Facebook Blocks Chinese Billionaire Who Tells Tales of Corruption
Facebook Blocks Chinese Billionaire Who Tells Tales of
Corruption
By ALEXANDRA STEVENSON OCT. 1, 2017
HONG KONG — A Chinese billionaire living in virtual exile
in New York, Guo Wengui has riled China’s leaders with his sometimes outlandish
tales of deep corruption among family members of top Communist Party officials.
On Saturday, his tales proved too much for one of his
favorite platforms for broadcasting those accusations: Facebook.
The social media network said it had blocked a profile
under Mr. Guo’s name and taken down another page associated with him. Facebook
said the content on both pages had included someone else’s personal
identifiable information, which violates its terms of service.
Facebook investigated the accounts after receiving a
complaint, according to a spokeswoman.
“We want people to feel free to share and connect on
Facebook, as well as to feel safe, so we don’t allow people to publish the
personal information of others without their consent,” the spokeswoman,
Charlene Chian, said. She declined to say who had complained.
Mr. Guo did not immediately respond to a request for
comment. The profile under Mr. Guo’s name was not verified.
The move comes at a sensitive time for both the Chinese
government and Facebook.
China has taken several steps in recent months to clamp
down on public discourse ahead of a major Communist Party gathering scheduled
to take place this month. President Xi Jinping, the party’s top leader, is
widely expected to use the meeting to cement his power and to make personnel
changes that could have wide repercussions in coming years. Chinese leaders,
who prize stability above all else, want the meeting to go off without a hitch.
Last week, Chinese officials largely blocked the WhatsApp
messaging app, which is owned by Facebook. It also punished three of the
biggest Chinese social media and chat forums, fining Tencent Holdings, Baidu
and Weibo for failing to supervise users and prevent banned content like
pornography and violence on their platforms.
For Facebook, it is the latest setback to the company’s
efforts to expand in China. Mark Zuckerberg, its founder, has made a series of
grand gestures to gain market access, including meeting with Chinese
politicians, learning to speak Mandarin and even reading Communist Party
propaganda, most of it to little avail. Many Facebook apps have been blocked in
China for years.
Facebook has nonetheless signaled its continued interest
in China, even though operating there under current laws would require it to
bend to Chinese laws on censorship and personal information disclosure.
Facebook insiders said last year that they had worked on a tool that could
appeal to China’s censors. This spring, Facebook quietly authorized a small
Chinese company to release a version of Moments, its picture-sharing app.
Meanwhile, Facebook is facing scrutiny in the United
States, where it faces a congressional investigation for hosting ads linked to
Russia that may have played a role in the 2016 presidential election.
Many of Mr. Guo’s accusations have seemed outlandish, but
he has remained a thorn in the side of the Chinese government. This spring,
China asked Interpol to issue a request for his arrest. At the time, both
Facebook and Twitter suspended Mr. Guo’s accounts. Facebook later said the
suspension was a mistake.
Some evidence that Mr. Guo has presented to back up his
claims is easy to refute. But others have been corroborated by The New York
Times.
More recently, Mr. Guo, who is in the United States on a
tourist visa and who lives in a $68 million apartment overlooking Central Park
in Manhattan, has sought asylum because of what his lawyer claimed was his
status as “a political opponent of the Chinese regime.”
Chinese news outlets, many of them controlled by the
government, have ramped up scrutiny of Mr. Guo, with reports accusing him of
fraud, money laundering and even rape. Mr. Guo has denied the allegations,
calling them a smear campaign.
The blocks affect both the profile under Mr. Guo’s name
and an associated Facebook page, a type of account often used by businesses and
other organizations.
Neither will be able to add content while the block is in
place, Facebook said; the company would not specify how long the block would
last. It also said that the page associated with Mr. Guo would remain off the
site unless an administrator for the page appealed to company.
On Sunday, the profile with Mr. Guo’s name was still
visible, but with what Facebook said was a “temporary feature block.” A
verified page with Mr. Guo’s name remained on Facebook.
Mike Issac contributed reporting from San Francisco.
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