人人上市令Facebook在中国进退两难

　　Also, its effective use by activists to help organise the revolt in Egypt has left an inconvenient halo around the company.
　　活动分子有效利用Facebook组织埃及革命，也给这家公司戴上了一个尴尬的光环。

　　Moving into China too soon after this would invite a public relations disaster.
　　在此之后太快进入中国，将引起一场公关灾难。

　　Mr Zuckerberg will have to weigh the damage all of this will do to the brand against the long-term risk of being shut out of China. Google ended up with the worst of both worlds. Facebook shows every sign of being ready to take the plunge – putting it alongside many other media and internet companies that believe they can’t afford to stay out.

　　扎克伯格将不得不权衡这一切对品牌的损害以及被关在中国大门之外的长期风险。谷歌最后在两方面都落得了最糟糕的结果。所有迹象都显示，Facebook已经准备往下跳，站在其他许多相信承受不起不进来的后果的媒体和互联网公司旁边。

　　That leaves two big questions. One is whether a Chinese Facebook should be walled off from the rest of the global social network. Information leakage is a concern: if you have a friend in China, do you really want Beijing to have access to all your personal information – not to mention your connections with other people in China? Options Facebook has studied include various filters to prevent international content from flowing on to its servers in China, and warnings to alert international users about the risks of connecting with people behind the Great Firewall. But none of this would be as clean and bulletproof as just walling China off completely, at least at the start.

　　这引出了两大问题。首先，中国的Facebook是否应该与这个全球社交网络的其他部分隔开。信息泄露令人关切——如果你有个朋友在中国，你真的想让中国政府能够获得你所有的个人信息吗？更不用说你与中国其他人的联系了。Facebook研究了许多解决方案，其中一个是采取各种过滤措施，防止国际内容流入在中国的服务器，以及警告国际用户，提醒他们小心与防火长城内用户联系的风险。但这些都没有完全避开中国来得干净彻底——至少是在最开始。

　　The second big question has to do with governance. Should Facebook hand control to a local partner, as Yahoo has done by taking a back seat to Jack Ma of Alibaba? Or should it actively manage the business itself? But with its brand name on the line and long-term aspirations to be a real force in China, Facebook has little option but to put itself in the driving seat. It will not have escaped its notice that Mr Ma has been agitating to buy back Yahoo’s stake in Alibaba.

　　第二个大问题与公司治理有关。Facebook是应该像雅虎(Yahoo)退居阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的马云(Jack Ma)之后那样，将控制权交给中国合作伙伴，还是应该积极参与经营管理？但要顾及品牌名声，实现成为在中国的一支真正力量的长远抱负，Facebook几乎别无选择，只能亲自坐上驾驶席。它也不会没有注意到，马云一直在鼓动阿里巴巴回购雅虎持有的股份。

　　That means Facebook must engage more directly in China than Yahoo, though with the support of a stronger local ally than Google could count on. Finding a workable – and durable – relationship will be a stretch. But as the Renren debut shows, the time is fast approaching when Facebook will have to jump.

　　 这意味着，即使倚为后盾的本土盟友比谷歌的更为强大，Facebook也必须比雅虎更直接地参与中国业务。找到一种可行——而又持久——的关系，将是一件痛苦的事情。但正如人人的首日上市所表明的那样，Facebook必须“一跳”的日子正在迅速逼近。