Facebook, Inc. has announced that its Android App will now come with Tor network support, allowing users to access the social networking service in countries where it is currently unavailable… and by that they mean China.

The new version of the Facebook app, which will be available to all users who don’t have an Apple logo on their phones or the five sad people using Windows Mobile devices, will offer what the company describes as “experimental support” for using Facebook over Tor via the Orbot proxy app for Android devices.

“We’re releasing this feature over the next few days to seek feedback which will help us create a great experience for using Facebook over Tor on Android,” the company said in its announcement post.

The move to support the Tor network, a system that allows users to connect to websites anonymously and bypass attempts by countries to block sites within their borders, but is probably better known for being the main access point to the Dark web, isn’t a new one for Facebook, with the social networking giant launching a version of its site on the network in 2014.

Despite still being relatively unknown by most people online, the Facebook Onion page (dot onion is the extension given to pages on the Tor network) has actually been fairly successful, with Facebook noting that a “sizeable community of people has grown to use this feature and help us make it more efficient and reliable.”

FU China

While Facebook won’t actually say it, there’s absolutely no question that their decision to add Tor support to their Android app is a serious FU to China given the Middle Kingdom blocks its 1.357 billion people from accessing the site.

Ostensibly China blocks Facebook due to the fact that it allows users to spread news that it doesn’t like, and unlike local social networking platforms such as WeChat and Weibo, isn’t hosted in China itself, so it’s difficult for their censorship regime to police, and “manage” (delete) content that appears on the service they don’t like.

As Patrick Wallace, a writer who’s spent more than a decade living in China, explains on Quora:

The government alleged that these social networking platforms were being used to coordinate protests in Xinjiang, and to spread rumors harmful to the state. In reality, these social networking platforms were being used by a small handful of people to help get out news and photos to the West regarding the riots and the Chinese government’s poor handling of the situation…

A sure precondition for lifting the blockage would be to allow the Chinese government to censor content on these platforms, and have access to user information. For awhile, there were indications that Facebook was conducive to allowing the Chinese government such access and control, but there was strong pushback from Facebook users, and Facebook consequently pretty much abandoned plans to expand into the Chinese market.

It’s a bold move by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, given that he has been trying to suck up to the Chinese Government for years in an attempt to allow Facebook to legally be available in China, to the point (and we’re not making this up) that he asked the Chinese President to name his first born child.

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