China Wants To Buy Facebook Stock | Hacker News Reader

China Wants To Buy Facebook Stock

blogs.forbes.com

61 pointstaylorbuley39 comments

A lot of xenophobia in this article. The amount of data Facebook, Google and others are collecting on us is worrying when we think of what might happen if it gets into the "wrong" hands. Right now thoughts of China buying Facebook illicit this image easily in our western minds, but we should recognize this feeling as an admission that we don't really feel safe giving so much control to these companies.

I haven't taken many active steps not to depend on them, but it's troubling whenever I think about what happens if a bad apple gets in the bunch. If I were to become a target of someone with access to Google or Facebook level data, there would be nowhere to run.

I don't foresee becoming a target in the near future, so I haven't done much to 'liberate' myself or switch to open solutions. For now the services provided give me many more benefits than worries. I just wanted to point out that this article is playing on xenophobic fears and we should be careful of doublespeak.

*elicit

As far as I know no company has ever tracked down dissidents and imprisoned them. I'm not saying that you should exactly trust Facebook, but I think it is disingenuous to imply that you have just as much to fear from a crooked company as you do from a crooked government.

I find this interesting because I was just reading about these incidents from the early 20th century in the US:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

Both of these articles are about union struggles where the government intervened on behalf of corporations. These incidents have caused me to question how we treat various types of organisations [i.e. C-corps vs. 501(c)(3)] as they relate to society.

Thanks for the links.

I do think it's relevant that a corporation that has that kind of clout with the government is something you should be just as afraid of as branches of the government themselves, but I still feel like the potential for abuse by Facebook and the Chinese government is not even close.

I agree with you completely wrt China/FB. However, given your comment's assertion, I thought you might find the stories of those incidents interesting as I did.

My point was actually that I fear any corrupt person having access to the kind of data that FB or Google have. If I am that person's target, for any reason (political dissent, competition, just cuz) I am way more screwed. It doesn't have to be a company or a government, it can be a criminal organization or just a crazy individual.

I don't think I was being disingenuous, my point is about how dangerous and powerful the data these companies have is. They probably have more ability to identify and locate an individual than any of the 3 letter agencies. My other point was that the article has a serious xenophobic agenda, something that probably increases readership but is bad for the world.

Hey, if they can get a few billion dollars of China's cash at the current inflated valuation for non-voting stock who are we to criticize?

They would need to somehow purchase very large blocs of voting stock to gain enough board seats to matter and that's not going to happen anytime soon.

I think this is much ado about nothing.

The article confusingly states first that China's stake would not be influential, and then states that the apparent reason for China's interest is to have "control in the long run".

Even if China's stake was influential, why would they need it in order to censor Facebook? They censor plenty of sites in which they have no stake whatsoever.

They are currently only able to completely block the website from China. If they can get an influential stake then they can have it open in China with back doors to block certain traffic/words and give law enforcement access to information on dissidents.

Sure, but what motivation would they have to open it in China instead of just blocking it and propping up a Facebook-style Chinese site that they can surveil for free?

Perhaps they could get access to information about people outside of China.

Doubtful. They're probably not even going to be stored in the same datacenters.

It's a dual-class stock structure, "an influential stake" is purely theoretical.

"Even if China's stake was influential, why would they need it in order to censor Facebook? They censor plenty of sites in which they have no stake whatsoever."

Uh, to censor it in other countries?

I suspect that China does not want to censor or influence Facebook, but rather to co-opt its IP, as it has done with other US corporations (sometimes legally, sometimes not) - see Cisco, Google, GM, Microsoft.

Holding a good-sized stake in FB is a great way to plant an inside man and gain access to that IP.

I dont think that will happen ...unless facebook's only interest is to make bucket loads of money. If China does end up buying stake in fb, fb risks loosing a lot of existing users.

> ...unless facebook's only interest is to make bucket loads of money

Aren't they a corporation? What other interest would they have?

And Facebook is probably going to lose quite a few users to Google+ anyway - I can't think of anyone who would eschew Google+ for Facebook, but then suddenly quit because China invested.

Not really. China will get non-voting stock. I'd pay money to see a Chinese representative trying to explain to Mark "I'm the CEO, bitch" Zukerberg why their minority non-voting stock means Facebook MUST follow Chinese laws OR ELSE.

They are trying every vector of influence. Maybe they're trying to work up to a board seat. That would give them strategic and operational insights that would help them monitor and censor. And, position them to co-opt any China entry under a "partnership".

Also: Many Chinese are accustomed to considerable collusion and shady dealings among partners. Simply publicizing a stake could make many Chinese leery of FB, and less likely to use it politically.

Reminds me of this cartoon: http://i.imgur.com/9q7UL.gif

> A billion-dollar investment does not buy much influence in a site expected to be worth a hundred times that when it goes public.

Really? Facebook is going to be worth a hundred billion dollars?

Give or take, that's the latest figure being tossed around. I believe the last second market buy-in was at a valuation of $87.5 billion, and that was in May (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

Adding 10s of billions of implied market cap a quarter. The bubble knows no bounds. Interesting product, interesting stock. Regardless, does anyone else think this is going to go down as the biggest tech stock blunder in history? Can anything from 2000 touch this? It's madness, and infinitely intriguing.

Last one was $70 bn. It dropped from about $85 bn. Even $70 bn is way too much for Facebook. I think their valuation grew more like a Ponzi scheme. Everyone thought it was going to have a higher value, so they invested more in it and told others about it.

I remember it grew a few tens of billions basically overnight with bit tech sites claiming "..and Facebook's value grew another $5 billion this week".

I think its value will start dropping fast by the end of the year, especially now with Google+ gaining traction.

Google offered Groupon $6bn and they turned it down. Facebook is worth at least 10x as much as Groupon in my mind.

Considering that Groupon is basically burning cash and that (until further evidence) their business model is unsustainable, I don't think that's a good example.

People should really compare Facebook to Google. Google post-IPO was valued at a "bubbly" 27 billion in 2004. And take note that at that time Google already proved it had a viable business model; but people were still freaking out because Google only had one product, compared to what Microsoft or Yahoo had.

Are you going to tell me that Facebook is worth three times as much as Google did in 2004?

It's challenging to compare an Internet company in 2011 to a freeze-frame of one in 2004.

The better comparison is to Google today, which is worth $171B. Is Facebook worth 2/3 as much as Google? It certainly could be, since if it assaults Google head-on in an ad network, given certain other assumptions it could capture a huge market position.

Facebook makes 4 billion in revenue. Google makes I think about 7x more. And from what I heard Facebook ads aren't very effective.

I'm talking about an ad network. Like AdSense. They haven't done that yet, so revenue projections for what it would be are just guesswork.

Groupon would never get a $6bn offer today, and to pretend like that is what I was proposing is absurd. Their market position and future prospects has significantly slipped from what it was. We can only speculate if that would have occurred had Google acquired them or if they would have managed it better.

The exact same line of thinking that you are using would allow you to say "Here's a source that puts Myspace above Facebook (Alexa rankings from 2008), and most likely had higher ad revenue at that time. MySpace just sold for $35m so how can you say Facebook is worth even $100m?"

Valuations of tech companies is largely based on future projections and the future projections of Groupon has shifted in the past 6 months just as significantly as MySpace did in the last 3 years.

Exactly, and it just goes to show how over-valued companies are today. Isn't Groupon worth only $700 million now? It would've been stupid of Google to pay that much. LinkedIn is not worth 9 billion either.

Yes, most likely.

Is it safe to say Facebook can probably double its userbase by going into China? Morality aside, this could be immensely profitable. More, Google has already backed out of China... so wouldn't it only make sense for Facebook to seize the opportunity to expand without Google+ competition?

First the Russians buy into Facebook and now the Chinese too? All kidding aside, why would Facebook even want this to happen. It's not like they don't have enough investors out there waiting to throw money at them, who won't have potential conflicts of interest (censorship, surveillance) don't the road.

And did the author actually mention MySpace as a potential destination for defecting FB users, without mentioning Google Plus?

Is this going to help in any way to better clone facebook? http://www.renren.com

Thanks to whomever clarified title from "China Wants To Buy Facebook" to "China Wants To Buy Facebook Stock"

Let's them buy it all, could be a win-win, as since 4-5 years ago, Chinese economy has an important bubble component, so they are theoretically "experts" handling those cases (/irony).

The facts in OP lower my opinion of FB even more.

Looks like it's a shadow war between the CIA and the Guoanbu!

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