Whistleblower reveals Facebook censorship system created to enter China

A hot potato: Mark Zuckerberg is a vocal proponent of free speech, especially since Donald Trump was re-elected, but it seems the Meta CEO hasn't always been so anti-censorship. There have long been reports that Facebook developed a content suppression tool for the Chinese market. Now, new details about the system have surfaced. Last April, Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former Facebook global policy director who was fired in 2017, revealed in a complaint filed with the SEC that Facebook sought a foothold in the Chinese social media market. It hoped to achieve this by creating a version of its platform that complied with China's strict censorship laws. The company formed a team to work on the China-specific version of Facebook, codenamed Project Aldrin, in 2014. Wynn-Williams says (via The Washington Post) that some of the concessions Facebook agreed to with local authorities included hosting Chinese and Hong Kong user data on servers in China, making it easier for the government to access t ... Read full article.