In an attempt to circumvent China's great firewall that has banned the use of Facebook, the team at the social media giant has launched an app that mimics its Facebook Moments - all but without the Facebook branding.

Similar to Facebook's Moments

According to the New York Times (NYT), the stealth app, known as Colourful Balloons, was released in May through a separate local company, the Youge Internet Technology, which had no signs of affiliation to Facebook.

Colourful Balloons now boasts a function and feel akin to Facebook Moments, and works very similarly to China's social messaging platform WeChat's Moments:

Learning more about the Chinese market

As pointed out in the NYT report, the low-profile launch of Colourful Balloons gives Facebook a way to see how Chinese users digitally share information with their friends or interact with their favourite social media platforms.

For that purpose, Facebook has tailored the app to a local audience. Colorful Balloons links users through China's biggest social network, WeChat, unlike the rest of the world, where users of Moments app connect through Facebook.

Facebook has also taken steps to ensure that the app would not spread widely. Currently, the app can only be downloaded by users seeking it out in the app store or by an invitation sent from a friend.

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"Unprecedented" move

After the full ban of Facebook in 2009 and the partial ban of WhatsApp in July this year, CEO Mark Zuckerburg has been finding ways to reintroduce its social media products to the 700 million active technology users in China.

Sources told NYT that the "unprecedented" move reflected the "frustrations and desperations" of global tech companies hoping to break into the world's largest online market, even at the expense of accepting China's internationally different standards of operations.

It is still unclear whether China's various internet regulators are aware of the app's existence and business background. If exposed, Facebook could expect new difficulties with the Chinese government and its strict regulations.

Top image via here