China is hosting the World Internet Conference. Let’s take a moment for the insanity of that to sink in.

China is hosting the World Internet Conference. Yes, China, which blocks thousands of websites and dozens of social media apps, today opened the World Internet Conference. Let’s take a moment to let that sink in.

In a statement before the conference opened, Lu Wei, the chairman of China’s State Internet Information Office (SIIO), referred to blocked sites such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter by saying, “I never visited these websites before, therefore I don’t know whether they have been shut down.”

Let’s take another moment to let that sink in. So, the head of China’s internet bureau claims not to be aware that the nation has a massive system of online censorship, called the Great Firewall, that blocks a huge array of websites, including the most talked-about sites in the world.

I like to imagine that Mr. Wei watched The Social Network, the movie directed by Aaron Sorkin, and enjoyed the tale of an American man with a penchant for grey T-shirts starting up a fictional website called Facebook.

Tech luminaries in attendance

Although this looks like some kind of bizarro land event that only glad-handing politicians and ambassadors would go to, it’s actually attracted some leading tech execs, such as Facebook’s Vaughan Smith, Apple’s Bruce Sewell, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, and Softbank’s Masayoshi Son. The event likely won’t tackle core problems and outright absurdities in the way China’s authorities lock down the internet, but the name of the game seems to be dialogue. Dialogue that won’t really change anything.

On the plus side, the World Internet Conference brings together a lot of very exciting tech leaders in one venue, in the picturesque, historic Zhejiang “water village” of Wuzhen, including Chinese luminaries such as Alibaba’s Jack Ma, Xiaomi’s Lei Jun, and Qihoo’s Zhou Hongyi.

See: China blocks thousands of non-sensitive sites in brash move to censor a few bad eggsHere are some of the best tweets so far about the World Internet Conference (updated five hours after publishing: added in more Twitter comedy gold at bottom):

Am I the only one who finds World Internet Conference a joke? Shame on web leaders! Just fly to China to shake hands? pic.twitter.com/c1rsOCjNTL

— George Chen (@george_chen) November 19, 2014