Facebook is quietly developing a sort of "censorship" software for China, the New York Times reported. The software would stop certain posts from appearing in people’s news feeds in specific geographic areas, according to anonymous sources among current and former employees. The feature was created to help Facebook get into China, a market where the social network has been blocked, these people said. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has supported and defended the effort, the sources added.
Facebook does not intend to suppress the posts itself. Instead, it would offer the software to enable a third party to monitor popular stories and topics that bubble up as users share them across the social network, the people said. Facebook’s partner would then have full control to decide whether those posts should show up in users’ feeds.
Facebook has restricted content in other countries before, such as Pakistan, Russia and Turkey, in line with government requests. Facebook blocked roughly 55,000 pieces of content in about 20 countries between July 2015 and December 2015, for example. The new feature takes that a step further by preventing content from appearing in feeds in China in the first place.
