Here's a story that the BBC recently reported. We have to rely on foreign media for this story. The American media won't report it, because the American media is so closely tied to the Chinese government.
A former senior exec for Facebook said the social media behemoth worked "hand in glove" with China's ruling regime to censor content. Mark Zuckerberg himself considered agreeing to hide posts until Chinese authorities could approve them. This took place in the mid-'10s.
Facepoo also considered allowing Chinese officials access to users' personal data.
A complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission even alleges that Zuckerberg and other Facebook execs made "misleading statements" to respond to congressional inquiries about collusion with China.
Facebook's parent company Meta then accused the whistleblower who exposed all of this of being paid off by "anti-Facebook activists." But Facebook is so bad now that pretty much everyone who has ever used it has become an "anti-Facebook activist." Maybe Facebook needs to stop censoring posts, fix its broken notifications, and start respecting the privacy of those who don't want their friends list revealed.
Censoring content at the behest of China is like when Yahoo ratted out journalists to the Chinese government - which caused the journalists to be imprisoned for years.
America also has a record of suppressing dissent lately. Cities try to close theaters if they show movies they don't like (in addition to illegally searching bags of people on the beach), and government officials have coerced social networking sites into removing content they disagree with. The U.S. has lost a lot of credibility in its claims to be a bastion of personal liberty. But in addition to ending its online censorship program, the government should also pass a law promising stiff punishment for American websites that collude with the Chinese government.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment