In China, most people don't use facebook, twitter or youtube because we are not able to do so, unless you can find a proxy which has the circumvention technology... Actually, there are lots of people in China complaining about it since it seems to harm the people's freedom of speaking and limit citizens' access to other parts of the world. And we can hear from many other channels like BBC saying that "China has a history of blocking websites which carry messages it views as politically unacceptable."
I can't say that it is totally wrong. But I think it is not telling the whole truth.
1, In China, although we don't have facebook, twitter, youtube, etc, we have Tecent, Sina MicroBlog, WeChat, RenRen, Baidu Post Bar, Tianya Lite, Douban, Youku, Tudou and so many other social media platforms. They also work well: they help make citizens' voice heard by the public and influence government. Chinese people are more and more open to comment on the government. And we can know what happens around the world whenever and wherever possible.
2, Social media is a good source for government and citizens to have interaction and communication. But we have to admit at the same time that in China, we haven't reached that perfect time to open the door thoroughly and totally. We have a huge population, while a substantial percentage of them are not well educated. And some yong cynic are not matural enough to look at issues objectively and may not use social media properly. We still need a running-in period. The process has to be soft and gradually. Chinese government is reforming and changing, and I think social media will have more power and make big progress in the near future.
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