Too big to ban?

Living behind the Great Firewall, and with Australia planning a Ruddywall of it’s own, I have begun to wonder, are there websites that are simply too big to ban?

Take Facebook for example. First China bans YouTube – annoying, but you can get video content from many places. Twitter is still young, with fewer users here – but Facebook is a giant.

The thing is, you’ve always been able to punch through the Great Firewall using the software originally designed to secure corporate private networks (VPNs). But the average apolitical Joe previously had no need for one (myself included). But like how the anti-Napster ruling helped educate people that you can download music for free, the Facebook ban may educate people that you can visit banned sites. By banning something people have been using on a daily basis (dare I say, addicted too), you educate these users that the firewall exists, and encourage these users to seek ways to get around the ban, which then makes them educated on how to do this. Once you setup your VPN for example, now nothing is banned. All for the sake of Facebook…

So I think it is probably a mistake to ban high-profile sites with millions of users.