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Did anyone else watch the Bloomberg video posted yesterday about technology in Russia[0]? On how VK (Russia's Facebook) has had its CEO replaced twice (once dir
by xemoka 10y ago
Did anyone else watch the Bloomberg video posted yesterday about technology in Russia[0]? On how VK (Russia's Facebook) has had its CEO replaced twice (once directly, second time by removing its new owner, mail.ru's CEO) due to political pressure and censorship.
It seems to me this is entirely something to be concerned about when it comes to censorship and state controlled media. This is very much to appease the likes of China and Russia, it will also benefit places such as the USA where Facebook doesn't want to make those in control look bad (police, elected officials, oligarchs, autocrats etc). It's bad for business to be against the rulers, and Facebook has to contend with a lot of different rulers if it want to expand throughout the world. A benign, bland shade of beige that everyone buys into and is inoffensive, is more likely to be appreciated by rulers and advertisers—just look at network television.
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-hello-world-russia/?cmpid=BBD113016_BIZ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-hello-world-russia/?...
- hackermailman 10y agoThe cynic in me sees this as a way to appease many of the dictatorships in the developing world FB operates in as a defacto telecom by offering free-wifi through Internet.org type shenanigans for only FB apps. These regimes would love FB to offer ways to shut down a live feed being passed around of a political disaster being broadcasted by local journalists using FB live, like all those Periscope riot broadcasts in the US. FB can then avoid the responsibility and bad PR of disabling it and just let their bot kill it instead.