Mark Zuckerberg is on his annual trip to China, again. This time, the visit is seen as a step ahead in Facebook’s prime aim of setting up business there.
Zuckerberg posted a photo of him visiting Chinese students at the Tsinghua School of Economics and Management in Beijing on Saturday. Analysts say the latest visit, which comes one year after Zuckerberg’s 2016 visit, is a ‘realistic opportunity’ for the company to finally penetrate the world’s largest internet market by users in the coming year.
China with its stringent internet laws banned Facebook in 2009. However, the company has been time and again aiming at resuming services in the country. According to a Business Insider report, Facebook recently hired William Shuai from LinkedIn to lead its relations with the Chinese government. The company has also been testing a photo-sharing app in China and is looking at setting up an office in Shanghai for its consumer hardware division.
“Every year this trip is a great way to keep up with the pace of innovation and entrepreneurship in China,” Zuckerberg wrote in his post.
I'm in Beijing for the annual Tsinghua School of Economics and Management advisory board meeting. Every year this trip…
Gepostet von Mark Zuckerberg am Samstag, 28. Oktober 2017
Amidst the country’s strong internet censorship, Facebook is likely to leverage an opportunity where it could build its own censorship tool that would automatically disable certain posts in specific geographic areas.
Last year, Zuckerberg met China’s propaganda chief and other government leaders. As for this year’s public trip, it is unclear if meeting government executives is part of Zuckerberg’s schedule. Interestingly, Facebook’s plan of entering the country could be drawing near as Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to begin his second term in November. Jinping recently noted that ‘media scrutiny and sensitivity are much less during an administration’s second term.’
BGR
