By Tenzin Dharpo
DHARAMSHALA, Nov. 24: The social networking site Facebook has reportedly created a tool that will censor content or posts based on the geographical location of its users.
Many say that the contentious tool is created to appease the Chinese government which has banned the top online social networking site in the country that has a huge market of 1.4 billion active users. In 2013 alone, Chinese e-commerce amounted to $865 billion dollars, according to McKinsey & Co.
According to a New York Times report, Facebook has created a system that will allow government to effectively monitor and restrict content posted by users in China.
Eva Galperin, analyst from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that promotes user privacy and free expression told BBC, “Kudos to the Facebook employees who brought this to the attention of the New York Times. It’s very nice to know there are some principled people still working there.”
Face book has neither denied nor confirmed the reports about the new censorship tool.
Facebook CEO has since 2009 been trying to gain access to China’s huge market by trying to appease the country’s leadership whether it was learning Mandarin or running through the streets of Beijing. The Facebook CEO even attempted to have his daughter named by Xi Jinping, although the communist leader reportedly refused to do so.
Chinese leadership has time and again sought to ban online public platforms that they have no control over even as the number of banned sites stands at nearly 3000. Prominent sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and YouTube top that list. Instead, China’s current online market is captured by indigenous substitutes such as Wiebo and WeChat among others.
