Facebook sells out to China, and what it means for critics abroad

The New York Times published an article this week titled China is trying to police what people are saying about it around the world. I've written about China and its paranoid information-control efforts for years, but the activities to tamp down voices of dissent abroad are extreme. What I'd like to point out here are the reasons why Facebook and others are actually following China's Orwellian wishes. Take this example from the article: 

Facebook suspended Mr. Guo’s account. In a statement, the company said the account published the personal information of others without their consent, which violated the platform’s policies.

This is not just a case of China citing "hurt feelings" or some supposed rule-breaking on Facebook.
Zuckerberg is desperate to be in China. He's learned Mandarin, plays up his family connections (via his wife's family), and puts on the charm when visiting China. He's created relationships with officials at every level. His representatives have talked with companies which may be partners or acquired at some point.

Mark Zuckerberg speaking in Mandarin during a 2015 visit

So it does not surprise me one bit that Facebook will bend over backwards to accommodate officials on censorship demands. This is the cost of doing business in China for a tech company. Media companies learned this decades ago -- read up on how Rupert Murdoch tried to operate in China. It's quite fascinating, worthy of a soap opera-style biopic.

Now it's Silicon Valley's turn, especially companies that specialize in communication -- social networks, mobile phone manufacturers, companies that sell networking hardware or cloud services, etc. The Chinese government's survival depends on information control, and if they can't do it themselves, then they force local and foreign companies to do it for them.

Don't think that this issue will be limited to human rights activists. It doesn't matter who you are -- your social media comments, family relationships, WeChat and Facebook messages, work connections on LinkedIn, and other digital footprints that reflect your attitude or influence will be used to build a social media score that determines your level of access to the country and ability to do business in China.

Facebook's failed march to video

Facebook has a lot of problems on its plate right now, but one of the worst trends has been the poorly thought out march to video. It came from Zuckerberg and was repeated by various senior Facebook  executives, and then became a mantra for publishers. Many publishers made large investments in video programming for Facebook, only to find the money isn't there and Facebook has decided to demote publisher content.

This is not just large media companies that got burned, I know some smaller producers who believed the "five years the feed will be all video" baloney and shifted their efforts accordingly. Some were doing really important work, too, around causes or local news. What a waste.

Meanwhile, overall video consumption in Facebook is declining, and it's the one percent that get the most engagement, regardless of who the publisher is.

I personally would not mind if Facebook turned back the clock 10 years, when most conversations seemed to be personal and text-based, and the truckloads of memes, ads, gaming achievements, real and fake news, and videos of cats playing the piano had yet to be shoved down Facebook's maw. Old-school text discussions seem to work for Hacker News and large swathes of Reddit; why can't it work for Facebook?


My Facebook feed: Ads, viral videos, and other crap I would rather not see:

Feiwu 2.0

My old band, 廢物樂隊 (Feiwu), finally has a Facebook page. This may not seem so remarkable, but for our band it's the first update to our online presence the late 1990s. Bob Hsiung, our bass player, put together a static site back in 1997 or 1998 that's still alive today (embarrassing old pictures and all).

The new Feiwu Facebook page serves several purposes. We plan on playing a show in February in Taipei, so we want to promote that and let our old fans know that we are still around. But we also see an opportunity to connect with a new generation of fans, who were too young to have seen us back then, but know of our music through our association with the early Taiwan underground music scene. We'll see how it works ...

Website development and the importance of technical cofounders

(Update: Since writing this post, I have launched a company which is dedicated to helping people understand complicated technologies and concepts. Besides creating online posts which address questions such as What Is Dropbox and What Is Google Drive, I have also published a series of guides under the In 30 Minutes brand.)

An acquaintance recently contacted me about an idea for a Web startup, using social media to bringing together people interested in humanitarian causes, art, positive change, etc. The problem she had, and it's a problem that I think is quite widespread, is she doesn't have the required coding skills. I responded with the following message:

Regarding your idea for a social media site (or network?) it sounds pretty interesting, and there are definitely niches out there that are not being well served by Facebook, Linkedin Groups, or existing Web forums. 

That being said, I would be very careful about what area you target, as there are many existing services that address some of the areas that you named below -- Jumo, http://www.humanitarianforum.org/, some specific art-oriented communities, etc. Convincing users to join your site when there are already compelling services out there with large user communities is more difficult than targeting an unserved or underserved population. 

In addition, in my experience creating user communities and blogs in the past, I have found that very tight niches ("South Florida Artists for Peace") are much easier to gain traction than broad communities ("Worldwide Artists for Positive Change and Humanitarian Causes"). 

As for the nuts and bolts of creating the community, the good news is that there are many existing software platforms out there that make it much easier to get started, and good coders will know how to use them. 

The bad news is that good coders can be hard to find -- there is definitely a shortage of engineering talent, and you will be competing against larger companies and funded startups for them. 

But there is a silver lining: There are many software developers who are currently working as employees who are interested in co-founding a company. The question then arises of how to find one who likes your idea, recognizes the skills/connections you are bringing to the table, can brainstorm/collaborate on how to move the project forward, and finds the opportunity worth pursuing. 

In my opinion, the co-founder has to be someone you can meet in person on a regular basis -- that's how trust gets built, and ideas can move forward much more quickly than by sending emails or relying on Skype. You can work your local networks, or start attending local entrepreneurial meetups (preferably technology-oriented events). If there are none in your area, try organizing one and bring in one or two speakers that startup founders would want to hear from (for instance, a local lawyer talking about LLC vs S-Corp formation, or someone who has founded a successful startup in the past). 

Plan B would involve outsourcing all of the coding using Guru.com, Elance, or remote developers recommended to you by someone else. The problem with this approach, besides the cost, is working out the software specifications and deliverables can be very frustrating if you've never done it before. It's possible to find developers who can help walk you through the process, but even still the chance for misunderstandings and "scope creep" is very high -- another reason to find a technical co-founder.

I didn't get into the details of some of the software components that could be used to make such a site, but when I heard the idea I immediately thought of open-source content-management systems such as Joomla and Drupal, and authentication tools such as Facebook Connect and Twitter's xAuth/OAuth that would let people use their existing social media identities to authenticate/register and easily distribute the site's content and discussions elsewhere.

Dear PaidContent: Facebook comments suck

(Edit: The Facebook logon is used for their PaidContent50) For years, I've been leaving comments on PaidContent.org, a popular news blog for digital media. The topics interest me, the reporting is generally good, and I usually have some opinions to share.

Until recently, Most of the time, PC uses Disqus for comments. It's not a perfect solution (I especially don't like that the link to my name under a comment I leave takes users to a Disqus profile, instead of my own blogs), but it was flexible, and worked across many sites.

Today, I discovered a change on one of their specials: Leaving a comment on PaidContent now requires authentication through Facebook. Not good, as I explained in an email to PC's executive editor, Ernie Sander:

Ernie, a comment, and a question, about comments:

I have no problem with leaving my real name on PC comment threads, but I do not want my Facebook identity used here. I am hardly alone in this regard: PC is part of a professional network, and FB is purely personal, and there are very good reasons for keeping them separate.

I certainly don't want friend requests from random people, or my comments here showing up in my FB profile (yes, I know comments appearing in news feeds can be controlled, but frankly the rules and processes change so much I can't honestly remember if I set them up the right way, and can't be bothered to hunt down the latest checkbox in FB to figure it out).

Question: Is there any other way to leave a comment besides Facebook, such as LinkedIn or Twitter?

Thank you,

Ian Lamont

An issue that I didn't touch on is why PaidContent (and other publishers, including TechCrunch) have turned to Facebook comments:

• It provides a real name (most of the time), which cuts down on trolling, flamewars, and low-quality comments
• It hooks into Facebook users' networks, by sharing the comment on their feed (unless, as noted above, the user manages to figure out how to turn off the feature). It's free advertising for the publisher brand and can result in more clicks (and therefore more ad revenue)
• For those publishers which have used installed commenting systems it potentially saves technical staff (and sometimes editorial staff) the trouble associated with securing and maintaining these systems. For instance, if the publication uses Drupal, installing and maintaining Akismet (a spam-fighting system) can be a pain)

Twitter authentication is possible, but unfortunately not many people seem to use real names/variations of real names on the service. However, I see a huge opportunity for LinkedIn (see What is LinkedIn?). Like Facebook, LinkedIn is a system that (usually) has real names of users. Furthermore, users of professional publications may want their comments fed into their LinkedIn profiles. LinkedIn apparently offers such a feature, but I have yet to see it used on the news/information sites that I read.