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There's always a loophole to that. The Chinese use proxy sites to access Facebook, so no worries.
Apart from air pollution, Beijing and much of Northern China are also suffering from increasing desertification too. Winds and sands from the Gobi have made quick inroads into the city limits, with occasional dust storms.
Regarding proxy servers, some people do that but many don't. My wife's family is all back there, and none of them do- they just resign themselves to the fact that they have no access to Facebook (Youtube is also blocked, by the way). And the Chinese media/government has downplayed Facebook so much that when my wife asks them if they use facebook for their business or personal stuff, they act as if it's some unknown site that has no real use, sort of a "why would I use that?" reaction.
And not regarding your post but just as a general response to the OP, I was there briefly last year (just for a a day and a half during a layover on the way to Guangzhou) and my impression was that it truly is a run down, dirty, dull looking place. Even when you fly in across the city it just looks like a 3rd world city with some modern buildings mixed in. Maybe I'm a bit of a "developed world" snob in that regard, I see all the cities in China like this, there are some modern parts of course but so many of them are just so depressing in how run down so much of them are, or how spartan so many buildings and homes are- but Beijing was much worse in this regard from what little I saw.
And regarding air pollution, we sure got to experience that. They had some fog that set in when we landed that was mixed with heavy, heavy air pollution to the point of not even being able to see the planes on the taxiway from the windows at the gate. At first we thought it was just fog, but as we went down to the ticketing area people were coming and going in/out of the terminal and whenever the doors would open this strong, nasty odor would flood in that actually irritated our throats enough to make us cough and make our eyes water each time. I had never seen anything like it, just absolutely disgusting.
And the Chinese media/government has downplayed Facebook so much that when my wife asks them if they use facebook for their business or personal stuff, they act as if it's some unknown site that has no real use, sort of a "why would I use that?" reaction.
China has its own version of Facebook (Weibo etc.), Youtube (youku, todou), and even Google (Baidu).
Since 99% Chinese are not fluent in English, why would they be interested in American products, if there are some substitutes in China?
Some smaller countries do not have such big virtual social networks as China does, and thus they rely on American products.
90% Chinese do not have any relatives living overseas either, so a "global" social network is truly useless to them.
FYI: Facebook etc. do collect your personal information and use your personal information for profit. That is why I do not use FB at all, even though I live in the US and work in IT.
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