Facebook’s hopes of connecting with China might have been blocked, again.
For several hours, a Chinese government database showed that Facebook (FB) got the regulatory go-ahead to open a subsidiary in the eastern province of Zhejiang. But the more recent censoring of mention of the subsidiary in Chinese media could be hinting at FB's continued challenge in penetrating the elusive market.
A New York Times article mentions that the approval has been withdrawn, according to a person familiar with the matter who did not want to be named since they were not authorized to speak on the record.
Having been banned from having its social networking website in the nation for over a decade, FB has apparently been trying to win access into the Chinese market through various strategies and gestures for a while – including its founder Mark Zuckerberg’s holding a Mandarin-language Q&A session with students, and posting photos of his jog through Tiananmen Square.