I don't think it's a coincidence that Facebook is building censorship tools at the same time they are talking about "fake news". It seems that the tooling to deal with both of these "problems" has a lot of overlap and could potentially be the same.
I lived in China for almost a decade during its economic rise, and many predicted an opening and democratization of China. But it always seemed to me that the US was becoming more like China rather than the other way around, and so far I haven't been disappointed.
That's really not a fair comparison. What they are saying is actually:
1) "We can't automate the stopping of fake news without hiring an army of trained human censors"
2) "Although since China already has an army of trained censors, it'd be easy to fix stuff for them with an API"
Edit, forgot to save, sorry:
The implication on #1 there is that for Facebook the cost is not worth it. Whether or not you agree with that is fine, but it's incredibly unfair to call it the same problem as China's censorship. It would cost Facebook something like $2-4 billion per year in labor to deploy a similar solution for just the united States
It is, of course, much easier to tell if a piece of news is inconvenient or objectionable to the powerful than it is to tell if it's true. That's what makes the recent push to ban fake news and its laser-like focus on items that are pro-Trump or anti-Clinton so scary.
To be fair, a lot of it is fake news. So much crap is "reported" about China that a lot of often exaggerated and spun in a certain way.
So I can definitely see why the Chinese government wants to protect itself.
I think Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" should be required watching to understand how real news can be spun to be positive or negative, e.g. 1 in 10 people die from this drug vs. 90% of people are saved with this medicine.
That's what China is trying to protect itself against.
> It’s difficult to get an entrepreneur to understand something, when their valuation depends on them not understanding it.
Interesting (and unsurprising) that the comments here all focus on Facebook rather than the general problem. Cisco did the same thing by building the great firewall. Dubai has no shortage of western companies selling solutions to censor the Internet. When Wikileaks was raising money on Amazon it only took an angry statement from a Senator to get them banned.
Companies are happy to dump principles and take the money. The solution won't be complaining about Facebook. Trying to legislate companies bad actions is how we got here, so that might work with some issues in the past, but it isn't the solution we need now. Protesting and boycotting can get Apple to stop using child labor and suicide nets, but as a solution it's slow and reactionary.
> Zuckerberg came to a compromise to be chums with the Communist party in China. I wonder if that will ever pay off especially when you are so invested now and the relationship is dictated completely on the conditions of the foreign government. If this is the beginning then I shudder to think what the next compromise will be that affects their end user. It sets an uneasy precedent for future prospects eager to capture the enormous market in China.
I'm really proud of Google that they just got up and left China once they realized it was a one way relationship with a lot of giving and giving.
I think this is a huge blunder from Zuckerberg and it definitely hurts Facebook's brand.
It also shows a more underlying urgency from Zuck, the stock price is tied to user base growth and without it, the perceived future value evaporates with it. That in turn shows how elusive this "zero-interest rate capital funded growth at all cost" is and it's starting to show cracks.
Recall the Porsche story during the 70s when access to capital was really great. The problem was they assumed capital would always be there but what happened was when they most needed it the market conditions have changed and Volkswagen swallowed it up.
Facebook's revenue models are coming under scrutiny as advertisers can't justify the ambiguous metrics and ROI.
I wonder who will buy Facebook, perhaps News Corp?
> I'm really proud of Google that they just got up and left China
For now. We used to say that information wants to be free. We can say today that money wants to be made. Eventually Google's growth will not be sustainable by creating or buying products and eventually killing them, they'll need new markets.
Zuckerberg created Facebook in bad faith (as a hateful hot-or-not site) and it has been run in the same vein ever since. We can criticize him till we're blue in the face, but the only thing that will make a difference is if each and every one of us log off and delete our accounts.
Social media addiction is a real thing - if you want to quit Facebook but don't want to deal with the hassle of installing browser extensions or deleting your account (Facebook deliberately makes this complicated), just log out from all your browsers and delete any installed apps.
If you depend on Facebook for managing a page (work, band, etc), just use the dedicated Pages application. Same applies for Messenger if you don't want to get rid of it.
It's helped me curb the ridiculous "CTRL+T, fa, enter" reflex - seeing the login page instead of my Facebook feed every time I do this makes me notice how out of hand this has gotten for me.
- I can understand Facebook's action here, it's either give in or be out of the biggest market of tomorrow.
- I can understand western media trying to stir polemic about it, it's how they make their money.
- I can't understand people buying media crap and getting "shocked". Didn't Facebook do similar things for US Gov in the past? Did they think Zuck was a people's champion?
You say that as if it was obvious. But actually he is successful, he is young, he is rich, he is known as tech-genius that changed the alone with his 2 bare hands, he is everything that we are supposed to aspire to be in the Western world.
As such, he is continuously spin as a good natured fellow tirelessly working for the good of mankind. So yes that will surprise a lot of people to learn he is not the White Knight they thought he was.
I think our expectation of idealism from companies is to broad. I mean, it's great if companies take idealistic stances. But ultimately, I'm not even sure that it's FB's place to promote democratic ideals.
Freedom of expression, association, conscience & press are political freedoms at the centre of liberal-democratic ideologies and governing systems. China is not a liberal democracy, in theory or practice. There are treaties which define these freedoms as "human rights" but I think China is a nonsignator to them.
I do believe these freedoms should be protected for everyone. But in calling for them in non-democracies, one is pretty much calling for revolution. It's reasonable for us as individual democrats (or adherents to other ideologies which believe in these freedoms) to call for these rights to be honoured in china. It's kind of wierd expecting Facebook to.
The actual lib-dem regimes (US, EU, Japan etc.) are not refusing to do business in China until they honour these freedoms.
TLDR: Expecting FB to champion the cause of liberal democratic reform in China is too much to expect.
Perhaps the government's view is that articles 51-54 (on limitations of political rights) justify the very extensive restrictions that the government has put on these rights in practice.
Once a tool is built, humans find more uses for it beyond its original purpose. It doesn't matter if it was meant for another problem or region. Anti-terrorism laws, surplus military equipment, censorware for China...
"At the very least it seems that several Facebook employees decided that their conscience was worth more and quit over having to work on this. Kudos to them." Source on this?
I think the bet is that over time China will become more-less a Western society, as the old guards slowly die off, and it's better for FB to have their foot in the door. I believe that is based on the progress theory, that all societies progress in time towards similar structure, and assumption the Western one is more progressive than the Chinese one. We will see if this works out; we can see there was a recent divergence in quite a few countries like Russia, Turkey etc. as well as internal strain in Western societies themselves. We can easily end up in an unstable chaos theory mode too.
> as the old guards slowly die off, and it's better for FB to have their foot in the door. I believe that is based on the progress theory, that all societies progress in time towards similar structure,
Yes, but in which direction? Is Facebook, and especially its self-aware pile of billion$, pulling China west, or is it pulling the west to authoritarianism? Somewhere there's a line whose crossing will be fatal, and it's an open question which side of that line we're on right now.
Trump, Putin, Brexit, LePen make me doubt a lot of my assumptions about progress.
I think your comment reflects the naivety of Western thinkers when it comes to China.
Chinese gov has zero interest in pursuing a US like democratic system as do other surrounding big economies. Singapore is a good example, as well as Japan with it's single party that always wins, Korea's choi-gate scandal that exposed near dictatorial decision making at the very top (and PGH's father was a dictator) shows that at the structural level, the one party system which was further encouraged by the US during cold war against communism, shows a clear rift between the mentality of West vs East.
Another big reason they are so set on keeping the status quo is the sheer amount of embarassing crimes against humanity which would almost guarantee former president Jiang Zemin an international spot light in Hague trials. Saving face is a huge component but also national pride plays a large role in China.
However, the biggest reason for China's commitment to it's current one party leadership structure is to avoid destabilization with it's multi-ethnic demographic. Even my friend from the mainland alleges that there are inter-provincial beefs and people won't even do business with certain ethnic groups or province due to existing stereotypes. Given it's massive population, US styled approach would be catastrophic.
Of course, I believe China must eventually become free and open but I also understand the impossible task of imposing Western ideologies onto China from the top down.
Change in China must come from the bottom up, the people, as we briefly saw a glimpse of that during the late 80s. People are too afraid, chasing materialism and money, a form of escapism, and the rich almost do certainly leave the PRC to live the American dream.
When China opens it's doors, which seems improbable this century (USSR only collapsed due to economic collapse otherwise it would still go on today and it's only a superficial democracy where control of the economy is centralized and divided through crony capitalism at the expense of average Russian citizen who's wealth is poorer than the average Indian), only then the giant that Napoleon was talking about will awaken.
I'd welcome that kind of China. If it doesn't happen it doesn't. I really don't get the "dont-miss-out-on-china" attitude. I don't give a shit about making more money through China by throwing away my own values like Zuckerberg did. Quoting Chow Yun Fat who got blacklisted from mainland cinema "Guess I will make less money then, I don't give a fuck".
Until it's mature enough, I don't think it's wise to sacrifice and compromise in the vague improbable scenario that is miles down this century.
In the meanwhile, read http://chinalawblog.com which offers a very good insight into doing business in China.
Every individual I've talked to so far that went to chase the Chinese Dream, have returned penniless, fed up, and repulsed by the mention of it.
How many Laowai do you know that made it in China that was able to take their hard earned capital out of the country successfully and live the life of the communist party princeling's offspring lifestyle in America?
edit: Hong Kong doesn't count as it's status and reputation it earned under British colonial rule that was favorable to Western businesses are no longer guaranteed as it integrates into the Chinese political system. As will Taiwan eventually and perhaps North Korea becoming another "province".
The Chinese market isn't going to be as lucrative in a few months when they get labeled as a currency manipulator. I've heard the free market value of Yuan to USD is about 24.8:1, while the current official exchange rate is 6.91:1. And of course the Chinese are willing to invest that money at a loss(in Bitcoin, property, etc.) as long as it gets outside of the country before the currency implodes; not even the Chinese want to invest in China.
Obviously capturing another billion people is a big deal either way, but I think they're going to be disappointed in their Chinese revenue in a year if they expected it to continue like it is now. I'm sure Zuckerberg has some financial advisors, but I can't see why anyone would want to invest there knowing the currency inflation that's coming over the next 2 years. I guess software isn't that much of a capital investment, comparatively speaking. Depending on how Zuckerberg structures this and how much USD he's putting in and at what rates, it might be worth buying some options against Facebook.
Though, if Facebook can get in now, I'm predicting riots in a year or two, and 'accidentally' having some problems with the anti-censorship systems could end up helping the protesters at a particularly important time. Who knows.
>The Chinese market isn't going to be as lucrative in a few months when they get labeled as a currency manipulator. I've heard the free market value of Yuan to USD is about 24.8:1, while the current official exchange rate is 6.91:1
This seems a bit backwards. The currency manipulation argument is that they are artificially weakening their currency to make manufacturing and exported products more competitive, not strengthening it.
And while I would tend to agree that the the reality at this point is in fact the reverse, your argument on the basis of "I've heard that the free market value..." is not particularly robust.
The NDF futures market, which is free to trade wherever the free market sees the pair going, is perhaps a better place to look. For reference, the current Dec 2019 future is 7.44:1 [1]
I don't think anyone in the financial or international communities is going to take any notice of Trump labeling anyone anything.
The 'currency manipulator' theory is that China is keeping the value of the Yuan low to fuel exports. In reality it's the US growing debt and low interests rates that are far more of a factor in the imbalance. This is easy to see if you compare the Yuan against other currencies apart from the dollar - do that and the 'currency manipulator' theory falls apart. It's not the Yuan that's being kept weak against the dollar, but rather the dollar strengthening against everybody.
I don't see how they'd invest so much money as to have a significant impact on their bottom line. I'm guessing that even at 0 revenue Zuck would still want to be in China. It's a long-term strategic play for him.
As easy as it is to hate Zuckerberg here, it's not all black and white. I think his "it's better to have a restricted conversation than no conversation at all" may have a deeper meaning.
I have worked with a Chinese company for a couple of years and been to China too. I'm not claiming to be an expert, but I think he might be on to something here.
It seems to me that China is on the verge of a major unrest upon freedom. So far most of the people are quite happy with the fact that their material well-being has literally multiplied in a very short time. That more than covers the limited freedom they currently have. After all, they haven't had a chance to get used to a great degree of freedom at any point in their history sofar.
However, increased wealth only carries so far. At some point the newly appointed members of the upper middle class are bound to start wondering, why theír offspring regularly gets bypassed by the offspring of the party officials in entering the top universities. That's going to be a big deal.
At that point attempts to suppress free speech will have an inflammatory effect. I believe this will happen in the next ten or twenty years and it cannot be avoided. What happened in Thailand a few years ago will happen in China, scaled up to two levels of magnitude.
I don't care much about Facebook or whether Zuck's motives here are entirely self-served or not. I do assume free speech in China will be a hot issue sooner or later and that Facebook may play a big part in connecting their Chinese users to the rest of the world.
I wish all the best to China, the Chinese people and my Chinese friends. Such spontaneous friendliness I have not met anywhere else. May your road in joining the domain of freedom be as smooth as possible.
How much censorship is there on WeChat? My parents came flew in for Thanksgiving...the amount of fake news on WeChat shocked me - all they showed me were pro Trump and none of which passed the sniff test...parents believed every one of them. It made for a pleasant Thanksgiving dinner conversation...
Maybe China can start there. (I know, they won't...sarcasm).
How is Facebook employees quitting over the
China decision something worthy of applause? Millions are in queue for their high paying jobs. Staying inside and influencing policy is the more heroic thing to do
[+] [-] s_kilk|9 years ago|reply
"Look at this thing we built to stop real news."
[+] [-] colordrops|9 years ago|reply
I lived in China for almost a decade during its economic rise, and many predicted an opening and democratization of China. But it always seemed to me that the US was becoming more like China rather than the other way around, and so far I haven't been disappointed.
[+] [-] dmoy|9 years ago|reply
1) "We can't automate the stopping of fake news without hiring an army of trained human censors"
2) "Although since China already has an army of trained censors, it'd be easy to fix stuff for them with an API"
Edit, forgot to save, sorry:
The implication on #1 there is that for Facebook the cost is not worth it. Whether or not you agree with that is fine, but it's incredibly unfair to call it the same problem as China's censorship. It would cost Facebook something like $2-4 billion per year in labor to deploy a similar solution for just the united States
[+] [-] makomk|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Navarr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tesasin|9 years ago|reply
So I can definitely see why the Chinese government wants to protect itself.
I think Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" should be required watching to understand how real news can be spun to be positive or negative, e.g. 1 in 10 people die from this drug vs. 90% of people are saved with this medicine.
That's what China is trying to protect itself against.
[+] [-] irq-1|9 years ago|reply
Interesting (and unsurprising) that the comments here all focus on Facebook rather than the general problem. Cisco did the same thing by building the great firewall. Dubai has no shortage of western companies selling solutions to censor the Internet. When Wikileaks was raising money on Amazon it only took an angry statement from a Senator to get them banned.
Companies are happy to dump principles and take the money. The solution won't be complaining about Facebook. Trying to legislate companies bad actions is how we got here, so that might work with some issues in the past, but it isn't the solution we need now. Protesting and boycotting can get Apple to stop using child labor and suicide nets, but as a solution it's slow and reactionary.
[+] [-] brilliantcode|9 years ago|reply
> Zuckerberg came to a compromise to be chums with the Communist party in China. I wonder if that will ever pay off especially when you are so invested now and the relationship is dictated completely on the conditions of the foreign government. If this is the beginning then I shudder to think what the next compromise will be that affects their end user. It sets an uneasy precedent for future prospects eager to capture the enormous market in China.
I'm really proud of Google that they just got up and left China once they realized it was a one way relationship with a lot of giving and giving.
I think this is a huge blunder from Zuckerberg and it definitely hurts Facebook's brand.
It also shows a more underlying urgency from Zuck, the stock price is tied to user base growth and without it, the perceived future value evaporates with it. That in turn shows how elusive this "zero-interest rate capital funded growth at all cost" is and it's starting to show cracks.
Recall the Porsche story during the 70s when access to capital was really great. The problem was they assumed capital would always be there but what happened was when they most needed it the market conditions have changed and Volkswagen swallowed it up.
Facebook's revenue models are coming under scrutiny as advertisers can't justify the ambiguous metrics and ROI.
I wonder who will buy Facebook, perhaps News Corp?
[+] [-] sdm|9 years ago|reply
Google has essentially the same relationship with the US government. It's departure from China had more to do with this than any high mindedness.
[+] [-] a3n|9 years ago|reply
For now. We used to say that information wants to be free. We can say today that money wants to be made. Eventually Google's growth will not be sustainable by creating or buying products and eventually killing them, they'll need new markets.
[+] [-] tostr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhizome|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] christophilus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uremog|9 years ago|reply
Sorry, that item is out of stock.
[+] [-] assadk|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erokar|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rolodato|9 years ago|reply
If you depend on Facebook for managing a page (work, band, etc), just use the dedicated Pages application. Same applies for Messenger if you don't want to get rid of it.
It's helped me curb the ridiculous "CTRL+T, fa, enter" reflex - seeing the login page instead of my Facebook feed every time I do this makes me notice how out of hand this has gotten for me.
[+] [-] tombo2008|9 years ago|reply
I am so sorry I ever joined that f*cking site.
[+] [-] christophilus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcora|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] catalinbraescu|9 years ago|reply
What made the original Facebook hateful when compared with other "hot-or-not" sites?
[+] [-] otaviokz|9 years ago|reply
- I can understand western media trying to stir polemic about it, it's how they make their money.
- I can't understand people buying media crap and getting "shocked". Didn't Facebook do similar things for US Gov in the past? Did they think Zuck was a people's champion?
[+] [-] gutnor|9 years ago|reply
You say that as if it was obvious. But actually he is successful, he is young, he is rich, he is known as tech-genius that changed the alone with his 2 bare hands, he is everything that we are supposed to aspire to be in the Western world.
As such, he is continuously spin as a good natured fellow tirelessly working for the good of mankind. So yes that will surprise a lot of people to learn he is not the White Knight they thought he was.
[+] [-] Teapot|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mieaou|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lordarminius|9 years ago|reply
This opening summarizes the entire sentiment. FB and Zukerberg are not on your side and do not uphold any banner of morality.
I am going to have this quote framed and put up on a wall somewhere. For some reason, I suspect life and business will be easier if I remember it.
[+] [-] netcan|9 years ago|reply
Freedom of expression, association, conscience & press are political freedoms at the centre of liberal-democratic ideologies and governing systems. China is not a liberal democracy, in theory or practice. There are treaties which define these freedoms as "human rights" but I think China is a nonsignator to them.
I do believe these freedoms should be protected for everyone. But in calling for them in non-democracies, one is pretty much calling for revolution. It's reasonable for us as individual democrats (or adherents to other ideologies which believe in these freedoms) to call for these rights to be honoured in china. It's kind of wierd expecting Facebook to.
The actual lib-dem regimes (US, EU, Japan etc.) are not refusing to do business in China until they honour these freedoms.
TLDR: Expecting FB to champion the cause of liberal democratic reform in China is too much to expect.
[+] [-] schoen|9 years ago|reply
The ROC drafted and signed the UDHR (not a treaty), but the PRC was then at war with the ROC and doesn't view itself as a successor state to it.
The ICCPR, which is an actual treaty related to UDHR rights, was signed but not ratified by the PRC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civi...
The Constitution of the PRC protects a broad range of political rights (!)
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27...
Perhaps the government's view is that articles 51-54 (on limitations of political rights) justify the very extensive restrictions that the government has put on these rights in practice.
[+] [-] pimlottc|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samuelbrin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitL|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a3n|9 years ago|reply
Yes, but in which direction? Is Facebook, and especially its self-aware pile of billion$, pulling China west, or is it pulling the west to authoritarianism? Somewhere there's a line whose crossing will be fatal, and it's an open question which side of that line we're on right now.
Trump, Putin, Brexit, LePen make me doubt a lot of my assumptions about progress.
[+] [-] brilliantcode|9 years ago|reply
Chinese gov has zero interest in pursuing a US like democratic system as do other surrounding big economies. Singapore is a good example, as well as Japan with it's single party that always wins, Korea's choi-gate scandal that exposed near dictatorial decision making at the very top (and PGH's father was a dictator) shows that at the structural level, the one party system which was further encouraged by the US during cold war against communism, shows a clear rift between the mentality of West vs East.
Another big reason they are so set on keeping the status quo is the sheer amount of embarassing crimes against humanity which would almost guarantee former president Jiang Zemin an international spot light in Hague trials. Saving face is a huge component but also national pride plays a large role in China.
However, the biggest reason for China's commitment to it's current one party leadership structure is to avoid destabilization with it's multi-ethnic demographic. Even my friend from the mainland alleges that there are inter-provincial beefs and people won't even do business with certain ethnic groups or province due to existing stereotypes. Given it's massive population, US styled approach would be catastrophic.
Of course, I believe China must eventually become free and open but I also understand the impossible task of imposing Western ideologies onto China from the top down.
Change in China must come from the bottom up, the people, as we briefly saw a glimpse of that during the late 80s. People are too afraid, chasing materialism and money, a form of escapism, and the rich almost do certainly leave the PRC to live the American dream.
When China opens it's doors, which seems improbable this century (USSR only collapsed due to economic collapse otherwise it would still go on today and it's only a superficial democracy where control of the economy is centralized and divided through crony capitalism at the expense of average Russian citizen who's wealth is poorer than the average Indian), only then the giant that Napoleon was talking about will awaken.
I'd welcome that kind of China. If it doesn't happen it doesn't. I really don't get the "dont-miss-out-on-china" attitude. I don't give a shit about making more money through China by throwing away my own values like Zuckerberg did. Quoting Chow Yun Fat who got blacklisted from mainland cinema "Guess I will make less money then, I don't give a fuck".
Until it's mature enough, I don't think it's wise to sacrifice and compromise in the vague improbable scenario that is miles down this century.
In the meanwhile, read http://chinalawblog.com which offers a very good insight into doing business in China.
Every individual I've talked to so far that went to chase the Chinese Dream, have returned penniless, fed up, and repulsed by the mention of it.
How many Laowai do you know that made it in China that was able to take their hard earned capital out of the country successfully and live the life of the communist party princeling's offspring lifestyle in America?
edit: Hong Kong doesn't count as it's status and reputation it earned under British colonial rule that was favorable to Western businesses are no longer guaranteed as it integrates into the Chinese political system. As will Taiwan eventually and perhaps North Korea becoming another "province".
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|9 years ago|reply
Put another way, stop blaming censorship for what is really a fault of Capitalism.
[+] [-] drdeca|9 years ago|reply
s/capitalism/incentives/
s/need/have/
?
[+] [-] MichaelBurge|9 years ago|reply
Obviously capturing another billion people is a big deal either way, but I think they're going to be disappointed in their Chinese revenue in a year if they expected it to continue like it is now. I'm sure Zuckerberg has some financial advisors, but I can't see why anyone would want to invest there knowing the currency inflation that's coming over the next 2 years. I guess software isn't that much of a capital investment, comparatively speaking. Depending on how Zuckerberg structures this and how much USD he's putting in and at what rates, it might be worth buying some options against Facebook.
Though, if Facebook can get in now, I'm predicting riots in a year or two, and 'accidentally' having some problems with the anti-censorship systems could end up helping the protesters at a particularly important time. Who knows.
[+] [-] ddeck|9 years ago|reply
This seems a bit backwards. The currency manipulation argument is that they are artificially weakening their currency to make manufacturing and exported products more competitive, not strengthening it.
And while I would tend to agree that the the reality at this point is in fact the reverse, your argument on the basis of "I've heard that the free market value..." is not particularly robust.
The NDF futures market, which is free to trade wherever the free market sees the pair going, is perhaps a better place to look. For reference, the current Dec 2019 future is 7.44:1 [1]
[1] http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/fx/emerging-market/chinese-r...
[+] [-] simonh|9 years ago|reply
The 'currency manipulator' theory is that China is keeping the value of the Yuan low to fuel exports. In reality it's the US growing debt and low interests rates that are far more of a factor in the imbalance. This is easy to see if you compare the Yuan against other currencies apart from the dollar - do that and the 'currency manipulator' theory falls apart. It's not the Yuan that's being kept weak against the dollar, but rather the dollar strengthening against everybody.
[+] [-] auganov|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eva1984|9 years ago|reply
Please do tell me where I can get this deal :)
[+] [-] jza00425|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] juhanima|9 years ago|reply
I have worked with a Chinese company for a couple of years and been to China too. I'm not claiming to be an expert, but I think he might be on to something here.
It seems to me that China is on the verge of a major unrest upon freedom. So far most of the people are quite happy with the fact that their material well-being has literally multiplied in a very short time. That more than covers the limited freedom they currently have. After all, they haven't had a chance to get used to a great degree of freedom at any point in their history sofar.
However, increased wealth only carries so far. At some point the newly appointed members of the upper middle class are bound to start wondering, why theír offspring regularly gets bypassed by the offspring of the party officials in entering the top universities. That's going to be a big deal.
At that point attempts to suppress free speech will have an inflammatory effect. I believe this will happen in the next ten or twenty years and it cannot be avoided. What happened in Thailand a few years ago will happen in China, scaled up to two levels of magnitude.
I don't care much about Facebook or whether Zuck's motives here are entirely self-served or not. I do assume free speech in China will be a hot issue sooner or later and that Facebook may play a big part in connecting their Chinese users to the rest of the world.
I wish all the best to China, the Chinese people and my Chinese friends. Such spontaneous friendliness I have not met anywhere else. May your road in joining the domain of freedom be as smooth as possible.
[+] [-] omouse|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fma|9 years ago|reply
Maybe China can start there. (I know, they won't...sarcasm).
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] asitdhal|9 years ago|reply
Many companies cooperate with NSA, rouge governments all over the world. Everybody does that. It's not new.
At the end of the day, people have to be paid and investment needs to be multiplied.
[+] [-] badsock|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zdw|9 years ago|reply
I assume medium's #random at the end of the URL makes every HN post unique?
[+] [-] mankash666|9 years ago|reply