China, the world’s most populous country at 1.3 billion people, has blocked its citizens from accessing Facebook. It doesn’t appear that this will change anytime soon. At a recent social media conference in Hong Kong, Facebook’s North Asia director, Jayne Leung, said the social network currently has no plans to make a move into China.
Meld Magazine Editor Karen Poh posted the news on Twitter, which was picked up by CNET. Leung also said during the conference that of the 955 million users on Facebook, 255 million are from the Asia-Pacific region.
Some social networks do survive China’s firewall — such asQzone (the largest online connector in the country), 51.com, and L99.com. However the major social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, have been blocked. Still, China has been actually called one of the world’s most social countries, with roughly one-half of the population registered for at least one social media site.
Cnet notes that Facebook Co-Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg basically said the same thing as Leung when he visited the country earlier this year. Facebook noted then that there are too many legal issues for the site to be open in China.
The country has also been a hotbed of Facebook application developers, oddly enough.
Readers: Will China allow Facebook at some point?
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source here | 9 Aug 2012
