&gt;&gt;&gt; ... I first attempted to stay in contact with US friends via Facebook Twitter, Instagram, via VPN of course.  But every US service was slow — gmail, google cal were barely working. So half way through, I decided to fully embrace what China has to offer and disappeared from US Social networking sites.<p>A choice?  I think not.  Soft censorship.  The degrading of one communication pathway to shift the target onto another is espionage 101 stuff.