China in one of the few countries with world superpower status. This means that they get to do pretty much whatever they want. Child labor is rampant despite it being outlawed. They are one of the few countries who back North Korea. And they have absolute control over what their citizens have access to on the internet. More often than not websites that might offend the ruling party are pulled down and an explanation isn’t needed. Facebook has been and still is illegal in China, but that hasn’t stopped the social networking giant from laying down potential ground work.
Facebook has recently discussed leasing space in Beijing’s Fortune Financial Center, located in the heart of the city’s business district. It has been reported that Facebook already has one office in Hong Kong (off of the mainland) and has already started selling ads to companies looking for an international reach. Facebook is not alone in its China struggle. Yahoo, Ebay, and Twitter do not have a presence in China. In 2010, Google removed itself from the country after it refused to comply with their censorship laws.
One of the positives for China keeping sites like Facebook and Twitter out of the country is another chance to create internal revenue. Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to twitter, currently has 129 million users and WeChat, the Chinese response to WhatsApp, has 355 million users. So maybe there isn’t such a need for western driven social media. This however, has not and won’t stop Facebook. Through ad sales the company garnished $354 million in sales in Asia this past quarter, which made up 14% of its revenue. There will be billions to be made if granted access to China and Facebook isn’t likely to give up the dream anytime soon.
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