Senator Asks Baidu’s Robin Li About Censorship, Facebook

We are just beginning to get a clearer picture of how rough the road ahead will be for Facebook if it enters China, as many believe it hopes to do in a joint venture with Chinese search giant Baidu. A report last week at All Things Digital suggests the Chinese Facebook would connect with the global one in a way that might scare off users outside China. And this week the same site hosted a comic strip that amusingly lampooned such plans by comparing Mark Zuckerberg and Chinese President Hu Jintao’s relative respect (or lack thereof) for users’ privacy.

Now Congress is getting into the act, as was of course inevitable. Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who just visited China, has written to Baidu’s billionaire CEO Robin Li, expressing to Li his concerns about “you company’s censorship of the internet.” Durbin says he is preparing legislation that would make companies “take reasonable steps to protect human rights or face liability,” adding that Baidu, listed in the U.S. on Nasdaq, would be subject to the legislation. He also asks Li if he is working on a joint venture to bring Facebook to China, and asks “what safeguards will you implement to protect the users of the service.”