A prominent social media account affiliated with the outlet Beijing Daily criticized on July 4 to the founder of Meta Platforms Inc. for his previous trial of Chinese censorship and alleged intellectual property theft. The lengthy editorial was published after The Wall Street Journal Reporting that Meta was in talks with Tencent Holdings Ltd. to help sell Quest VR headsets in China, despite a block on its main social media services, from Facebook to Instagram.
Zuckerberg “he threw a stone on his own footsaid the Beijing Daily in a WeChat post that reached more than 100,000 views. “You broke the wok and now you want to enjoy Chinese food?”
Zuckerberg’s relationship with China has been sweet and sweet. The chief executive of Meta was captured in a famous photo of him jogging through smoggy Beijing and waving to then-internet czar Lu Wei.at the height of a campaign to woo officials on the world’s biggest internet stage.
That relationship soured after Lu was jailed for alleged corruption, and after a US crackdown on efforts by internet companies to gain access to China. Since then, the entrepreneur has criticized ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok — now a fierce rival — for privacy violations and the alleged removal of content. Zuckerberg has also publicly accused China of technology theft. US officials are currently reviewing TikTok and may ban the short video app on national security grounds.
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Representatives for Meta and Tencent did not respond to requests for comment. The South China Morning Post first reported on the editorial. “Zuckerberg is now looking for a better solution to his China problem,” the editorial said. “But the biggest obstacle to that could be himself.”
