News What challenges will Facebook face in entering the Chinese market?

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Facebook's efforts to enter the Chinese market raise significant concerns about privacy and openness, especially given China's authoritarian regime and its history of clashes with companies like Google and Yahoo. Critics argue that if Facebook compromises its privacy standards to operate in China, it risks losing credibility regarding user privacy. The discussion highlights Facebook's track record of prioritizing data sharing over user privacy, with examples of features that default to maximum sharing without user consent. There is skepticism about whether Facebook can successfully navigate the Chinese market, particularly since China has its own established social network, Renren. The conversation also touches on the broader implications of technology companies handling personal data and the potential for misuse, emphasizing the need for users to be cautious about sharing personal information online. Overall, the debate underscores the tension between business expansion and ethical considerations surrounding user privacy in different cultural contexts.
mege
There is a http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304778304576375810359779964.html" talking about Facebook attempting to break into the China market. Zuck sees China as an opportunity and is even learning the language (per the article).

How can Facebook's openness & privacy function in China, esspecially given China's clashes with Google and Yahoo?

Personally, I think Facebook will lose a lot of 'privacy credability' if they go into China with any arrangement ala-almost-Google with China's government. What that arrangement will be is anyone's guess. I feel that this will be a wakeup call for Zuck and he will see that multicultural-extention of Facebook doesn't just mean a different UI for different regions and that some of the core ideals are fundamentally opposed to the authoritarian nature of China.
 
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The difference between Facebook and Google is that Google actually (sometimes) tries to protect users' privacy. Facebook actively tries to remove users' privacy.
 
NeoDevin said:
The difference between Facebook and Google is that Google actually (sometimes) tries to protect users' privacy. Facebook actively tries to remove users' privacy.

Can you provide any references to support this conclusion?
 
drankin said:
Can you provide any references to support this conclusion?
Facebook has a long, bad history of selling members info and other breeches of privacy. It's been in the news for years.
 
drankin said:
Can you provide any references to support this conclusion?

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/06/07/facebook-privacy-settings-facial-recognition-enabled/" 's one example where they enabled by default, without asking, a feature which reduces privacy.

Basically any time they introduce a new feature, or change any of the settings options, they default everyone to "share as much as possible".
 
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NeoDevin said:
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/06/07/facebook-privacy-settings-facial-recognition-enabled/" 's one example where they enabled by default, without asking, a feature which reduces privacy.

Basically any time they introduce a new feature, or change any of the settings options, they default everyone to "share as much as possible".

That feature looks through your photos, tries to learn what your face looks like, and tries to detect recognize your face in your friends' photos. Your friend, who's probably a sentient human with perfect facial recognition ability, can look through your albums and do the same thing with 100% accuracy. Why is it OK for a possibly-malicious human to look through your photos, but not OK for a computer algorithm that doesn't work most of the time to do the same?
 
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ideasrule said:
That feature looks through your photos, tries to learn what your face looks like, and tries to detect recognize your face in your friends' photos. Your friend, who's probably a sentient human with perfect facial recognition ability, can look through your albums and do the same thing with 100% accuracy.

:eek:

I do not know what kind of friends you keep. My friends are my friends because they are not malicious. By definition I trust them more than a computer algorithm to have a conscience when it comes to something that might hurt me.

So, to answer your question explicitly:
ideasrule said:
Why is it OK for a possibly-malicious human to look through your photos, but not OK for a computer algorithm that doesn't work most of the time to do the same?
Because I do not wish to let a computer program have access to private things when it has no conscience but its own self-seeking goal.
 
Because I do not wish to let a computer program have access to private things when it has no conscience but its own self-seeking goal.

The computer program has no "self-seeking goal". It has no intelligence, no consciousness, and ergo no goal. Presumably, you're worried about the humans looking at the output of the program, but aren't those supposed to be your friends? The face detection feature doesn't show your face to random strangers, only to your friends, who can browse through your albums anyways.
 
ideasrule said:
The computer program has no "self-seeking goal". It has no intelligence, no consciousness, and ergo no goal.
?? Intelligence or consciousness has nothing to do with goal.

If it did not accomplish the goal of recognizing my face in photos, it would not be much of a algorithm (program), now would it?

That goal benefits Facebook, not necessarily me.
 
  • #10
Facebook will never break into China's market because China has its own "Facebook" called Xiaonei, its basically the same thing as but in mandarin. Its very developed...
 
  • #11
glueball8 said:
Facebook will never break into China's market because China has its own "Facebook" called Xiaonei, its basically the same thing as but in mandarin. Its very developed...

The name has been changed to Renren :-p
 
  • #12
yenchin said:
The name has been changed to Renren :-p

Oh ok... I don't use it but I have friends that do. Facebook has zero market in China...
 
  • #13
ideasrule said:
The computer program has no "self-seeking goal". It has no intelligence, no consciousness, and ergo no goal. Presumably, you're worried about the humans looking at the output of the program, but aren't those supposed to be your friends? The face detection feature doesn't show your face to random strangers, only to your friends, who can browse through your albums anyways.

maybe they would like to put all that output into a database and sell the output to people like the FBI who would like to sift through it. there was quite a lot of interest in the facebook revolution that occurred in egypt, and obama even met with zuckermann soon afterwards.

it's a little silly to talk about programs and their goals. programs are simply tools, and tools have the intentions of both their designers and anyone else that picks up the tool.
 
  • #14
Proton Soup;336344e4 said:
it's a little silly to talk about programs and their goals. programs are simply tools, and tools have the intentions of both their designers and anyone else that picks up the tool.

While in actuality it is the developers and business people making the decisioons, that is effectively immaterial to the user. As far as the user is concerned, FB can be considered the entity they are interacting directly with. It has things it wants from the user and the user has things it wants from FB.

It is a matter of semantics to make a distinction between "I distrust Facebook as to how it handles my privacy" and "I distrust the designers of Facebook as to how they handle my privacy."


... where "semantics" is tantamount to "While I don't disagree with your point, I don't see how it makes any difference in the bigger discussion we are having."
 
  • #15
Evo said:
Facebook has a long, bad history of selling members info and other breeches of privacy. It's been in the news for years.

That's why you won't find me on facebook.

That, and the fact that from what I can see, it's a huge waste of time as much as anything else. I have PF for that! :biggrin: I don't need facebook to find someone or to maintain contact. What's the point in making private discussions public?
 
  • #16
Ivan Seeking said:
That's why you won't find me on facebook.

That, and the fact that from what I can see, it's a huge waste of time as much as anything else. I have PF for that! :biggrin: I don't need facebook to find someone or to maintain contact. What's the point in making private discussions public?

I agree. I used to be on Facebook (and other "social" websites), but then I proceeded to cancel all my accounts. The reason is reading news about people being fired, sued, etc... using material found on FB (pictures, logs, etc...). I started seeing FB (and other "social" websites) as a risk.
 
  • #17
DaveC426913 said:
While in actuality it is the developers and business people making the decisioons, that is effectively immaterial to the user. As far as the user is concerned, FB can be considered the entity they are interacting directly with. It has things it wants from the user and the user has things it wants from FB.

It is a matter of semantics to make a distinction between "I distrust Facebook as to how it handles my privacy" and "I distrust the designers of Facebook as to how they handle my privacy."


... where "semantics" is tantamount to "While I don't disagree with your point, I don't see how it makes any difference in the bigger discussion we are having."

I still don't understand why you're objecting to Facebook's face detection feature. By signing up to Facebook and uploading your photos, you're making your information available for Facebook's system admins to access. If they have any malicious intent, they can easily look through your information and use it for their own purposes. I don't see how running a computer program on the data you've already uploaded to Facebook, and reporting the program's results to your friends (that you presumably trust), breaches privacy.

That, and the fact that from what I can see, it's a huge waste of time as much as anything else. I have PF for that! I don't need facebook to find someone or to maintain contact. What's the point in making private discussions public?

For private discussions, there's Facebook chat and messaging. The point of posting on the wall is to have a public discussion, much like posting on a forum like PF.
 
  • #18
ideasrule said:
I still don't understand why you're objecting to Facebook's face detection feature. By signing up to Facebook and uploading your photos, you're making your information available for Facebook's system admins to access. If they have any malicious intent, they can easily look through your information and use it for their own purposes. I don't see how running a computer program on the data you've already uploaded to Facebook, and reporting the program's results to your friends (that you presumably trust), breaches privacy.

I didn't suggest it breaches privacy; I suggested it's why I/we don't trust facebook.
 
  • #19
ideasrule said:
I still don't understand why you're objecting to Facebook's face detection feature. By signing up to Facebook and uploading your photos, you're making your information available for Facebook's system admins to access. If they have any malicious intent, they can easily look through your information and use it for their own purposes. I don't see how running a computer program on the data you've already uploaded to Facebook, and reporting the program's results to your friends (that you presumably trust), breaches privacy.

if they sell the program's results to third parties, then malicious intent of facebook becomes moot. now you've got to consider the intent of the entire world.
 
  • #20
So it's Facebook and your private info this week, and it's XYZ company and the same personal information next week.

Any info out there is not going to go away, so I'll try to reduce putting any personal info out there. The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.
Terry Pratchett ...
 
  • #21
Alfi said:
So it's Facebook and your private info this week, and it's XYZ company and the same personal information next week.

You fight the battles where you find them.

We can expect that a company/application will have our interests at-heart, and if we see they don't, we raise hell.
 

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