Huawei‘s head of PR will likely have some detailing to do right after today’s stunt (despite the fact that I commend them for their bravery). The firm put out a poll from its formal Twitter account inquiring its followers who they imagined owns Huawei — alongside with the amazingly catchy hashtag #WhoRunsHuawei.

Who do you feel owns Huawei? #WhoRunsHuawei

— Huawei (@Huawei) August 2, 2019

Soon after the powerful media coverage of Trump blacklisting Huawei before this yr — and the adhering to fallout — it should not arrive as a surprise tthat 42 per cent of extra than 56,000 respondents imagined it was owned by the Chinese govt. I necessarily mean, what did Huawei assume would come about?

Its China so on the other hand disguised it is nevertheless federal government

— John Trew (@johntrew888) August 6, 2019

Where is the “Aliens” solution?

— Fr4nc15 ?️☠️? (@fr4nc15_93) August 2, 2019

winnie the pooh

— Thomas ?? (@tehabe) August 2, 2019

Spies?

— Tanner (@Tannerfixestecc) August 2, 2019

I adore Huawei… really do not care what anybody says… but we all know the CCP runs everything… strictly communist when it arrives to community administration… but when it will come to money the party has remodeled into the most aggressive capitalist state

— Sabz (@Sabby_Sabz) August 6, 2019

ohk give us the respond to

— DINGALO (@sihlelilx55) August 6, 2019

Possession and management are not necessarily the exact thing.

— Clive Carter (@Clive_Carter) August 6, 2019

This seems like a risky shift for a $100+ billion company that’s just had a important scandal, but probably Huawei is just offering up on standard sterile PR maneuvers and is basically reaching out to get the public’s point of view.

Or probably Huawei was hoping that its utopian concept of remaining owned by its employees had seeped by means of, which — to be good — numerous of the tweets did echo. But Huawei‘s possession is way much more difficult than that, as this extended and detailed New York Times articles exhibits.

Mainly, it’s virtually not possible to validate Huawei‘s possession, but the actual problem has also often been about who controls the company — #WhoRunsHuawei.

The weirdest detail about Huawei‘s poll, having said that, is that the full drama encompassing its ties to the Chinese federal government has rather a great deal died down in the press. There are even now some political complications, but the US is easing up on Huawei, and nations around the world like the United kingdom have stated there’s no complex motive to go away the corporation out of 5G infrastructure.

So why expose on your own to a full new onslaught of Twitter-fueled criticism? No clue, but I’d like to doff my hat to the ballsy PR workforce for this just one.