As I was going back to China, the team mentioned about social networking used to maintain connection during the Easter Vacation. The first thing comes to our mind was using Facebook. However, when I told that Facebook was blocked in China, they were shocked. ‘Then what social networking platform you have?’ this question came next. Actually, not only Facebook, all the products related to Google are not accessible in China, instead, we get chatting software QQ, Wechat to contact with family members, friends and anyone we already know of or familiar with. We get Weibo to link to people we never meet but we interest in or interest in us. What’s more, BaiduTeiba is a good place for us to post our own opinion to the public and get response from every corner. As China has a large population cardinality, the social networking we use ‘internally’ work for enough users’ supporting.

However, China doesn’t block Facebook for no reason. It calls back to July 2009 that Xinjiang independence activists were using Facebook as part of their communications network, which annoyed China government. As we all know, it is not a secret that these internal social networking we use in China like wechat or QQ is not that much ‘privacy’, of course that other users are unable to view our chatting records and pull any information from it, however, to government, it is an exception. We should be careful even in personal talks about not covering any politics topics cause there is actually a monitor over every talking that once the content shows any potential that you are planning or committing a ‘crime’ (at least government thinks so), the police will come and ‘talk’ to you immediately. The most ridiculous part is that people couldn’t even talk about their feelings about politicians. People are not allowed to discuss about the behavior of a politician and to make a comment that their doing is suitable or not. Any topic relating to this will be filtered and disappear after you sending out. Wa o! You can see what a big magic PRC government shows to the public. Comes back to Why Facebook is blocked in China, officially in 20th, August 2013 , after negotiation failed between Google company and china government (PRC government asked Google to filter content as they normally ask social networking to do, but Google refused ) , PRC government took extreme actions.

Actually, Facebook is not only blocked in China.

–North Korea

From April 2016, North Korea starts to block Facebook, for “move underscoring its concern with the spread of online information”. Anyone who tries to access it, even with authorization, will be subject to punishment.

-Tajikistan

In November 2012, Tajikistan blocked access to Facebook in response to comments posted online, spreading “mud and slander” about President Emomalii Rahmon and various other officials.

-Egypt, Malaysia

Facebook was blocked for a few days in Egypt during the 2011 Egyptian protests.

Germany -In July 2011, authorities in Germany began to discuss the prohibition of events organized on Facebook.

-United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom on April 28, 2011, the day before the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, a number of politically motivated Facebook groups and pages were removed or suspended from the website as part of a nationwide crackdown on political activity.

-Iran

After the 2009 election in Iran, the website was banned because of fears that opposition movements were being organized on the website.

-Mauritius

The and Communication Technologies Authority (ICTA) of Mauritius, ordered Internet Service Providers(ISPs) of the country to ban Facebook on immediate effect, on the 8 November 2007 because of a fake profile page of the Prime Minister.

We could see from above that social networking is blocked mostly relating to politic reasons. Some for short term, the others for long term. Behind the behaviour that goverment intervenes into these events, what they really want is to stop ideas which they don’t like from spreading and what they aim to do is to ‘block’ people’s thoughts. However, it is impossible to achieve, noting can be hidden in the dark. What we could do, as a citizen, is to make most of social networking, and take advantage of it in a legal and correct way, not to spread fake news, not over-addicated to it, and set up a good attitude towards it. Always keep in mind that, social networking, is established to motivate the Society, not to be a burden of it.