Facebook’s openness to censorship in China proves it puts profits before democracy

TY - INPR

T1 - Facebook’s openness to censorship in China proves it puts profits before democracy

AU - Hendricks, Vincent Fella

PY - 2016/11/24

Y1 - 2016/11/24

N2 - In the wake of the US election, Facebook has been getting a lot of flack for serving up misinformation and bogus news stories. This problem should not surprise us: Facebook is a social media outlet designed to make money on user traffic and attention. Stimulating democracy has never been part of the business model. But given new reports of Facebook’s moves in China to censor freedom of speech, undermining democracy may very well be acceptable under Mark Zuckerberg’s vision.

AB - In the wake of the US election, Facebook has been getting a lot of flack for serving up misinformation and bogus news stories. This problem should not surprise us: Facebook is a social media outlet designed to make money on user traffic and attention. Stimulating democracy has never been part of the business model. But given new reports of Facebook’s moves in China to censor freedom of speech, undermining democracy may very well be acceptable under Mark Zuckerberg’s vision.

UR - http://qz.com/845268/facebook-is-poised-to-pick-profits-over-democracy-by-complying-with-chinas-censorship-rules/

M3 - Contribution to newspaper - Newspaper article

SN - 1111-1111

JO - Quartz

JF - Quartz

ER -