Is Facebook Getting Ready to Climb the Great Firewall?
By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2010-12-27 19:40:56 | Word Count: 664
China has long been censoring the information their citizens receive, and Facebook is no exception. Even though China has a huge number of internet users, over a billion for that single country, none of them have updated their status, tagged a photo, checked in, or played Farmville.
That is a problem Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg may tackle in the coming years. He said in a recent speech he gave at Stanford University, “How can you connect the whole world if you leave out a billion people? Our theory is that if we can show that we as a western company can succeed in a place where no other country has, then we can start to figure out the right partnerships we would need to succeed in China on our terms.”
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Zuckerberg is currently on vacation in China with his girlfriend, Priscilla Chan. While there, he was seen with Robin Li, who is the head of Baidu (which is the most popular Chinese search engine). Could the two have been talking about bringing Facebook to China?
Possibly, but don’t expect it to happen any time soon. China already has two Facebook imitators, who’s combined total users add up to 230 million – nowhere near Facebook’s user base, however they are just one country.
Li has faced a huge amount of criticism on everything from copyright piracy to his stance on censorship. Despite all that, he has managed to make Baidu the Google of China. So, is Zuckerberg’s visit with Li an indication that Baidu is trying to bring Facebook to China? It’s hard telling. And if it truly was, they’d be smart to say it wasn’t, because of the firestorm that would surely follow such a blatant statement that the Chinese government would surely be up in arms about.
Some people have said if Zuckerberg wants to scale China’s censorship program, deemed the Great Firewall, he will have to do it on their terms, and abide by their laws – something Zuckerberg isn’t used to. The internet trailblazer tends to make his own rules, which is probably why Facebook hasn’t come to China just yet.
If Zuckerberg is successful, he will have to operate within the Great Firewall, which will probably mean the Facebook that Chinese users view won’t be the same as the Facebook the rest of the world sees.
Zuckerberg hinted that he wanted to tackle countries like Russia, Japan and South Korea before bringing his focus directly to China.
Striking a deal that will benefit Facebook but also abide by China’s strict censorship rules will be difficult, and darn near impossible. Will Chinese internet users ever get to use Facebook? Maybe, but most likely it wouldn’t be an unfettered version of the social media network.
