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In China, Facebook tests the waters with a stealth app

Blocked in China since 2009, Facebook introduces photo-sharing app, but with a different name

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, fb
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A 2015 picture of Chinese President Xi Jinping (centre) with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Microsoft’s main campus in Washington. Also seen is China’s former internet czar, Lu Wei. (Photo: Reuters)

Paul Mozur | NYT Shanghai
Facebook and many of its apps have been blocked in China for years. To change that, Mark Zuckerberg has made a big point of meeting with Chinese politicians, reading stodgy Communist Party propaganda, studying Mandarin and — perhaps more daunting — speaking it in public.

Now the social network is trying a different way into China: by authorising the release of a new app there that does not carry the Facebook name.

Facebook approved the May debut of a photo-sharing app, called Colorful Balloons, in China, according to a person with knowledge of the company’s plans, who declined to be named because