A trending article on WeChat paints a different picture of the once well-loved Mark Zuckerberg in China.
The article titled “China’s good son-in-law’ Zuckerberg suddenly stabbed his ‘father-in-law’ in the back” depicts a sense of betrayal felt by the Chinese people.
This follows Zuckerberg’s recent stance on Chinese tech interventions and the growing tensions between the US and China.
Zuckerberg has defended Facebook’s policy to allow free expression and has even allowed campaigns seen as misleading to slip through, thereby slighting China’s government censorship of the internet.
Read: Zuckerberg defends Facebook’s policy to let politicians lie
Censorship is also the reason why Facebook.com is blocked in China.
Zuckerberg also pointed at TikTok for censoring content of the Hong Kong protests. TikTok is owned by ByteDance in Beijing. TiktTok has denied the allegation.
Zuckerberg then warned about China potential domination of the cyptocurrency field should Facebook’s Libra digital currency continue to face opposition and government scrutiny.
The trending article featured Zuckerberg’s many cordial appearances at Chinese events such as when he spoke Mandarin during his address in Tsinghua University.
I'm in Beijing for the annual Tsinghua School of Economics and Management advisory board meeting. Every year this trip…
Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Saturday, 28 October 2017
Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, 21 March 2016
Now, he has become less popular as a result of Facebook’s decision to remove accounts traced to China which were spreading disinformation about the Hong Kong protests.
“I thought he was a person who loves Chinese culture, as he showed ten years ago, but now it seems like I was wrong about him,” a Chinese netizen commented on a forum regarding Facebook Libra.
Facebook, despite the social network being blocked in the country, still gets revenue from Chinese-based advertisers and earns US$5billion from such, an estimated 10 percent of its annual revenue./TISG