Facebook has reportedly developed News Feed software to suppress posts in China

[ForgottenSeer 55474]

Facebook has reportedly developed News Feed software to suppress posts in China

How far is Facebook willing to go to convince China's Communist government to lift the ban on its social network in the country? According to a new report, the company has developed software that allows third-parties to target posts in certain geographic areas.

The News Feed censorship tool was created specifically to help the platform make inroads into China, claim employees at the company who spoke to The New York Times.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made clear his ambition to drastically increase Facebook's user base. Speaking in February, the company's founder predicted the platform would have 5 billion members by 2030."We want to finish connecting everyone, we're going to do it in partnership with governments and different companies all over the world," remarked Zuckerberg at the time. In its most recent quarter, Facebook claimed its user base increased by 17 percent year-over-year to reach 1.75 billion.

However, the restriction on the social network in China (in place since 2009) has cut it off from a massive potential audience of over 1 billion people. That void has been filled by local platforms and western services that are willing to play ball with the Chinese government in terms of censorship, such as Weibo, and LinkedIn. On the other hand, web giants such as Google and Twitter are in the same boat as Facebook, due to their refusal to block content in the country.

Facebook reportedly doesn't plan to utilize the new tool itself. Instead, it will offer it to a third party (such as a Chinese contractor) to monitor and remove trending stories on the platform. The software's code is visible to engineers within the company, and is already causing disagreements -- mainly due to Facebook's fraught history concerning censorship.

This year alone, Facebook has faced multiple criticisms over its censorship of historically relevant news and images, and over the alleged suppression of conservative news on its trending feed by ex-staffers. The company is also currently at odds with the media over the so-called rise of fake political news on its platform.

A number of employees who were working on the new software have reportedly left Facebook after voicing concerns regarding its implementation. The company has not confirmed whether the experimental feature will, in fact, see the light of day.

"We have long said that we are interested in China, and are spending time understanding and learning more about the country," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.

This approach is best reflected by the company's CEO, who has made multiple trips to China (most recently in March), showing off his Mandarin skills along the away. In June, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg made a similar statement to the firm's board of investors. China also uses Facebook's ad network to show promotional content to users outside of its borders.

It should be noted that Facebook already restricts content on a global scale on the behest of national governments, as detailed in its data requests report. Facebook claims these requests are linked to material that violates the law in a specific country. It says the following in regard to these types of removals: "When we receive such a request, it is scrutinized to determine if the specified content does indeed violate local laws. If we determine that it does, then we make it unavailable in the relevant country or territory."

Until now, it seemed Facebook's decade-long connectivity strategy would be its main route toward achieving its globe-conquering ambition . Using solar-powered drones, satellites, and local WiFi and mobile internet projects, the company intends to bring connectivity to rural areas in emerging nations. Those plans have taken a hit of late, courtesy of hardware mishaps and accidents. In September, Facebook lost its Amos-6 satellite due to an explosion that destroyed the SpaceX rocket that was carrying it. And, just this week, the U.S. aviation safety agency the NTSB revealed it is investigating an incident involving a "structural failure" suffered by Facebook's internet-serving Aquila drone during its inaugural test flight.

 

[Fritz]

Yes Mark, keep walking around smiling, telling everybody how you want to better mankind while aiding and abetting dictatorships so they can keep their sheep under their heels. Way to go. I mean it's all about the user base, right?

 

[ForgottenSeer 55474]

• Facebook’s chief executive, has cultivated relationships with China’s leaders, including President Xi Jinping. He has paid multiple visits to the country to meet its top internet executives. He has made an effort to learn Mandarin.
  
  Inside Facebook, the work to enter China runs far deeper.
  
  The social network has quietly developed software to suppress posts from appearing in people’s news feeds in specific geographic areas, according to three current and former Facebook employees, who asked for anonymity because the tool is confidential. The feature was created to help Facebook get into China, a market where the social network has been blocked, these people said. Mr. Zuckerberg has supported and defended the effort, the people added.
  
  Facebook has restricted content in other countries before, such as Pakistan, Russia and Turkey, in keeping with the typical practice of American internet companies that generally comply with government requests to block certain content after it is posted. Facebook blocked roughly 55,000 pieces of content in about 20 countries between July 2015 and December 2015, for example. But the new feature takes that a step further by preventing content from appearing in feeds in China in the first place.
  
  Facebook does not intend to suppress the posts itself. Instead, it would offer the software to enable a third party — in this case, most likely a partner Chinese company — to monitor popular stories and topics that bubble up as users share them across the social network, the people said. Facebook’s partner would then have full control to decide whether those posts should show up in users’ feeds.
  
  The current and former Facebook employees caution that the software is one of many ideas the company has discussed with respect to entering China and, like many experiments inside Facebook, it may never see the light of day. The feature, whose code is visible to engineers inside the company, has so far gone unused, and there is no indication that Facebook has offered it to the authorities in China.
  
  But the project illustrates the extent to which Facebook may be willing to compromise one of its core mission statements, “to make the world more open and connected,” to gain access to a market of 1.4 billion Chinese people. Even as Facebook faces pressure to continue growing — Mr. Zuckerberg has often asked where the company’s next billion users will come from — China has been cordoned off to the social network since 2009 because of the government’s strict rules around censorship of user content.
  
  Photo
  
  
  
  President Xi Jinping of China, center, speaking with Mark Zuckerberg, right, the chief executive of Facebook, and Lu Wei, China’s Internet czar at the time, in 2015 at a gathering at Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Wash.CreditPool photo by Ted S. Warren
  The suppression software has been contentious within Facebook, which is separately grappling with what should or should not be shown to its users after the American presidential election’s unexpected outcome spurred questions over fake news on the social network. Several employees who were working on the project have left Facebook after expressing misgivings about it, according to the current and former employees.
  
  A Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement, “We have long said that we are interested in China, and are spending time understanding and learning more about the country.” She added that the company had made no decisions on its approach into China.
  
  Facebook’s tricky position underscores the difficulties that many American internet companies have had gaining access to China. For years, companies like Google and Twitter have been blocked there for refusing to yield to the government’s demands around censorship. In 2010, Google said it was directing users of its search engine in China to its service in Hong Kong, because of censorship and intrusion from hackers. Other companies, like the professional social networking service LinkedIn, agreed to censor some content on their platforms in China.
  
  The current climate for internet companies in China may not help Facebook. In August, the ride-hailing giant Uber gave up an expensive battle to crack the Chinese market, selling its Chinese business to an incumbent rival, Didi Chuxing. More broadly, China has streamlined and tightened its controls over the internet under President Xi, targeting influential social media celebrities and adding new reviews to popular online video sites.

 

[David-Cyb]

Thanks @carsten ibsen . Nobody should trust FB. They are a truly evil company. When I travel in Africa or SE Asia, it is sad to see people being misled by FB and the governments they are working with.