Getting around blocks on Twitter & Facebook in China

So Twitter is blocked in China. I wasn’t sure it would be. Apparently it comes and goes, as does Facebook. I don’t really have that much to say anyway, but I’m a bit worried about keeping track of what’s happening with the Fused project, and I was relying on it to update Facebook via selective tweets, as that’s the cheapest way of letting the wife know I’m OK and that she should turn her skype on so we can chat.

In the absence of a proxy server, I have cobbled together my own little hack around the road block:

To send tweets:

I can’t see my Posterous, but I can post to it via email. Anything I send to post@posterous.com gets autotweeted to Twitter. The subject line becomes the tweet (including a link to a blog post with further information, including pictures – so I can twit pic if I want to)

To update facebook:

Simply add #fb to the subject line of the emails I’m sending to posterous

To check for @replies:

I can use http://davepress.org.uk/searchhash/searchhash.php to search for any mention of my username

It ain’t ideal, but I don’t really need a lot of social media while I’m out here. I won’t have that much to say as I’m mostly in meetings, and not long to chat to people so I won’t be trawling the streams to find cool stuff to chat about. That said, this little work around may be useful for some people who find themselves out here and cut off.

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