Facebook’s Test in China: What Price Free Speech?

June 10, 2011 at 5:00 am PT

Whoever dreamed up the legend of Faust, the sad tale of the man who traded his soul for unlimited knowledge, could well have been thinking ahead to Facebook and its fascination with China.

What to make of Facebook—which holds itself up as an icon of openness—and its flirtation with the largest authoritarian nation on earth?

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the social-networking behemoth, sees an inevitability to China. “How can you connect the whole world,” he asked a group at Stanford in October, “if you leave out a-billion-six people?”

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Tagged with: China, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg

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