass the fundamental Chinese “Golden Shield” just as well as a VPN. These are proxy servers that run on a computer and connect to a remote server, providing users with access to blocked sites. The most popular of them are FreeGate, FreeU24 and DynaPass32.

The advantages of this method are significant - it’s free and very simple. But there is again a big drawback - you won’t be able to download the program in the Middle Kingdom, because... they are blocked. Accordingly, this must be done either before traveling to China, or downloaded from file hosting services. And here there is already a chance of catching some unpleasant virus. So you need to be very careful.

It is worth noting that the all-seeing eye of the “Golden Shield” monitors the work of these programs and blocks them. Therefore, users have to constantly download updated versions of the software, which is also not very convenient.

This way, when you come to China, you can stay in touch with your Facebook friends. Opening a social network is quite possible, although you will have to cheat. If you're visiting for a couple of days, you may not need access to Facebook. Well, if you can’t spend a day without a social network, just use one of the above methods.



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