Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch admitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday that his company had taken down the account of Chinese dissident Guo Wengui, who lives in the US, on the strength of a report filed to the tech giant by the Chinese government.
Guo, a billionaire living in New York City who is a harsh critic of the Chinese government, published on Facebook “sometimes outlandish tales of deep corruption among family members of top Communist Party officials,” the New York Times wrote a month ago, as it reported that Guo’s account had been taken down.
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) asked the pointed question: “[Guo’s] Facebook account was blocked, and Facebook has informed us that he violated terms of service. I think he published personal identifying information about individuals and that violated the terms of service. I understand that argument. My question, what I want to be clear is was there any pressure from the Chinese government to block his account?”
Stretch, initially, appeared to mislead Rubio in his answer: “No, senator, we reviewed a report on that account and analyzed it through regular channels using our regular procedures,” he said. “The blocking was not of the account in its entirety, but I believe was of specific posts that violated our policy.”
Rubio was dubious. “You can testify that you did not come under pressure from the Chinese government or any of its representatives or people working for them to block his account or to block whatever it is you blocked?” he asked.
Put in those terms, Stretch could not, in fact, pull off a denial. “I want to make sure I’m being precise and clear,” he said. “We did receive a report from representatives of the Chinese government about the account. We analyzed that report as we would any other and took action solely based on our policies.”
Facebook is so awful I find myself agreeing with Marco Rubio. Jesus.
Critical thinking skills…
Just because the Chinese government wants something to happen based on their own agenda doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t happen for other more legitimate reasons.
Of course, that simple fact doesn’t by itself demonstrate that Facebook wouldn’t be affected by pressure from the Chinese government either.
Keep grilling them…
FB doesn’t even operate in China and is never likely to. So, why wouldn’t FB just tell the Chinese to fuck-off? Is Zuckerberg afraid he’s going to get bumped-off if he doesn’t comply?
"We analyzed that report as we would any other and took action solely based on our policies.”
By “Policies” you can be sure FB means their bank balance.
I haven’t said this up to now, but this sort of event compels me to put forward my own belief that Facebook has too much power and influence, and they have their “fingers” in way too many pies.
(And No, they are by no means alone.)
I know it won’t happen in the current political climate, but I believe that Facebook should be investigated with an eye toward being broken into smaller units, so they face greater competition. and oversight responsibility for their possibly anti-competitive practices.
facebook and twitter are social experiments that have gone horribly, and predictably, wrong.
It’s not in the DNA of these companies to deny or moderate use of their platform in any way whatsoever…unless not doing so threatens their profitability.
turn.them.off.
disconnect