- Why are Google, Facebook, and YouTube blocked in China?
We'll tell you why.
(innovative pop music)
So Google, Facebook, YouTube:
websites that we use every day.
Do you know that you actually cannot
access those sites in China?
What? Yes.
When I went to China for a long time,
very first time,
I couldn't log into my Gmail account.
I couldn't log onto my Facebook.
I couldn't watch any YouTube videos.
I'm like, this is outrageous.
So I had to do something,
kind of bypass that quote-unquote firewall,
so I could access my usual business
and kind of the things like that.
So why is that?
Why do they block all these sites?
Isn't it supposed to be international?
- Well, absolutely.
I don't think there's any
technology companies out there
that wouldn't want to be in China.
I mean, after all, it's gonna be one
of the biggest markets in the world, right?
The only issue is,
whenever you launch something like this in China,
the government wants a piece of it.
Now, what do they actually want?
They want the information.
They want the big data, so to speak, right?
You've got Google, googling different things.
You've got Facebook, you know,
people sharing very personal stuff, right?
And then you've got YouTube, you know,
a variety of video that people are searching on.
The Chinese Government,
they wanted to get all that information.
They just want that intel.
- They want the intel,
they want to know what people are thinking,
they want to know what they're doing.
Kind of, almost monitoring and controlling.
- Exactly, right.
And it could be too,
in one way to see it,
as defending and protecting the government.
They want to know if there's
something being planned or something's going on,
if there's a movement happening and building up,
they want to know all those things, right?
And with Google, Facebook and YouTube,
these are all western companies,
they're not used to having to be censored.
- Yes.
- There's not used to sharing all their
secrets or sharing all this stuff
to a government of a country, right?
So when they declined that request,
the easiest thing--
- They tend to,
when they want to expand to certain countries,
well, they just expand to those countries.
They can't expect no, China.
We're not letting you in.
They just,
"What do you mean don't let me in?"
Anybody can search Google,
anybody can go Internet Highway, right?
Anybody can go on this information highway.
- Yeah.
- But the government's like,
"No, we're gonna stop that.
"No information gets in and gets out."
- And they don't joke around, you know?
When they tell you that you're gonna be blocked,
you're blocked almost instantly.
Within like a day or two,
all of the sudden, you don't get it.
- Isn't it true that recently
WhatsApp also got blocked?
- Yeah, and I think Jennie can share
a little bit more about that, too.
- Yeah, I just saw the news last night,
WhatsApp just got--
- Like, just, got blocked.
Like no more WhatsApp.
- Just because WhatsApp doesn't want to share
all the private information--
- Private data of the user, right?
- Yes.
- Well, WhatsApp takes pride into
end-to-end encryptions,
so that means anything as soon as you press enter,
that information is encrypted, right?
- Yeah.
- Until it gets to the receiving end.
So that means even WhatsApp does not have--
there's a certain level of protection
that even WhatsApp doesn't have access to.
- Yes, but also I think in China,
in China we have only equivalent of
all these other platforms.
So you have Google, right?
Which is Baidu right?
And then you have YouTube,
which is Youku in China.
And then you also have,
well, your Facebook is kind of like
Weibo and WeChat of course, right?
- Yes.
- So, WeChat's not being blocked, right?
- Oh, obviously it's not gonna be blocked.
It's almost got a billion active users, right?
Very little people know,
but it's actually the third most-used platform in the world.
So after Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp,
third place is actually WeChat
and very very few people know that
outside of China
but it's grown to a billion users
in just about six years' time.
- Yeah.
- So, the growth has been phenomenal, right?
And because the app was created in China,
they knew what they were gonna come up against.
They knew that at some point,
the government's gonna want that data,
so they were prepared and they anticipated
all this and they have a relationship
with the government obviously
so they are sharing information
with the Chinese government
and that also allows them to operate in China.
- Yeah and also you can think about with WeChat,
it's a platform that government kind of
encourages the people to use, right?
And it has many more features,
so it's not just an app, communication.
It's like Facebook slash--
- Whatsapp?
- Apple Pay and all of these things.
So now if you don't know much about WeChat
and WeChat marketing, how this platform works,
you can click on the "i" button
and just watch all the Decode China videos
a learn a little bit more about WeChat.
I'll also talk about the Great firewall of China.
Like, what is it and how does that work?
It's basically what's blocking these
platforms from going into China, right?
- [Victoria] Right, so if you're planning to visit China,
you want to know what's blocked and what's not blocked,
you can go Great Firewall of China
and that will show you all the
technology that is not accessible in China.
So you can plan ahead of time.
You can set up your notification notice in your Gmail,
knowing that you won't be able to access Google there,
you know that you shouldn't be using
Whatsapp anymore once you get to China at this point.
- Yeah.
- So you want to prepare yourself so that
your phone has all the apps that you will have access to,
and also let your friends and family know as well.
- Now for someone who are going to China,
who are staying in China for a period of time,
kind of like where I was,
then if I do want to access my Google,
my YouTube,
is there a way I could do that?
- Yeah, people have actually used VPN.
- VPN? What is VPN?
- VPN's kind of like a software,
it means installed software into your phone,
so it will have a fake IP address.
- So this is a new IP address outside of China?
- Yeah, so you'll have a U.S. address
or even Australia address,
so you can also use the Internet,
kind of like where you are in the country.
- Yeah so, it's kind of like--
I'm not a techie.
I'm sure you can watch some YouTube videos
on exactly how to do that,
but basically you're kind of,
going over, going around the firewall.
- Rerouting so that it doesn't recognize
that's there's some outside chatter.
- Yeah, cause if you're staying there
for a long period of time,
no access to YouTube,
no access to Facebook,
no access to your Google account,
there might be a problem, right?
So that's why Google, Facebook and YouTube
are blocked in China.
Now if you have any questions,
comment below or maybe share with us
your experience when you're in China
cause some people have never been to China.
They say, "No way they are blocking this thing."
Trust me, the minute I arrive to the airport,
all your stuff stops working.
It's kind of interesting cause you can't access it.
It drove me crazy at least, right?
If you have any other questions
or maybe any other topics
that you want us to comment on,
or to make a video about,
you can also comment below.
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I'll see you next time.