Facebook quietly sets up subsidiary in China despite hardening censorship

BEIJING: Facebook has set up a subsidiary in China with registered capital of $30 million, according to an reputable business registration, hinting that the USA company may be ramping up its presence in the restrictive marketplace where its social media websites stay blocked.

The subsidiary is registered in Hangzhou, home of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, according to a filing approved on China's National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System final week and observed through Reuters on Tuesday.

The filing indexed Facebook Hongkong Ltd and no different entities as a shareholder.

Facebook's site remains banned in China, which strictly censors foreign news shops, search engines like google and yahoo and social media together with content from Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google.

Last 12 months Facebook's messaging app WhatsApp was once also blocked in the run as much as the country's twice-a-decade congress, and it has remained mostly unavailable since.


While censorship controls have hardened below Xi Jinping, who was once formally appointed president in 2013, US tech corporations with blocked content are an increasing number of searching for new techniques to go into the marketplace without drawing the ire of regulators.


Google has a number of hundred workforce in China, and just lately introduced its own artificial intelligence (AI) lab. It has also tentatively introduced a number of apps for the Chinese marketplace in fresh months, together with an AI drawing sport and record control app.


Apple Inc has also heavily modified its app stores to suit Chinese censorship restrictions prior to now 12 months, doing away with hundreds of apps on the request of regulators.


According to Facebook's fresh filing, the wholly-owned Chinese subsidiary's operations will come with community information generation construction and comparable services, investment consultancy and advertising and marketing planning. It didn't elaborate on specific services.
Facebook quietly sets up subsidiary in China despite hardening censorship Facebook quietly sets up subsidiary in China despite hardening censorship Reviewed by Kailash on July 24, 2018 Rating: 5
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