The Chinese government Wednesday announced it has decided to lift a ban on foreign websites deemed politically sensitive.
The lift on the ban is not universal, though, and is only in effect within the new Shanghai Free Trade Zone.
The zone, a 17-square-mile-area in Shanghai, will be able to access Facebook, The New York Times, Twitter and more.
The free trade zone launches Sunday, and will serve as a testing ground for reforms within financial and service sectors. Should Beijing deem the experiment a success over the long run, some of the policies could be implemented in other parts of China.
Facebook and Twitter are among websites still blocked by the "Great Firewall of China," and attempts to access the sites result in an error message.
Chinese citizens have long been finding ways around the censors, though. Between 2009 and 2012, the number of Chinese secretly on Facebook grew from 8 million to 63 million. Twitter users jumped from 12 million to 35 million.
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