“Facebook’s heel turn in late 2016 has been incredible to behold,” tweeted Guardian journalist Alex Hern this morning. He was referring not just to the ongoing hoo-ha about fake news on the social network, but to a report overnight about its plans for China. According to the New York Times, Facebook has “quietly developed software to suppress posts from appearing in people’s news feeds in specific geographic areas… to help Facebook get into China, a market where the social network has been blocked”. The report goes on to suggest that the software would be used by a third-party to “monitor popular stories and topics that bubble up as users share them across the social network” and then decide which ones should be hidden from users in that country. The Times stressed that while Facebook has developed this technology, it has not yet decided whether to deploy it – with the suggestion of internal discord over whether the tool sits neatly with Facebook’s avowed values to “make the world more open and connected”. A quote from CEO Mark Zuckerberg at an internal event – “It’s better for Facebook to be a part of enabling conversation, even if it’s not yet the full conversation” – hints at the compromises that his company is having to weigh up.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools :: We Are Giant
With “fan communities” being on every artist’s team’s mind, we’re fans of the fact that…