China lifts Facebook ban ... a bit?

According to the South China Morning Post, the Chinese government has decided to lift a ban on foreign websites deemed politically sensitive, albeit only within the newly developed Shanghai Free Trade Zone. 

 The Free Trade Zone launches on Sunday and is intended to serve as a testing ground for financial and service sector reforms, including increased access to the tightly-controlled yuan.

Should Beijing deem the experiment a success over the long run, some of the policies could be implemented in other parts of China.

Currently, Facebook and Twitter are among websites that remain blocked by the government's censorship system, casually referred to as the Great Firewall of China. Attempts to access Facebook result in an error message: "Network Timeout."