Facebook developing censorship tool to enter China market

Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook is developing censorship tools to suppress controversial content as a means to appease China’s ruling Communist Party and finally re-enter the world’s most populous country.

The New York Times reported this week that a small team, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s blessing, is developing software that can censor posts from appearing in the feeds of people in a specified geographic area. The Times cites three current and former Facebook employees that the tool was designed to get Facebook back into China where it has been blocked for a number of years.

A number of American internet companies already operate under partial or full censorship in order to do business in China. Professional network company LinkedIn courted controversy for allowing censorship of its Chinese platform. Apple has partially censored content on iTunes and iBooks, but has still had problems most notably earlier this year when both platforms were shut down unexpectedly following orders from Beijing. 

Facebook already partially censors some content in a number of countries as a condition of operating in those territories. The company blocks already posted content in Pakistan, Russia and Turkey at the behest of the governments of those countries. The Times reports that this new censorship tool takes things further by blocking posts from ever reaching Chinese users feeds. 

The Times report adds that Facebook would not be in control of what content would be censored, rather the company would allow a third party partner, almost inevitably a Chinese company, to become the information gatekeeper. 

Sources told the Times that the censorship tool may never be used or be enough to allow the company to enter China and was one of many different approaches Facebook was using to enter the Middle Kingdom. However, the news that Facebook was developing such tools is likely to lead to a storm of criticism not least because the strategy is somewhat at odds with the company’s stated mission of making the world more connected and transparent. 

Facebook is still reeling from the fake news controversy that many felt had an influence on the U.S. elections. Zuckerberg’s response to the criticism of the social network was initially prickly, downplaying the size and importance of fake news on Facebook. The company has since cracked down on fake news sites, prohibiting them from using its ad network, which places ads on other people’s websites with Zuckerberg pledging to filter out “misinformation.” Abid Rahman, Hollywood Reporter, Bloomberg