Censorship In China
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Politics

Censorship Is Winning In China, Starting With The Facebook Ban

And Google is about to follow suit.

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Facebook

Google is trying to enter China.

According to the recent news, Google plans to come back to China and relaunch a new but censored search engine in China after being forced to shut down in 2010 due to the government's political censorship pressure. The reason why Google has been banned for a long time is its search results have included a lot of illegal content identified by the Chinese government's blacklist.

How was Google kicked out before?

In 2010, Google was under cyber attack in a period which was believed to gather information on human activists. Google's blog showed its concern that the human activists' credentials may be stolen by the Chinese government, especially when some email accounts were mainly targeted in this cyber attack incident. Google and the Chinese government, from then on, had an adverse relationship after they did not reach an agreement on the extent of censorship. It is also believed that they had a fierce quarrel on the negotiation table. Because of Google's determination to conserve the value of freedom of speech, Google chose to exit China itself.

Facebook is doing the same thing.

Google's comeback is not a unique example. Western social media platforms are going to be involved in this giant market all around the world. Facebook is recently said to be building an office in Hangzhou. However, this news was quickly being deleted on Chinese Twitter, Weibo. Facebook Hong Kong Limited, the shareholder, holds 100 percent on the new company.

Facebook used to try entering the Chinese market. The most well-known was the photo that Mr. Zuckerberg ran across the avenue in front of the Tiananmen Square in Beijing which was posted on his personal Facebook. But the most dramatic is that 5 billion dollars, nearly 10 percent of Facebook's global revenue, comes from China. China has become Facebook Ads second largest market and a lot of users are also from China.

Business companies cannot give up this big cake.

Facebook and Google re-entry indicates that the two internet giants are still trying to get into the world's most populated market. They developed the censored machine at all costs to meet the Chinese government's demands. We saw that Google did not surrender to the Chinese government's ruling on the internet in 2010; however, it still yields to the enormous business profit.

Chinese internet censorship, in a way, has won. Under the Chinese government's strict control of the internet, Western social media platforms still want to fight for the proportions of this huge market and cater for the Chinese government's political needs. Apple is a pioneer that proves Western companies can make a great commercial success in this place.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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