There was a time when I used to wonder why sovereign states like Russia or China built their own variant of Facebook and Twitter instead of using the original.

There was a time when I used to wonder why sovereign states like Russia or China built their own variant of Facebook and Twitter instead of using the original. I thought that language or cultural barriers prevented those companies from succeeding or that those countries suppressed US companies because they are evil and want to control their population. Today I think I'm more realistic about that. All sides want to control their population (US included), and no one wants foreign countries to access data of their citizens. That's why there's so much redundancy. China would never allow Facebook to succeed in their market and the US wouldn't allow Sina Weibo, Renren or Vkontakte to succeed on their market. The US wouldn't ban those companies outright (like China did), but there would be a media campaign against them and the COMMUNIST THREAT that those companies pose to the minds of our innocent children in the west, which basically would have the same effect.