China to lift ban on Facebook, Twitter, NYT within Shanghai free-trade zone

That's the total number of users. This is very specific to the Free-Trade-Zone which, at present, is in the process of being populated by businesses. I don't know if residences will increase there, but this seems to be more of a calculated move to allow Chinese companies more freedom to work outside their borders and to allow external investment in China; not necessarily to allow ordinary Chinese citizens greater freedom to access information.

marme• 13 years ago

not very many as the free trade is mostly unpopulated and mostly filled with construction sites and no residential buildings. Maybe after more companies move their offices there you will see more users. But they will all only be able to access facebook only from their office so it is not like there will be that much new traffic to these sites

chrischen• 13 years ago

And when the companies move there, they'll just end up blocking facebook anyways to increase employee productivity!

paulgerhardt• 13 years ago

The Shanghai Free-Trade Zone comprises about 2% of Shanghai's Pudong district or less than 0.5% of the greater Shanghai area. Other reports[1] from the SCMP indicate the government may want to make the entire Pudong district a free trade zone if things develop smoothly.

Pudong is home to most of Shanghai's finance industry. The FTZ however is centered on the Yangshan Deep Water Port. (Map of the FTZ [2], yellow neighborhoods) The loosening of Internet restrictions around a port gives credibility to the idea that Pudong in general will see more developments like this to come. This is significant because those initiating the plans to expand the FTZ in Shanghai have faced the strongest resistance from China's finance and banking regulators[3]. Most banks in China can not engage in international commerce directly so outside investments usually entail setting up a complex JV with a China based company with terms that strongly favor the embedded players.

What's interesting to see here is the government is using the opening up of Internet restrictions as a carrot in part of a larger play to promote economic growth while the opposition is coming from the entrenched players in an industry which otherwise stands to make huge gains by introducing more competition. Framed like that, the situation is very analogous to American cell phone carriers with regards to spectrum control.

[1] http://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/1303462...

[2] http://www.waigaoqiao.gov.cn/SysAdmin/upfiles/2006-4-27/6328...

[3] http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1282793/li-fought-str...

nodata• 13 years ago

Interesting - but I have to ask, what's with the italics?

r0h1n• 13 years ago

I almost missed them, but now that you've pointed it out I can't not notice it.

Maybe the port isn't really a port, but the nerve center of China's secret Internet resistance? Which is why it's resistance and not resistance.

Sorry, couldn't resist it :-)

antocv2• 13 years ago

These countries, Iran and China probably knew that Facebook is a huge spying machine and kept their citizens safe.

kshatrea• 13 years ago

<snark>

More like, they didn't want any competition with the government. </snark>

wisty• 13 years ago

Ma Huateng (Tencent's CEO, aka the boss of QQ) isn't the government. He's just married to the daughter of a very prominent party member. But ... I can't remember who. (It's either Wen, or Hu - one of the former big two). And it's not on the front page of Google (black hat SEO?).

songco• 13 years ago

No, they don't want their citizens to use any web site support user-generated content and not under "control", especially some big ones: twitter, facebook, wordpress, blogspot, and google(you can access google service, but you will meet connection reset frequently)....

antocv2• 13 years ago

How often do you use non-USA, non-NATO services?

Can you name 1 that has as influence in your life as Twitter, Facebook, Google or Apple?

Why? Maybe its because USA/Western people dont have trust in companies from Brazil, Russia China?

Its not because they dont exist, Orkut was ahead of its time, vkontakte has all that facebook has and pirated music on top of it, maybe its just that you are steered into USA controlled "content" just like Iran, Chinese citizens are steered towards baidu or whatever.

MichaelTieso2• 13 years ago

Makes no sense considering the government itself spies on their citizens. At least with QQ, the government can control its content and see what everyone is talking about.

charlesju• 13 years ago

I don't think that Chinese officials necessarily want to block FB just because of privacy issues. I believe what they want is three-fold:

1. By blocking big internet companies in the USA it gives homegrown companies an opportunity to rise to spur economic growth and create jobs.

2. Having homegrown solutions that compete directly with US companies is good for the Chinese morale and public image of the government. Showing that they too are capable of creating and running large internet companies that will drive economic growth in the next century.

3. In case of emergency China entities are a lot easier to control the outflow of information. Whereas I feel getting FB or Google to block something might be more of a nuisance. However, while this is the most popular reason why the government has blocked FB and Google (it's fun to vilify governments in general), I believe that in case of emergency they would just shut these sites down, so I believe explanations 1 and 2 are ultimately the bigger impact in this decision.

bcaulf• 13 years ago

It's remarkable that this comment would have been seen as trolling a month ago and today it is perfectly realistic.

kezz2• 13 years ago

Great! Finally China can be as shallow and self-centered as the west. Can't wait to see chinese people posing with their friends "having fun" or pretending to eat sushi for that extra cultural and intellectual status.

ryanmerket• 13 years ago

You know they already have social networks, right?

MichaelTieso2• 13 years ago

"eating sushi"? - wrong country...

kezz2• 13 years ago

Eating sushi because it's not local, ie. exotic. Since facebook was introduced it's one of the ways to promote yourself and your supposed extraordinary lifestyle online.

apostate• 13 years ago

Take a trip to China and you will find just as much self-centered behavior as anywhere else, especially if you want to see the concepts of "standing in line" and "right-of-way" challenged.

lvryc• 13 years ago

Some context: I don't actually know how useful this will be. Most foreign companies already use VPNs to Hong Kong or the US. Almost all the expatriates I know have personal VPNs set up as well. Astrill (https://www.astrill.com/) is the name I've been hearing nowadays.

I also discovered recently that more tech-savvy locals can also buy ways to jump the "Great Firewall" ridiculously easily - even right off of Taobao, which is the Chinese version ebay. (If you're interested, just search for "IP代理." I think it's about 8-15 RMB a month?)

This free-trade zone is tiny, and in the middle of nowhere. [Edit: things may be different if it's by Shanghai's port; I wasn't aware of that.] The most potentially exciting part about this news is that the government is thinking about extending this relaxation to all of Pudong, which is home to Shanghai's new financial and business district. Pudong effectively the CBD of Shanghai, but otherwise essentially is like the south side of London's Thames: most people live on the other side of the river, where the culture, excitement and history is. In other words, the vast majority of Shanghai's 20 million residents still won't be able to access Facebook... which is why this isn't half as big of a deal as it appears. Then again, I suppose it is exciting that there will now be a portion of mainland China where the government is actively letting people access Facebook.

jcampbell1• 13 years ago

The GFW isn't as big a problem as the shitty broadband in China. $50,000 USD/month buys the equivalent of a $99/month Time Warner business connection. The GFW is a problem because every router in the country is doing filtering and dropping connections, causing high latency and making broadband very expensive.

I agree that this means little for Facebook or Twitter, but it likely means that in a few years multi-nationals will actually have usable video-conferencing and internet connectivity that works and doesn't cost a significant fraction of each employee's salary.

schuke• 13 years ago

Symbolically it could mean a lot. Imagine a tiny part of the US where gun ownership is completely banned. How would the Republicans react to that? I still doubt if the leftists in China would really let this happen.

stefan_kendall• 13 years ago

You mean like Washington DC? Plebeians are unarmed, and every political stooge is surrounded by armed guards with automatic weapons.

mccr8• 13 years ago

Gun ownership is not completely banned in DC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_District_of_Col...

rwmj• 13 years ago

So if someone ran a proxy within the FTZ, everyone could proxy through that out to the free world?

chj• 13 years ago

It might be a good place for companies like Amazon to set up a data center there.

outside1234• 13 years ago

Azure is already in Shanghai and inside of the firewall.

China to lift ban on Facebook, Twitter, NYT within Shanghai free-trade zone

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