Commenting on a Chinese app called Tuber that has begun allowing limited and heavily censored access to some US social media sites that are normally blocked on the mainland, SMU Associate Professor of Law Henry Gao said the introduction of the app “might signal that the Chinese government is now reconsidering its approaches to internet blocking”. “There's a good chance that this app is sanctioned by the Chinese government, said Assoc Prof Gao, speaking on Friday at a webinar on Chinese social media sponsored by Georgetown University Law Centre’s Institute for Technology Law & Policy. “Maybe the positive side effect of TikTok and WeChat ban is that the Chinese government now realises that bans do not work. If they started to ban other people, the other people would also ban them, maybe they will start to loosen up and then maybe we will end up in a better world,” he added.