I’ve been in Beijing and Shanghai for nearly 10 days with the ASAE (American Society of Association Executives) Study Mission to China.  We had meetings with several government departments where we were repeatedly told there was no access to the three prominent Western social media sites.

 

Yet I noticed that there were so many inconsistencies with this censorship.  I’m not sure if this is because the government is being a bit lackadaisical (improbable) or because technology is developing so fast, that to cope with the rapid change you need the resources, know-how and commitment that perhaps not even the Chinese government can cope with anymore.

 

Let’s start with Facebook, since that’s the one I’m most hooked on.

 

The only consistency I noticed is that on all the wifi/broadband networks I logged on, I was unable to get onto Facebook.

 

Yet, you can work around that for you can post comments and photos on to Facebook and respond to them via email (if you have FB setup for that).

 

Where you really start noticing the cracks in the Great Firewall of China is when it comes to the various apps that exist out there to access Facebook.  On my iPhone where I use the official FB app, I was able to receive all notifications, yet I was not able to post things if connected by wifi.  All my American counterparts were able to access the FB app fully via their mobile phones when roaming on 3G.  And I’m talking full access with no censorship.

 

The same was true for Twitter.

 

It was only a few weeks ago that Flipboard announced that they were having trouble in China, where suddenly Facebook and Google Reader didn’t seem to work on their app.  That was quickly followed by a complete ban of Flipboard.

 

Given all this, it seems that data roaming via 3G is the way to go for Facebook and Twitter.  I just hope you have good international data roaming packages so as to not break your bank!

 

Technology is getting harder and harder to control (and with that censor) due to the rapid development of the multitude of mobile sites and apps through which you can access the various social media.  It’s not just censoring the Facebook website, but you also have to control Friendly, Flipboard, My Pad +, Pulse, Reeder and the likes.

 

Moreover, you also have to control internet access through broadband, 3G, VPN.

 

The ever increasing complexity that censorship entails is evident.  Perhaps even for the Chinese government, this cat and mouse game is becoming a bit too tricky!