I know this comment might attract a lot of hate, but I will put it here anyway.
The main reason why Facebook is not in China is that Chinese government wishes to regulate Facebook while Facebook (like Google) refuses to obey.
In some ways, Chinese government was right in the judgement that unfiltered and unregulated freedom of speech bring its own problems. And now the Western free world is starting to see these problems and impose regulations.
There's still a big difference: for us, privately owned companies with whose publications we struggle have been with us for a very long time.
Germany, where I'm from, has a more nuanced concept of free speech than the US, legally banning a greater (but overall still very small) number of topics or expressions.
However, outright banning of a media company is essentially impossible: prosecutors can only go after individual publications. They are using the same regulations to go after Facebook posts as they use to go after newspaper articles, As you might imagine it's not working out, because of sheer volume among other factors. So they've recently created a new law to simplify oversight over social media.
However this is not really a surprising new development. We're not "starting to see these problems", we've struggled with these problems throughout the existence of the German Republic. Technology is currently changing their shape, as it has before (e.g with the advent of private TV), and we're changing our approach to match.
>And now the Western free world is starting to see these problems and impose regulations.
This has not happened in the US, and it is only the authoritarian types that you are hearing from even discussing the idea. In fact, the current administration is dismantling the somewhat light-handed regulation imposed by the previous admin.
The main reason why Facebook is not in China is that Chinese government wishes to regulate Facebook while Facebook (like Google) refuses to obey.
In some ways, Chinese government was right in the judgement that unfiltered and unregulated freedom of speech bring its own problems. And now the Western free world is starting to see these problems and impose regulations.
Disclaimer: I'm Chinese.