China: Facebook defies China with new ad sales push

Facebook is setting up a new engineering team in Singapore to focus on its lucrative China advertising business, even as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg ramps up criticism of a country that blocks the social network, reported the New York Times.

The team at Facebook’s Asia-Pacific headquarters is tasked with developing better ad-buying tools for Chinese customers who have to work around internet restrictions in China known as the “great firewall,” the sources said. 

One of the people described it as Facebook’s first significant attempt at developing regionally localized ads tools outside of its Silicon Valley headquarters, where China-related engineering work previously took place. 

Facebook confirmed the creation of the new team, describing it as having an “Asia-first” mission and consisting of both product and “business integrity” sub-teams. Its existence has not previously been reported. 

Facebook sells more than US$5 billion a year worth of ad space to Chinese businesses and government agencies looking to promote their messages abroad, analysts estimate. That makes China Facebook’s biggest country for revenue after the United States, which delivered US$24.1 billion in advertising sales in 2018.

Full Content: New York Times

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