Facebook Reportedly Building Censorship Tools to Woo China

  • Wednesday, November 23rd, 2016
  • Author: Tim Maytom
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Mark Zuckerberg meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping, centre, and Lu Wei, Chinas top Internet regulator

Facebook is reportedly developing a tool that suppresses posts from appearing in users news feeds in specific geographic area, as part of a strategy aimed at appealing to Chinese authorities.

According to the New York Times, the tool is designed for use by third parties, such as local companies in China, but has been developed with the blessing of CEO Mark Zuckerberg in order to help the social network gain an entry to the Chinese market, where it has been blocked since 2009.

Third party firms with access to the tool would gain full control over which posts appear in users feeds in a given area. Whether posts would still be accessible if directly linked to, or accessed via profile pages, is still unclear.

The New York Times reports that the tool has been in development for a long time, but work accelerated last year when Vaughan Smith, vice president for mobile, corporate and business development at Facebook, was placed in charge of the various teams of engineers working on different elements.

The tool has been a widely-known project internally for some time. In July, an employee asked Zuckerberg about the moral implications of the tool during one of the companys weekly Q&A sessions, to which he reportedly replied “Its better for Facebook to be a part of enabling conversation, even if its not yet the full conversation.”

Zuckerberg has been quietly focused on breaking into China for several years now. He has paid multiple visits to the country to develop relationships with Chinese internet executives and government leaders, including President Xi Jinping, and has been learning Mandarin to facilitate communication.

Facebook PaperHowever, the issue of suppressing content from users has taken on a new weight recently, with Facebook accused of inadvertantly swaying the US election by allowing fake news to propagate on its networks, and forcing people into an echo chamber where diverse opinions were not easily accessible.

Facebook already restricts content in a number of countries, including Pakistan, Turkey and Russia, in line with standard practices by American internet firms operating in such areas. Between July and December 2015, it removed roughly 55,000 pieces of content from feeds in around 20 countries.

But the new tool would take this process a step further, enabling authorities to prevent content from appearing in feeds in the first place, rather than censoring it after it appears. The third party with control over the tool would essentially act as a filter between users and the news feed.

This addition has proved the final straw for a number of employees at Facebook, with several who were working on the suppression tool having left the company in protest, according to sources within the firm.

As with a number of Facebooks experimental projects, the tool may never see the light of day, but given the current controversy surrounding Facebooks ability to control the news that users see, even the idea that the company is working on a way to restrict the free flow of speech and information is worrying, and speaks volumes about the companys determination to access the Chinese market.

“We have long said that we are interested in China, and are spending time understanding and learning more about the country,” said a spokesperson for Facebook in a statement, adding that the company had made no official decisions on its approach into China.