I’m going to China soon for a solo vacation. I was wondering if I could use my social media while in the country. I’ve heard from a friend who went to a romance tour in China that all their social media platforms were blocked. Is this actually true?


I’ll mainly be staying in Beijing, but I’d be spending some time in the province too. I don’t really mind if I can’t use my social media account, I just want to know if that’s really not allowed since I might be updating my friends and family of what I’m up to.


Most of the time I’ll be using Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram. I also have other messaging tools like Viber and WhatsApp. I just want to know what other apps or sites are blocked in China just so I can prepare alternatives in case I really need it. It would be really nice if you guys could give me answers. Thanks.

On three trips to. Hina, I could never open Facebook or, even worse, Google. You can get around it with a VPN.

It's google and seem to bing too. You can only Chinese search enngine - Baidu to search with alot of chinese words. The only way for travelers to use internet in China is "renting" VPN with few bucks

Here's a recent thread on the issue:
Visit To China

We did a decent few trips in China, and could not use FB anywhere. What was the worst was I could not use any Google product; including my gmail account; so no emails. No Google search engine etc etc. THis was most annoying and thats when I realized how hooked I was to Google

I did get a VPN service before I went there, and it did work, but it was painfully slow. and not always reliable.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for all the replies. I really appreciate it. I'm gonna get a VPN even before I travel in preparation. Thanks again.

If you roam on a foreign SIM then you can access everything.
Bing is a good substitute to Google search. Among the Google products, Google translate works fine.

Duckduckgo is a better substitute for Google search, it respects privacy. I pay for my main email account, I only use Google for maps and occasionally translate.

I have used Witopia's VPN for several years. I would not access my financial data on wifi networks without it.

Please note that the Chinese government has just re-announced its intention of blocking all foreign VPNs from March 1. (Businesses wishing to have access to the vast amounts of data blocked by the Great Firewall will have to install a dedicated line, bought from the people who will, of course, be able to monitor it themselves.)

What a repressive government!!!!

Anyone who gets around "the system", whether or VPN or other device, should still beware, not to utter certain "trigger words", such as "Dalai Lama", "Falun Gong",
"Tianamen Square", or the like, unless one really enjoys chatting with the secret police for a couple days.

is it so? I am from nepal and i am also planning to visit china in near future

Yes it is true, no Facebook and the worst thing is not having Google!

Funny, I manage to live quite happily without Google. Aside from Google maps, that is. Try duckduckgo.

You can't use social media sites in China.

Of course you can. Only some foreign ones are blocked.

Can you read and write chinese characters? If not, sorry.

Why? Don't you use Wechat? No Chinese required. In China nearly everybody can read and write Chinese.

my travel agent told me to install vpn before entering China. Once there should not use in public.

Yeah, you're right. I just doubled checked.

Hold on. I was in China in September and used fb where we were, Beijing and Xian with no issues. I sent and received texts and emails too. I did not use a VPN. I have Verizon and paid about $10.00 per day for calls, text and data as per my plan in the US.