Why Facebook Won't Give Up on China

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is willing to try just about anything to get his company back into China. Publicly, he launched a charm offensive that included learning Mandarin and offering Chinese President Xi Jinping the chance to name his first child (he declined). Less publicly, but no less important, the New York Times reports that his company has developed tools to prevent sensitive posts from appearing in Facebook feeds in "specific geographic areas."

It's a bold move that underscores just how hard Facebook is hunting for its next billion users. But even if the new tools convinced China's government to lift its ban on Facebook, the country's 700 million internet users have little reason to join. They have plenty of social networks of their own, most of them more advanced and more convenient. As Zuckerberg surely knows, the business case for a move onto the mainland looks dismal.