Rumor: Facebook develops censorship tool to enter Chinese market

Facebook is said to have developed tools that can prevent certain posts in feeds from appearing in certain areas. The company would have done that to have the Facebook blockade in China lifted, but it is not certain whether the tool will actually be used.

Several anonymous Facebook sources from The New York Times have come out with the story. Although there are currently no concrete plans to put the tools into practice, according to these employees, several employees have already resigned because Facebook is considering cooperating with China’s wishes. Mark Zuckerberg himself is behind the project, the newspaper writes. In a circle discussion with employees, he stated that it is ‘better to enable a conversation at all, even if it is not the full conversation’. The tool is said to have been in development for a year.

While it is certainly not ruled out that Facebook will remove content from the social network at the request of governments, that is not enough for China, which has very strict rules for users’ internet content. Google and Twitter, for example, are also blocked by The Great Firewall of China. The tool gives the Chinese government itself the ability to monitor topics and posts and censor them if desired, the newspaper said. That would probably meet the wishes of China.

The country is an attractive market for Facebook, as the company has 1.71 billion monthly active users in the rest of the world. China has about 1.3 billion inhabitants. Facebook itself will not comment on the case against the American newspaper.