Twitter has appointed a managing director for China despite still being banned in the mainland.
CEO Jack Dorsey announced Kathy Chen’s appointment in a tweet on Friday. Chen thanked Dorsey in her first series of tweets — she’s now up to seven.
Twitter gave no details about her role, or career history, and didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a video posted on Twitter’s official Greater China account, @TwitterGCN, which launched Friday, Chen said: “I’m really excited to find more ways to create value for our advertisers.”
The company opened an office in Hong Kong in March 2015 in a bid to compete with Facebook and others for China’s advertising dollars.
“Twitter is the best way to give live updates of your products & services, and share Chinese content in real-time, with a global audience,” Chen tweeted.
China’s censors — dubbed the “Great Firewall” — have long blocked access to what they deem as sensitive Internet content, including political commentary, foreign news outlets and sites such as Google. Access to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are also blocked in China.
Instead, China has launched its own versions of similar sites, such as online video site Youku and microblog site Weibo.