Mark Zuckerberg, China, and Facebook’s Brave New World

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on Oct. 23, 2019. Zuckerberg testified about Facebook's proposed cryptocurrency Libra, how his company will handle false and misleading information by political leaders during the 2020 campaign, and how it handles its users’ data and privacy. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Commentary

Back in 2014, as tech journalist Cate Cadell noted at the time, a 30-year-old Mark Zuckerberg “sent the internet into a frenzy” after agreeing to do a Q&A in Chinese at an event hosted by Tsinghua University. The performance, added Cadell, “drew mixed reviews.” Some were quick to praise Zuckerberg’s “persistence.” Others, meanwhile, were determined to pick apart “his shaky pronunciation” and poor grammar.