Dive brief: 

• The Chinese government may be lifting the Internet firewall that blocks major foreign sites like Facebook and Twitter, but only in a small, specified location in Shanghai. 
• The new area would be specified as a free-trade zone and would cover about 18 square kilometers in the city's Pudong district. This area includes the international airport and the effort is meant to be more welcoming to foreigners. 
• The news was broke by the South China Morning Post as an exclusive, but hasn't been confirmed with any other sources. 

Dive insight: 

The absence of popular sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google in China have given rise to domestic internet brands like Tencent's QQ instant messaging service and WeChat. A free-trade zone is a small area, but the possibilities of reaching the country with the world's largest population could be very appealing to foreign Internet brands. There is already some accessing of banned sites through VPN networks, but the free-trade zone would open another small window into the Chinese market.