遵从网络审查，LinkedIn进入中国

香港——对微软(Microsoft)、Facebook和谷歌(Google)等美国科技公司而言，在中国开展业务并非易事，有时甚至是不可能完成的任务。
但有一家公司例外。社交网站领英(linkedIn)已经找到了一种做生意的门道，那就是愿意在言论自由——西方互联网世界的基石——方面做出让步。
领英的经验给正竭力进军庞大中国市场的硅谷企业提供了一种模式，或许还敲响了警钟。其他一些美国科技公司正以极大的兴趣关注着领英，想知道该公司能否在言论自由和它愿意遵守的中国法律之间找到平衡。
“未来5年间，那里的情况将持续改善，因此，现在就在那儿占有一席之地是很重要的。”经纪公司Needham的互联网分析师克里·赖斯(Kerry Rice)表示。“如果领英想出适应中国经营环境的办法，其他公司显然会加以模仿。”
在没引起中国政府多少关注的情况下，领英的全球性英文网站已经拥有了400万中国会员。不过，中国约有1.4亿专业工作者，而该公司想要进一步进入他们的视野，于是在今年2月推出了中文版领英。
这个中文网站已经在中国吸收了100万新会员，而且似乎得到了政府的默许。目前它运转正常，未遭屏蔽，而香港爆发亲民主抗议活动后，中国当局已经封禁了Instagram和雅虎(Yahoo)等其他一些互联网服务。
领英看似取得了成功，其秘诀何在？除了愿意遵守中国的言论规则，公司还将其中文网站7%的股份，让渡给了两家颇有背景的中国风投公司。业内人士称，对于在中国寻求发展的外国互联网公司而言，和本土企业建立这样的联系是至关重要的。
“政府里的人需要知道他们可以给谁打电话；而作为一家外企，你需要在自己的网站被屏蔽之前得到消息，那样才有机会做点什么来挽救，”博达克咨询有限公司(BDA China)创始人邓肯·克拉克(Duncan Clark)说。这家公司为外企提供中国科技行业的咨询服务。“拥有这样的渠道，是很有价值的。”
领英的发言人汉尼·德尔兹(Hani Durzy)表示，公司之所以开通中文网站是因为“相信，就像在世界其他地方一样，在中国，它所创造的经济机会能够对个人产生深远的影响。”
“我们强烈支持言论自由，”他还说，“但在开通中文网站时，我们意识到，必须遵守中国政府的要求，才能在这里立足。因此，在中国开展业务的决定经过了我们的慎重权衡。”
领英使用软件算法和人工审阅相组合的方式，在中国境内的中文和英文网站上，对当局认为具有政治敏感性的内容进行审查。如果发布的内容被封禁，用户会收到电子邮件发送的通知，称帖子中包含“在中国遭到禁止的内容”，“将不会被linkedIn在中国的会员看到”。
领英没有为中文用户提供某些重要功能，比如创建或加入群组，或是张贴长篇文章，而其他地方的用户就可以开展公开讨论、组建社区。
虽然领英的战略让其接触到了中文用户，但分析人士表示，这对公司的声誉和成长战略带来了风险。
像很多美国高科技公司一样，总部设在加州山景城的领英也宣扬自己拥护自由市场原则。过多的审查可能会导致用户离开。
更重要的是，如果领英的业务在中国进一步扩大，中国政府就可能获得更多的砝码，对它在全球范围内可以发布哪些类型的内容，提出要求。
在进入中国市场的过程中，该公司已经遇到了一点波折：一些来自其他国家的用户，发现自己在中国境内发布的英文帖子，在全球范围内也遭到了屏蔽，感到很愤怒。公司之所以采取这一类做法，是不想让中国用户接触到任何可能会引来棘手政府审查的内容。上个月，领英放宽了这项政策，让那些在中国被封禁的帖子可以在其他地方显示出来。
还有人认为，对于领英是如何审查内容的，以及为什么要进行审查，它并没有表达清楚。
例如，在中国生活、为媒体发表评论并进行高科技投资的利明璋(Bill Bishop)说，自己有一次从美国联网发布了关于中国的内容，而领英封禁了这则帖子。当他询问原因时，公司回答说是因为他在中国发布了这条信息，但这个回答并不准确，真正的问题是，他把自己的工作地点列为中国。
其他一些科技公司权衡了在满足中国政府的要求方面的风险，选择了不同的道路。
对于中国提出的对境内内容进行审查的要求，谷歌曾经做过让步，但在2010年时，该公司高调地调转船头，改为从香港的服务器向中国用户提供未经审查的结果，从而与中国当局交恶至今。
Twitter已被中国封禁多年，而公司表示，它不会审查帖子。因为按照公司负责全球公共政策的副总裁科林·克罗韦尔(Colin Crowell)的说法，这样做会“牺牲这个平台的原则”。
Vine是Twitter旗下的短视频服务。克罗韦尔说，它在中国自由运作，没有“任何特别安排”。
虽然全球月度用户约13亿的头号社交网络Facebook在中国遭到屏蔽，但它仍未放弃进入中国。不过它正试图用商业来撬开中国的大门，向希望接触海外消费者的中国企业和政府机构出售广告。
Facebook还在对Instagram的经验进行研究。Instagram是Facebook旗下单独运营的图片分享应用，其业务增长十分迅速，只是偶尔会被中国政府屏蔽。
“我们认为这是个激动人心的机遇，”公司亚太地区副总裁丹·内亚里(Dan Neary)在声明中称。
分析人士说，领英已经做好了让北京接受自己的准备，因为它可以搬出这条理由：它提高了就业市场的效率，最终必将刺激经济增长。中国的互联网管理者经常说，发展网络的主要目标应该是促进经济增长。
中国封闭的市场为四家中国本土企业提供了一个有利的开端。这四家在互联网行业占主导地位的公司分别是：电商领域的阿里巴巴、搜索领域的百度、电脑游戏和即时通讯领域的腾讯，以及社交网络领域的新浪。
在中国，领英还面临着智联招聘和前程无忧等当地竞争对手的竞争，这两家公司都在中国拥有更多用户。
领英与两家当地公司——中国宽带产业基金和美国风投公司红杉资本(Sequoia Capital)的中国子公司——的合作关系，帮它处理了公司与政府官员之间的关系。
中国宽带产业基金由田溯宁创立，他是一位关系网强大的投资者，以前是一名企业家，曾与前中国国家主席江泽民的儿子共同运营一家通讯公司。该公司至少还帮过一家硅谷公司印象笔记(Evernote)进入中国。
“Facebook和Twitter等公司有很多问题，”中国宽带产业基金发言人王志飏说。“我们认为，关键原因之一，是这些公司和中国政府之间缺少沟通，甚至没有沟通。”
本土合作伙伴有帮助领英获得成功的强烈动力。根据合作协议，如果满足了特定的条件，它们能以2000万美元（约合1.23亿元人民币）的价格，额外购买这家合资企业20%的股份。
领英的确保持着对该企业的控制，确保自己享有大部分利润，也承担着大部分风险。
根据中国的法律，为了继续运营，这家合资企业最终需要获得互联网内容提供商执照。该执照会带来一些好处，但也有一些不利的方面。一旦获得执照，该公司将被要求存储有关中国境内的中国用户的信息。
这么做会让政府更容易要求获取使用该服务的异见人士等的信息。近十年前，正是这个难题绊倒了雅虎，促使该公司基本上退出了中国。
尽管面临这些挑战，领英依然对其在中国的行动持乐观态度。
“最后，我们最重要的考虑因素，是为中国数百万专业人士提供机会，大幅增加他们的经济机遇，”领英发言人德尔兹说。“我们希望在中国一切顺利，因此我们将继续听取意见并学习。” But one company, the social network linkedIn, has found a way to do business — by being willing to compromise on the free expression that is the backbone of life on the Western Internet.
linkedIn’s experience provides a blueprint, and perhaps a cautionary lesson, for Silicon Valley as it tries to crack the vast Chinese market. Other American tech companies are watching with great interest, wondering whether linkedIn will find an equilibrium between free speech and Chinese law that it can live with.
“Over the next five years, things will continue to progress in a positive fashion over there, so it’s important to be there today,” said Kerry Rice, an Internet analyst at Needham, a brokerage firm. “If linkedIn figures out how to navigate the operating environment in China, clearly other companies will try to imitate that.”
linkedIn’s global English-language site has attracted four million Chinese members without gaining much attention from the Chinese government. But the company wanted to reach more of China’s estimated 140 million professional workers, and so in February it introduced a Chinese-language version.
The Chinese-language site has attracted about a million new members and seems to have the tacit approval of the government. It is functioning without blockages even though the authorities have cracked down on other Internet services, including Instagram and Yahoo, in reaction to the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
The secret to linkedIn’s seeming success? Aside from its willingness to play by Chinese rules on expression, the company has relinquished 7 percent of its local operation to two well-connected Chinese venture capital firms. Having such a relationship with homegrown firms is crucial for foreign web companies seeking to operate in China, experts say.
“The government needs to know who they can call, and as a foreign company you need to know before your site gets shut down so you have a chance to do something about it,” said Duncan Clark, founder of BDA China, a consulting firm that advises foreign companies on China’s tech sector. “That’s worth a lot, to have that channel.”
A spokesman for linkedIn, Hani Durzy, said the company opened a Chinese-language site because of its “belief that the creation of economic opportunity can have a profound impact on the lives of Chinese individuals, much as it has elsewher in the world.”
“While we strongly support freedom of expression,” he added, “we recognized when we launched that we would need to adhere to the requirements of the Chinese government in order to operate in China. So the decision to proceed in China was one that we weighed heavily.”
On the Chinese- and English-language sites in China, the company censors content that the authorities consider politically sensitive, using a combination of software algorithms and human reviewers. People whose posts are blocked get an emailed form letter advising them that a posted item contains “content prohibited in China” and “will not be seen by linkedIn members located in China.”
linkedIn also does not provide Chinese-language users certain important tools — like the ability to create or join groups or to post long essays — that allow people elsewher to have public discussions and form communities.
Although linkedIn’s strategy has given it access to Chinese speakers, analysts say it poses risks for the company’s reputation and growth strategy.
Like many American tech companies, linkedIn, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., has promoted itself as dedicated to free-market principles. Too much censorship could cause users to flee.
What’s more, if linkedIn’s business grows larger in China, that could give the government more leverage to make demands about what type of content is permissible globally.
The company has already stumbled a bit in its entry into the Chinese market. It angered some non-Chinese customers, who found that posts they made in English while in China were blocked globally as part of the company’s effort to protect its Chinese users from anything that could attract unwanted government scrutiny. linkedIn moved to loosen its policy last month, allowing posts blocked in China to be seen elsewher.
Some also say linkedIn has not communicated clearly how and why it is censoring content.
For example, Bill Bishop, a media commentator and tech investor in China, said content he posted about China from a connection in the United States was blocked by the service. When he inquired why, the company inaccurately responded that it was because he had posted the item from China, when the real problem was that he had listed China as his work location.
Other tech companies have weighed the risks of trying to satisfy the Chinese government and taken a different approach.
Google, which once acceded to China’s demands to censor content in the country, noisily reversed course in 2010, moving to deliver uncensored results to Chinese users from servers in Hong Kong and souring its relationship with the authorities to this day.
Twitter has been blocked in China for years and says it will not censor posts because to do so would “sacrifice the principles of the platform,” according to Colin Crowell, the company’s vice president for global public policy.
Vine, a short-video service owned by Twitter, operates freely in China without “any special arrangement,” Mr. Crowell said.
Although Facebook — the world’s largest social network, with about 1.3 billion monthly users worldwide — is blocked in China, it hasn’t given up on getting in the country. But it is trying to use commerce to pry open the door, selling ads to Chinese companies and government organizations that want to reach consumers outside China.
Facebook is also studying the experience of Instagram, its separately operated photo-sharing app, which is growing quickly with only occasional blockages by the Chinese government.
“We think this is an exciting opportunity,” Dan Neary, the company’s vice president for Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement.
Analysts say linkedIn is well positioned to be acceptable to Beijing because it can argue that it makes the employment market more efficient, ultimately spurring the economy. China’s Internet regulators often argue that the main goal of development of the Internet should be to bolster economic growth.
China’s closed markets have given a huge head start to four homegrown companies, which dominate the Internet there: Alibaba in e-commerce, Baidu in search, Tencent in video gaming and instant messaging and Sina in social networking.
linkedIn itself faces competition from local rivals like Zhaopin and 51Jobs.com, which both have more users than it does in China.
linkedIn’s partnership with two local players — China Broadband Capital and a Chinese affiliate of Sequoia Capital, an American venture capital firm — has helped it manage its relationship with government officials.
C.B.C. was founded by Edward Tian, a well-connected investor and former entrepreneur who once ran a telecommunications company with the son of a former Chinese president, Jiang Zemin. The company has helped bring at least one other Silicon Valley company, Evernote, into China.
“There have been a lot of problems with companies like Facebook and Twitter,” said Kevin Wang, a C.B.C. spokesman. “We think one of the key reasons is the lack of communication, even the absence of communication, between these companies and the Chinese government.”
The local partners have a strong incentive to help linkedIn succeed. Under the partnership agreement, they can buy an additional 21 percent of the joint venture for $20 million if certain conditions are met.
linkedIn does retain control of the venture, securing the bulk of the profit as well as the risk.
Under Chinese law, the joint venture will eventually need to obtain an Internet content provider’s license to keep operating. The license has some benefits, but also some downsides; once granted, the company will be required to store information about its Chinese users in China.
Doing so would make it much easier for the government to demand information on, say, dissidents who use the service — a conundrum that tripped up Yahoo nearly a decade ago and prompted that company to essentially pull out of the country.
Despite the challenges, linkedIn is optimistic about its efforts in China.
“In the end, the most important consideration for us was providing an opportunity for millions of Chinese professionals to significantly expand their economic opportunities,” said Mr. Durzy, the linkedIn spokesman. “We want to get it right in China, so we will continue to listen and learn."(更多资讯请关注中国进出口网)