How will Facebook deal with Beijing’s propaganda on Xinjiang?

Starting in 2019, in response to widespread international attention to the Hong Kong protests, Beijing began to much more vigorously use Western social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to push its message.

• After months of disinformation, the platforms pushed back. Twitter cracked down on what it called a “coordinated state-backed operation” that violated its policies, and Facebook and YouTube followed.
• Twitter took the additional step of banning “advertising from state-controlled news media entities,” and a few months later, all political ads from any account. CEO Jack Dorsey said the company’s position was that “political message reach should be earned, not bought.”
• Another step that social platforms took was to label state media — Facebook chose to use the term “state-controlled,” according to its own definition, and Twitter slapped a broader “state-affiliated” tag onto hundreds of accounts. These labels have significantly reduced engagement for Chinese news outlets.
• On Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms, Chinese state-connected accounts have nevertheless dramatically ramped up their posting in the past year, with a particular focus on distracting from and discrediting accusations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

On Facebook in particular, Chinese state media continue to spend to promote propaganda, including about the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. This has caused unease among employees and a quandary for the company’s leadership, the Wall Street Journal reports:

• “Facebook hasn’t determined whether to act on the concerns,” but the company is “watching how international organizations such as the United Nations respond to the situation in Xinjiang.”
• An employee on an internal company group for Muslim staff recently made a “plea” to leadership to fight misinformation, making note of Twitter’s more proactive approach. Chris Cox, Facebook’s chief product officer, responded that the issue is “incredibly serious” and said the company would “check with our integrity teams for a status update.”
• “The advertisements and posts by the Chinese government and state media include videos of people in Xinjiang, including some children, proclaiming to the camera that their lives are improving and that Western nations are engaging in a plot to try to destabilize China.”
• China’s state broadcaster CGTN has “more than 115 million followers” on Facebook, the “fourth-most in the world, surpassing the likes of Coca-Cola and pop star Rihanna.”

The amount of money spent is small so far, but the dilemma for Facebook is this: As the Beijing 2022 Olympics come closer — with many groups campaigning for boycotts over Xinjiang — if Chinese state media outlets flood Facebook with ad money, can the company accept it? Or would the public, or possibly internal, backlash be too much, and would Facebook follow Twitter in restricting political advertisements in response?

See also:

• China intensifies Xinjiang propaganda push as global backlash grows / FT (paywall)
• China: UN experts deeply concerned by alleged detention, forced labour of Uyghurs / UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights
• Facebook caught Chinese hackers using fake personas to target Uyghurs abroad / TechCrunch
• Chinese propaganda officials celebrate social-media attacks on H&M in countering forced-labor allegations / WSJ (paywall)
  “Beijing draws lessons from what it considers a successful fight with the West over another hot-button issue, Hong Kong.”