Red Book

Surely many of you have heard of Facebook’s plans to enter the Chinese social networking market by entering into a partnership agreement with a local search engine - Baidu. Potentially, the development of these events can be very interesting, since quite recently we observed a Google fiasco, which failed to cope with pressure from the censors and the government, and as a result closed the "continental" business in a communist country.



In many ways, Google and Facebook are very similar: both focus on engineering, integration and Internet values ​​(albeit in their understanding of these values), but do not forget that they are two different companies, and their attempts in China are likely will be great.

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But the obstacles that Facebook will have to overcome soon have not changed at all since Google passed them. The latter, by the way, after meeting with these problems, completely revised its corporate policy outside the United States.



Zuckerberg and his colleagues will definitely have to think very carefully over each step before doing it. And the areas in which these decisions need to be made simply do not exist in the same form outside of China.

Censorship

In order to conduct its business in China, Google had to make a monstrous compromise: agree to filter the search results, according to the requirements of the communist government, hiding important information from users.



Facebook will have to go for a slightly different compromise: create tools to prevent the spread of information that can "threaten" the authorities and government officials.



This is unlikely to affect the main function of Facebook, as it is more than trivial. It is only interesting how the control levers will be placed.



Whether such content will be deleted at the stage when a particular user shares it, or will pages and their content be deleted only on demand — so far it is not known, and there is a word for the party: does it have the resources to monitor such a huge network, along with with existing control techniques, or they will give this function to Facebook.

Privacy

One of the saddest episodes related to China and US companies happened to Yahoo when it decided to provide the government with personal data of a dissident who remained anonymous. He received 10 years, and this injury to Yahoo’s reputation is unlikely to heal.



The question that interests us is: what will happen to a Facebook user if he suddenly falls into disfavor of the ruling party? Does it mean that the partnership with Baidu will turn the solution of such problems in the absence of any solution when the information will silently merge into the government channels?



It is also unclear how the attitude will be regulated in the event that a problem arose between a Chinese user, and, say, an American. Isn't it possible that Baidu (having access to Facebook information) will have at its disposal information about all other users of the social network?



In any other case, Chinese Facebook users will be separated by a wall from all other users. Whether it will arrange the board of directors of the company is unknown.

Partnership

During a conversation with Baidu CEO Robin Li about censorship, he noted that this is not a political problem, but rather technical difficulties that slow down the development of the company.



In other words - Baidu is quite calm about issues, ahem, freedom of speech, not recognizing it even at the technical level. Will Facebook be comfortable in this situation?



In addition, Baidu is known as a company that does not hesitate to violate copyright agreements and licenses, and Facebook is only now beginning to appear partners in the form of major Hollywood studios, and music labels. What follows from this is again unclear. It is unlikely that Americans will be satisfied with the fact that in China they get for free what the rest of the world pays for.

Image

The significance of Facebook in recent events in the Middle East has put Zuckerberg and his company in a very funny situation. The board of directors of the social network, and indeed the people working there, never imagined that the service would become the starting point of various oppositionists - this is the first precedent. Facebook says that: "This is one of the methods of using a powerful tool."



Definitely, such glory does the honor of the company. And it even seems that Facebook is happy about this turn of events.



But what happens if Chinese activists, for example, create a Jasmine Revolution page, and the official authorities ask you to remove it, erase all references, and tell about the organizers? Let me remind you - such people are waiting for the death penalty. Or is institutional censorship set up so that such movements cannot appear at all? Ask Google.



In any case, whether Facebook will go to China or not, it already has to spend huge resources on negotiations with various regulators and lobbying. Fortunately, the social network in this has already become skilled.



But if this jump is made, only one thing can be advised - to walk carefully, very carefully. The last time the company saw the "new market" rushed headlong there, she found herself in a real hell, filled not only with red, but also with the pain of defeat.



via Wired