(CNNMoney) – is The latest signal that Facebook is willing to play ball with China? In silence, has been building a tool of censorship that would keep certain posts out of the news line of users, according to The New York Times.
The CEO and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has not hidden his desire that the social networking giant to be unlocked in the world’s most populous nation.
Has traveled to China many times, met with the chief of Propaganda of that country on a visit in the early months of this year, and warmed up the social networks by "pleasing" to the Government to go jogging through the contaminated streets of Beijing without a face shield.
And now his company has developed, apparently, a program that prevents that the posts appear in the news line of users in specific geographic regions, a move aimed especially to help you to Facebook to enter to China. So reports the newspaper The New York Times, that appointment to current employees and as retirees of the company.
A spokeswoman for Facebook did not deny the report and was limited to ensure that the company "has not taken any decision on its approach to China."
"For a long time we have said that we are interested in China and we are investing time in understanding and learning more about that country," he said.
The report of the New York Times comes at a delicate time for Facebook. Zuckerberg insists that they do not want to play the role of editor, although it recently announced that it has plans to prevent the sharing of false news through the social network, just days after you have minimized that problem.
Experts believe that the technology giant has much to lose if it manages to reach an agreement with China, where other internet giants like Twitter and Google are blocked.
on the one hand, it is very likely that the self-censorship by itself is not enough. Possibly, Facebook would have to give China access to its servers so that they would be in the country, says Qiao Mu, a communications professor from the Foreign Studies University of Beijing. "Is to have a deal with a monster", says Qiao.
you would Also have to comply with the demanding legal requirements of China to provide the authorities with the information of the users. U.s. businesses have criticized the new law for cyber security china with the argument that their requirements for data sharing, potentially exposing personal information.
to Create a program of censorship to appease China could also undermine the confidence of users is not chinese. "It has the potential of bringing into question the ethics of the company, may cause many to ask what you’re doing with your content, if you do that in China," said Mark Natkin, managing director of the firm markets Marbridge Consulting in Beijing.
To make available a tool of this type in China, Facebook could even face pressure from other governments around the world to implement it in any part.
Even if Facebook did a lot to please the chinese Government, it would face competitors huge. Clones of Facebook like Renren and Kaixin have long ago fell out of fashion. Dominant players now are WeChat and Weibo, both social networks very popular, with hundreds of millions of users.
In theory, Facebook, the largest social network in the world, would give the chinese users the ability to connect with people around the world. WeChat and Weibo have not been able to replicate its success beyond the boundaries of the chinese.
But the chinese internet users, who really want to be in Facebook because you can do it, through a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, which allows them to circumvent the gigantic apparatus of censorship in chinese, known as the Great Firewall.
"I Think that people won’t even care," says Natkin. He summarizes the response of many chinese such as "you came to China, good for you; but anyway I’m not going to use you".
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