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

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