Facebook Seeking Friends in Beltway

President Barack Obama will travel to Facebook's Silicon Valley headquarters April 20 to hold a "town hall" meeting on the economy with users of the social-networking site. But Facebook is still trying to find a path to Washington, where the company has only a fledgling lobbying operation, even though it finds its privacy policies under increasing scrutiny and is trying to navigate a politically sensitive expansion into China.

In seven years, Facebook has risen from a tiny start-up to an Internet power with a potential market value estimated at more than $50 billion. Now an online forum with more than 600 million users, Facebook faces growing pressure from lawmakers and regulators concerned about the way it uses personal information shared by its users. At the same time, the company is confronting questions about how it will handle its role as a global public square for dissidents if it enters China and other countries with little tolerance for dissent. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal about its approach abroad, Facebook officials in Washington suggested the company might be willing to play by China's rules—a stance that could raise hackles in Congress.