China is notoriously known for its strict stance on websites that can be viewed in the country. The Great Firewall is known to block various foreign websites from being viewed, chief among them being social media sites like Facebook. This poses a problem to foreign companies as China is one of the biggest markets in the world right now. Facebook really wants to cut itself a slice of the Chinese pie, so much so that they have reportedly been creating a censorship tool that would appease the Chinese government.
According to a report by the New York Times, Facebook has been developing a software that is able to suppress posts from appearing in people’s news feeds in specific geographic areas. Anonymous current and former Facebook employees mention that the tool was developed to help Facebook access the Chinese market and the development of said censorship tool is both supported and defended by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg himself.
Restricting content isn’t new territory for Facebook as the company has complied with governments from countries like Pakistan, Russia and Turkey to block certain content after it is posted. This new censorship tool is a step beyond that as it would prevent content from appearing in feeds located in China in the first place.
For now, the tool is currently in its experimental stages. The anonymous Facebook employees have mentioned that the feature may not even be implemented in the first place, but if it does, this tool will be handled by a third party to monitor popular stories and topics that bubble up as users share them across the social network. Only time will tell if Facebook would decide to use the censorship tool to enter the market in China, but if they do, expect many other countries around the world to demand Facebook hand over access to said tool as well.
Source: The New York Times
