Instead, those companies have willingly participated in efforts to censor citizens’ speech.Most of the People hoped that Western technology companies would loosen China’s control over information.
Yahoo gave Chinese authorities information about democracy activists, landing them in jail. Microsoft shut down the blog of prominent media-freedom activist Michael Anti. Google censored search results that were politically sensitive in China. In 2006, those three companies came before Congress and were accused by a subcommittee chairman of “sickening collaboration” with the Chinese government. Google shut down its mainland Chinese search engine in 2010, publicly complaining about censorship and cybersecurity. Facebook has been blocked in China since 2009, and its Instagram photo-sharing service was blocked in 2014.
I once thought that it would be a great damage or impossible for the social network to try a Chinese adventure of its own, and some China experts still believe that to be true. But a Facebook launch in China now looks probable.
