China Wants To Buy Facebook Stock • Hacker News Board

Re: China Wants To Buy Facebook Stock

#31

Post by esrauch » Tue, Jul 05, 2011, 8:27 PM UTC

enjalot wrote: post #24

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 take…

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.

Re: China Wants To Buy Facebook Stock

#32

Post by 18pfsmt » Tue, Jul 05, 2011, 8:43 PM UTC

esrauch wrote: post #31

enjalot wrote: post #24

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 take…

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.

Re: China Wants To Buy Facebook Stock

#33

Post by esrauch » Tue, Jul 05, 2011, 9:07 PM UTC

18pfsmt wrote: post #32

esrauch wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: China Wants To Buy Facebook Stock

#34

Post by dedicated » Tue, Jul 05, 2011, 9:37 PM UTC

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?

Re: China Wants To Buy Facebook Stock

#35

Post by nextparadigms » Tue, Jul 05, 2011, 10:24 PM UTC

esrauch wrote: post #14

nextparadigms wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 v…

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

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.

Re: China Wants To Buy Facebook Stock

#36

Post by nextparadigms » Tue, Jul 05, 2011, 10:26 PM UTC

qq66 wrote: post #26

bad_user wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: China Wants To Buy Facebook Stock

#37

Post by 18pfsmt » Tue, Jul 05, 2011, 11:10 PM UTC

esrauch wrote: post #33

18pfsmt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: China Wants To Buy Facebook Stock

#38

Post by andymurd » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:17 AM UTC

mef wrote: post #10

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.

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.

Re: China Wants To Buy Facebook Stock

#39

Post by qq66 » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 2:21 AM UTC

nextparadigms wrote: post #36

qq66 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: China Wants To Buy Facebook Stock

#40

Post by enjalot » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 6:33 PM UTC

esrauch wrote: post #31

enjalot wrote: post #24

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 take…

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.

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.