China forbids Facebook for its citizens but uses it to spread propaganda abroad
HONG KONG — China does not allow its people to gain access to Facebook, a powerful tool for disseminating information and influencing opinion.
As if to demonstrate the platform’s effectiveness, outside its borders China uses it to spread state-produced propaganda around the world, including the U.S. So much do China’s government and companies value Facebook that the country is Facebook’s biggest advertising market in Asia, even as it is the only major country in the region that blocks the social network.
A look at the Facebook pages of China Central Television, the leading stateowned broadcast network better known as CCTV, and Xinhua, China’s official news agency, reveals hundreds of English-language posts intended for an English-speaking audience.
Each quarter China’s government, through its state media agencies, spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy Facebook ads, according to a person with knowledge of those deals, who was unauthorized to talk publicly about the company’s revenue streams.
China’s propaganda efforts are in the spotlight with President Donald Trump visiting the country and American lawmakers investigating foreign powers’ use of technology to sway voters in the U.S.
Last week, Facebook, Google and Twitter executives were grilled in Washington about Russia’s use of American social media platforms to influence the 2016 presidential election.
During Facebook’s time in the congressional hot seat last week, Sen. John Neely Kennedy, R-La., asked whether China had also run ads to affect the U.S. election. Facebook’s general counsel replied that to his knowledge it had not.
The Communist government’s use of Facebook is ironic given its apparent fear of the platform. It also hasn’t been reluctant to use it as a soapbox where China’s relationship with the United States is concerned.
China has been a major priority for Facebook. Founder Mark Zuckerberg has spent years courting it. Facebook executives even set up a page to show CCTV, one of Beijing’s chief propaganda outlets, how to use the platform during President Xi Jinping’s 2015 trip to the United States.