Facebook's Test in China: What Price Free Speech?

Whoever dreamed up the legend of Faust, the sad tale of the man who traded his soul for unlimited knowledge, could well have been thinking ahead to Facebook and its fascination with China.

What to make of Facebook -- which holds itself up as an icon of openness -- and its flirtation with the largest authoritarian nation on earth? Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the social-networking behemoth, sees an inevitability to China. "How can you connect the whole world," he asked a group at Stanford in October, "if you leave out a-billion-six people?" And then Zuckerberg hinted at how he'll answer those who worry about compromises Facebook might make to get into China: "I don't want Facebook to be an American company," he said. "I don't want it to be this company that just spreads American values all across the world. ...For example, we have this notion of free speech that we really love and support at Facebook, and that's one of the main things that we're trying to push with openness. But different countries have their different standards around that. ...My view on this is that you want to be really culturally sensitive and understand the way that people actually think."

Soon afterward, Zuckerberg made the rounds of Chinese Internet companies, visiting Baidu and Sina. Facebook continues to explore possible partnerships, and Zuckerberg, who is studying Mandarin, may travel to China again this year.

"This is a train wreck waiting to happen," says a businessman in Beijing familiar with China's Internet legacy. He and others believe Facebook will be allowed into the country, subjected to the same treatment Google and Yahoo received, and then spit out -- its reputation for openness damaged, and its technology metabolized by a China eager to find new ways to spy on its citizens. The potential price for Facebook: its standing in the U.S., its most important advertising market.