March 20th, 2014 , 11:58 am
Many, when they see me responding to comments and personal messages on Facebook from China, ask me perplexed questions - HOW ???
As you know, China is known for its censorship of certain Internet resources.
So, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and some other resources and social networks are banned here at the government level, in addition, Google services work in a rather peculiar way. As for the search, only the Google.com.cn segment works, the issue is replete with hieroglyphs, it is far from always possible to download Google.com.ru. In addition, sometimes Gmail "buggy", completely refusing to load or work on some mobile devices.
What to do if you came to China for some time, and you need these resources by occupation or you simply cannot do without them?
There is an exit.
An ordinary anonymizer or such a thing as a VPN will help you.
Anonymizer will allow you to access sites banned in China from your computer by changing your real IP address.
True, by no means always with the help of an anonymizer you can fully use sites that provide an authorization system (Facebook, Twitter, Gmail). In addition, using the anonymizer you can not use applications on smartphones and tablets.
Then there is only one way out - VPN.
What is this nonsense? In a nutshell, the essence of VPN comes down to the following: you are provided with a VPN server somewhere on the network (respectively, 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 sent to the site. The site responds and passes it on to the VPN server. The server again sends the information to you in encrypted form. In general, this is garbage 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, if necessary, use, for example, Facebook. There are many such programs, before my trip 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 in VPN-Express, 300 MB is provided free of charge, and then for money.
True, 1 GB of traffic costs 66 rubles. Considering that in ordinary life outside of China you are unlikely to need a VPN, the costs are not so great.
Setting up the program is quite clear and simple. Basic settings, at least in iOS, are carried out automatically, you only need to manually click "OK" to confirm the creation of the profile.
Then everything is simple. If you are in a WiFi, 3G or mobile internet and you need to be logged into Facebook, go to " General settings"smartphone, there you see the VPN tab, enter it and move the slider to the "ON" position.
Everything, Facebook has earned))
By the way, LiveJournal, Instagram, Vkontakte, Vatsapp, Viber and everything else works fine on its own.
The Chinese government is pursuing a policy of censoring materials, striving to limit the public's access to world content as much as possible, and prevent them from learning about what is happening in the world. News on Facebook is available to everyone, and the company is not going to somehow differentiate content for different countries, so its service is completely disabled. Most locals do not suffer from this - they have their own analogue of a social network for communication, where materials are controlled and edited by the government, and visitors to the country use VPN.
Analogue of Facebook in China
The replacement is Renren, a social networking service especially popular with students. The interface and functions, in general, are similar to the original, except that you can also listen to music. Many are registered there, but WeChat is increasingly used for communication in 2018. Renren may be needed if you are traveling to study and plan to communicate with local students, otherwise it will not be useful.
How to login to Facebook in China
In general, everything is quite simple, and even not the most experienced Internet user will be able to set up access in just 10-20 minutes. But you need to do this while you are out of the country, as installing a VPN to access Facebook in China from the inside will be much more difficult, although real. A VPN is a service that creates an encrypted "tunnel" inside an Internet connection and leads traffic not to the provider's server, but to its servers outside the country, so blocking does not occur and the site opens.
Facebook in China is blocked only on the mainland, everything works in Macau, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
If you need to access from within the country, you can go to the island part and download the VPN there. Or ask someone for access through their VPN - all guests of the country have it, without it it is simply impossible to conduct business, communicate in social networks, instant messengers, use mail.
Step by step guide on how to use Facebook in China:
If you only need a web service, you can try installing a browser extension:
Sometimes proxies don't work. Or you need to access not only Facebook, but also instant messengers on your laptop. Or maybe you want to use convenient mobile applications, but not mobile version site. All of these cases will require a VPN.
VPN can be installed on any smartphones and tablets running iOS, Android or Windows Mobile, and of course, on laptops with Windows and Mac, and one license can work on 3-6 devices - conveniently and inexpensively.
Best VPNs for Facebook
There are several VPN providers in China. If access to the social network is desirable for you, and not critical, you can try one of the free VPNs, but at some point there may not be access. If you need to solve important issues and always be in touch, we recommend the following 5 services that are absolutely reliable, safe and verified by millions of users.
Worth spending some time and familiarizing yourself with full reviews brands to find the best one for you. Or you can take a quick look at the characteristics of the top three in our China Facebook VPN comparison table.
If you choose one of these services, you don't need an alternative. If others, it is advisable to install two VPNs so that you can get in touch.
All paid services offer either a free trial period or a money back option. You risk nothing if you buy a paid package, but it will work in your region free service, and it will be enough for you, so you will not connect a paid one. Just follow the return conditions - most often you need to either spend no more than the specified amount of traffic, or make no more than a few reconnections.
F.A.Q. about Facebook in China
Does China have Facebook?
See what is meant. There is a local analogue - the Renren network. The original facebook doesn't just work, but you can connect to it using a VPN.Does Facebook work in China?
On the island part it usually works like this, on the mainland it works only through the VPN service.Why is Google and Facebook blocked in China?
This is due to the policy of the ruling party of China and the restriction of access for the Chinese population to world content. Not only these services are blocked, but almost a third of the world's websites are blocked, and another third is being censored.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 network addresses of Amazon and Google were the first to be uploaded. Later, users noticed problems in the Odnoklassniki social network, the Viber messenger and the Spotify streaming service. For technical reasons, ATMs of different banks do not work from time to time. At the same time, Roskomnadzor does not consider this damage significant.
The most famous example of blocking the Internet 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 access in Internet.
Start of problems
Alexander Maltsev
editor-in-chief of the online publication about China "Magazeta"
I ended up in China almost 20 years ago, in 1999. And at that time with a foreign internet big problems it wasn’t, it just took a very long time to open everything, hung compared to Chinese sites. And even now, while the speeds have changed since then, the foreign Internet is much slower than the Chinese one. Chinese videos load many times faster than foreign videos, 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 was 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 drive in the address of the site, and it opened in a separate frame. Finally, there is a VPN. A VPN in China is a must-have tool that almost every expat living here and some Chinese have.
How blocking happens
Now in China, almost all major foreign social networks and information resources that are not accountable to the Chinese authorities are blocked. Twitter, Facebook - wherever you poke, 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 gives an error. Empirically or on special sites, you can check whether it is not available only with you or throughout China. Naturally, this causes great discomfort, especially for foreigners.
As for the indigenous population of China, the restriction for using foreign sites is not so much in blocking as in the language barrier. Much fewer Chinese know English compared to the same Russia. On the other hand, alternatives appeared very quickly in China: instead of Wikipedia, several other similar encyclopedias, the largest of them - 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 tape 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 the blocking, it is not difficult. In online stores and marketplaces, such as Taobao, you can search for products with the words “VPN” or 翻墙 (“fan qiang”), which translates as “get over the wall.” There are many different applications with VPN and proxy for phone and desktop that allow you to quickly and cheaply bypass all obstacles.
Life with a VPN
Since I myself am a foreigner in China and work on the Internet, I use a VPN. It practically does not turn off - only in those cases when I need, for example, to use Chinese resources, because with the VPN turned on, Chinese resources are bad and slow, and sometimes they do not open at all. Watching a video on a Chinese hosting with a VPN will not work. We also use local analogues: even foreigners actively use WeChat as a messenger and a means of payment.
But Telegram is not banned everywhere in China. It all depends on the provider and the region. For some it does not work at all, for some only push notifications work, for some only messages are visible, but pictures do not, for some everything works without problems. Through experience, we have noticed that Telegram works better when it is tied to a Russian mobile number.
There are a huge number of channels on WeChat for expats living and working in China, of course, there are popular discussions about which VPN is the best, how it is more convenient to bypass blocking. 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 in terms of 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 main feature that primarily affects foreigners is the blocking. The state program, which is constantly monitoring and blocking more and more new resources, is called the "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 was 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 ways 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: starting with Google and its services (Calendar, Maps, Gmail) and ending with social Facebook networks, Twitter, Instagram and 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, then we will be thrown out of the page. This is an event that claimed the lives of more than a hundred students who rallied in the main square of Beijing. China by hook or by crook is trying to forget about this event. There is even a version that it was for this reason that Google was blocked many years ago.
Also, the rules of the "Golden Shield" 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 the blocking of Facebook is anti-Chinese sentiment in some groups, many anti-communist groups have started organizing offline meetings. Another reason is 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 from Instagram, which was blocked not so long ago, in 2014. A few days earlier, an "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 directly from the scene. WhatsApp and Viber are now working on sending text messages. Voice messages, images and videos are not supported.
VPN is the only way to bypass blocking. Services are paid if stability guarantees are needed. Market leaders have a standard price of $60 for six months.
WeChat as a replacement for everything
I moved to China in 2012. Then only YouTube, Twitter and Facebook were blocked. Even Google, which was blocked in 2010, still allowed access to services such as Gmail. Considering that the mail worked, and I didn’t use social networks very actively, I can’t say that I experienced at least some discomfort when I arrived in China. Discomfort began later, when they began to block instant messengers and slow down the speed. 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 neither I nor my foreign friends have much desire to use them when they need information in English or Russian.
But for the messenger, the Chinese have a huge bow. WeChat is something you cannot live without in China, and something that is sorely lacking abroad. WeChat combines the best features of a messenger, social network and application with video and audio calls. In recent years, WeChat has become a way to pay for any service in China. WeChat Pay works in the mountains, in the forest and in small villages. As a guide, I travel a lot, and I have not yet had a single case where I could not pay with my WeChat wallet. The application is indispensable, and it is constantly evolving. This is probably an example when the Chinese counterpart is ahead of blocked messengers in terms of functions and convenience. The only problem is that relatives, friends and colleagues from Russia do not sit on WeChat. There is an inconvenience: WeChat does not work when the VPN is on. If we want to stay in touch with the outside world, then we won't be able to log into WeChat. And vice versa. You have to constantly switch.
Get on Instagram
Marina Yushchenko
English teacher
In China, Internet censorship blocks some sites, I will talk about the problems that I 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. Just downloaded free apps in App Store, first it was Betternet, then VPN Master - I still use it now.
For the phone, it is enough to download the application and turn it on before entering the forbidden applications. But still, even with a VPN, the speed is very low, but thanks for that. A laptop needs a VPN router, I didn’t bother with this, but 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 it 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 with androids to Google generally buy new phones to solve the problem of bypassing the locks.
Are you planning to spend your next vacation in China? If you want to stay in touch with friends and family at the same time, then you should know that Facebook blocked in China.
Fortunately there is easy way to bypass this block!
Chinese authorities are censoring blocked facebook after unrest activists in Urumqi used it to contact a network of participants. Currently, the Great Firewall of China prevents citizens and visitors from visiting their favorite social network.
You also need to plan ahead if you want to use other blocked platforms like and. You can use ours to find out which websites the Great Firewall blocks before your plane lands.
The good news is that we can help! Below you will find our simple guide on how to use Facebook in China.
Fast decision
The easiest way to use Facebook in China is install vpn before departure. Many VPN providers have been blocked by the government, so you need to carefully choose a service that works in China.
- Download and Install the VPN App on All Your Devices Before Traveling - NordVPN our #1 choice!
- Connect to a server in the US or another country where Facebook is freely available.
- Enjoy online freedom and shower your friends with selfies and vacation photos!
Why You Need a VPN to Access Facebook from China
Chinese government uses powerful firewall to block websites that are contrary to the ruling party's policies, social values, and content filtering rules. Among the most popular blocked platforms Facebook, YouTube and even Google.
Facebook is full of varied and even controversial political content, but surprisingly, that's not the reason you can't use it in China. Facebook was blocked in that country after a group of political activists opposed to the Chinese president used the social network to spread information among their associates.
So if you're planning a trip to China, you won't be able to log into Facebook, unless, of course, do not use a VPN application to bypass the firewall.
VPN masks your IP address, creating a secure connection between your device and a remote server. Thanks to a VPN, you can easily bypass censorship and geoblocks to enjoy unlimited internet access even in one of the most censored countries in the world.
VPN also encrypts your data that are transmitted over the network to protect you from hackers and government surveillance. This is especially important for Facebook users, as even a small comment ridiculing the Chinese government can land you in serious legal trouble.
What else do you need a VPN for?
VPN services can do more than encrypt your connection and freedom of online access. Below we have compiled a list just a few of the benefits of using a VPN.
You will prevent the government from spying on you
The Chinese government is taking internet surveillance to keep an eye on its citizens and guests of the country. In fact, political commentators have described this system as “ horrendous despotism". The state has also criminalized the spread of online rumors, for which violators receive up to three years in prison.
Online anonymity is vital to your security in China. Thanks to encryption, VPN services will hide your identity if the Chinese government decides to intercept your personal data. However, even in spite of this, you should not leave illegal comments under your real name.
You will get access to geo-blocked websites and streaming services
Most streaming services use geoblocking to restrict access to your content to viewers in certain regions. So it is impossible to follow the events of your favorite series and shows while you are on vacation.
VPN service will help you bypass geo-blocking so you can watch all the new episodes when they first come out. You just need to connect to the server in your home country to get unlimited access to all the series and movies that you look forward to at home.
You can also use your VPN service to access streaming services other regions and countries. Just connect to the server of the country for which the streaming service is created, and you are ready to watch!
You can access other blocked websites
Thanks to a VPN, you will have access to Facebook and any other website that is banned in China, including YouTube, Gmail and even dropbox.
VPN makes it easy for you stay in touch with friends, family and work in China.
To find out more, read our detailed instructions on how to unlock , and in China.
You will not let your personal data fall into the hands of hackers
Cybercriminals are on the hunt for vulnerable and unprotected devices to steal sensitive information such as passwords and bank details. Your network connection especially vulnerable to attacks when you use public hotspots WiFi or WiFi in hotels and cafes.
VPN will encrypt your data, so that hackers cannot “read” them and government structures.
Conclusion
The surest way to access Facebook in China is install vpn to your devices before departure.
VPN preserve your online freedom by masking your IP address and encrypting your sensitive data. You will also be able view geo-blocked content like Netflix from anywhere in the world.
Why is Facebook banned in China?
The Chinese government prefers to control the information that citizens have access to, and requires companies to provide them with the ability to censor the news feed, view user correspondence. Since Facebook (like other corporations) does not do this, the Chinese authorities turned off access to it back in 2009.
If you try to access the site or open the application while connected through a Chinese ISP or mobile operator, the automatic lock will work. If you enable 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 VPN, no one will control your traffic and 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 have 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 phone, 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 VPN, and although its services are more expensive than others, users often choose it for its exceptional reliability and the highest data transfer speed.
Check out the features and offers of VPN providers Ivacy and - they work quite well in China, but often applications have to be configured manually. But their prices are usually lower, and the functions are very interesting.
How to login to facebook in china from phone?
With laptops it's easier, you can try to connect through a browser extension there. 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 traffic. Most VPN services offer traffic splitting: the Facebook app in China will work through the VPN, while others will be launched bypassing so as not to slow down the work.
If you find a free service that promises access to Facebook in China, download an additional and paid one, if you don't need it, you will return the money.
