Mark Zuckerberg's Beijing publicity stunt was as craven as it was brilliant. There he was, the Facebook founder and his entourage, jogging through smoggy Tiananmen Square not wearing a facemask — something promotionally minded runners wouldn't dream of leaving home without.
The message from Zuckerberg's gesture, and his meeting with Beijing's propaganda minister, was impossible to miss: We at Facebook are so anxious to "friend" China that we're willing to depart from the normative behavior we exercise everywhere else. His chat with President Xi Jinping's spin master (something Silicon Valley types don't do) has tech-world tongues wagging about the biggest social network entering the most populous nation. Here's my message to Zuckerberg: don't do it, at least not now.
The only way Facebook operates in Xi's China is as a pawn in his censorship push. China's 1.4 billion people, remember, are becoming less free with each passing year under Xi, a leader who's barely gotten started. His reign won't end until 2023 and his obsession with stifling dissent, controlling the narrative and discrediting detractors means Facebook would operate as a de facto extension of Xi's government.