Another day, and another incorrigible attempt by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to woo China into admitting the social media platform through its closely guarded online gates.
Zuck has tried to do so many things to woo China that he is now a joke in the PRC, being called the founder of “404 not found”, alluding to the fact that Facebook in China is like the error that your browser throws up when a site cannot be found on the web.
Facebook’s sugarcoated assaults on the Great Firewall of China have, so far, had zero effect on the Chinese government, although Chinese officials are bound to be enjoying a good snigger at his expense every time Zuck tries something new, like publicly trying to master mandarin Chinese, for example.
At the annual meeting of Chinese and foreign advisors to the elite Tsinghua University business school in Beijing on Monday, Zuckerberg was spotted listening with rapt attention to a speech by Chinese president Xi Jinping, whose book he recommends to all Facebook employees, naturally.
Against a backdrop of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Facebook’s role as a media platform that facilitated Russia meddling with the U.S. presidential elections last year, Zuckerberg is consorting with the enemy’s neighbor. Sadly, to no avail.
Though President Xi Jinping mostly stuck to his script during his speech at the meeting, which also saw former U.S. Treasury Department secretary Henry Paulson, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman in attendance, he did throw in a tidbit that has the media in a flurry.
Apparently, the Chinese president uttered the equivalent of “despite a failed deal, our friendship remains” during his speech, which immediately brings to mind Facebook’s many attempts at crossing the Firewall. Of course, he could have been thinking of Trump, but who knows.
But none of this is likely to help because Facebook will clearly have to create a China version of its platform to get anywhere close to Chinese shores. Experts believe that if Facebook does agree to do this, regulatory restrictions are likely to increase further.
That goes against the very grain of Facebook being an open forum for free discussion, and the sharing of thoughts, media and more. If a China Facebook were to become reality, it would merely serve as a closely monitored bulletin board for users, not the engaging platform that more than 2 billion people around the world enjoy today.
Facebook, predictably, did not comment on Zuckerberg’s visit to China, but what can you expect when results are, once again, nil.
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