Published: August 30th, 2023,
Last updated: May 28th, 2025

During lunch break, national interests in China take a back seat for a short while. This might sound like satire, but US internet giant Meta has provided empirical evidence for it. The activities of a multitude of fake accounts on Meta’s social networks, like Facebook, regularly decrease significantly when the midday call is sounded in the People’s Republic. Activities then pick up again shortly after hunger has been satisfied. This pattern holds reliably from Monday to Friday.