Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Report: Facebook’s Planned China Site Could Be Connected to Rest of World
- Facebook Users Can Now Edit Their Comments Within a Few Seconds of Posting
- In Trying to Follow Copyright Law, Facebook Takes Down Innocent Pages
- Facebook Hires and Departures: Engineering, Dublin, Austin and More
- Facebook Careers Postings: Engineering, Gaming, Finance and More
| Report: Facebook’s Planned China Site Could Be Connected to Rest of World Posted: 28 Apr 2011 06:15 PM PDT After Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said last fall that he wanted to the launch the site in China — where it is currently blocked — reports have increasingly indicated that some sort of localized version of the site is coming soon. And today, AllThingsD’s Liz Gannes has uncovered a number of new details that highlight just how close a launch might be. Facebook itself has only been providing vague comments on its plans. Yet because entering the country will involve cooperating with the government to censor its citizens, the company is already beginning to face public criticism from supporters of free speech. It will need to do a better job of explaining what its values are around free speech if it hopes to escape a major public relations fiasco over the decision, and it is already fallen behind on that front. Meanwhile, it’s not even clear if the Chinese government is on board with what Facebook is planning. In spite of these issues, Facebook is trying to move quickly to finalize a local partner, most likely Chinese search leader Baidu. Governmental censorship has become increasingly heavy-handed in China in recent years, especially as social services like Facebook have helped inspire citizens to rise up against governments in other parts of the world. But the more pressing matter to Facebook is that domestic social networking rivals are solidifying their market positions. From the article: Sources close to Facebook said that RenRen's U.S. fundraising, in particular, is a significant motivator for Facebook to launch its China offering sooner rather than later. "I would not discount the need for Facebook not to sit by and watch a significant competitor gain that much advantage," said one person close to the situation. RenRen has recently filed to go public in the US at a $4 billion valuation. Founded in late 2005 as a direct clone of Facebook, it successfully followed a similar strategy of expansion among students, and like Facebook has convinced users to provide real-life information about themselves rather than made-up avatars. If and when Facebook enters China, the company will have to figure out how to take on RenRen on its home turf. Which is likely why Facebook is trying to figure out how to connect its China site (whatever that looks like) to its other up to 700 million monthly active users around the world. It is working on an interface, according to sources cited by the report, that will show non-China users a warning when they interact with users in the country, indicating that what they do “may also be visible to the Chinese government.” Facebook already has a strong foothold in countries with close language and cultural ties to China. There are approximately 3.65 million Facebook users in Hong Kong, nearly 9 million in Taiwan, and millions more in Southeast Asia, according to our Inside Facebook Gold traffic tracking service (note that there have been odd fluctuations in these numbers over the last several months, as we’ve previously covered). Beyond the rest of its user base, these users could help Facebook establish itself in China even with entrenched domestic competitors. Entering China the wrong way might not just be a problem for Facebook’s image outside the country, either. Chinese users seeking greater internet freedoms may be disappointed in potential Facebook compromises. And there’s the matter of how it will even manage operations if it works out a deal with a partner and gets the okay from the government. From the last line of the report: “Finally, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook is considering sending a small group of its employees to help manage operations, but sources close to the company said this issue is still being debated due to safety considerations related to China's oppressive government.” |
| Facebook Users Can Now Edit Their Comments Within a Few Seconds of Posting Posted: 28 Apr 2011 04:46 PM PDT Facebook users can now edit a comment they’ve left on a news feed story or wall post by clicking the ‘x’ button within the first few seconds after posting the comment. Instead of deleting the comment as before, the ‘x’ button re-opens the comment input field and lets users edit the previously entered text. This new feature should help users who’ve posted a long comment, but then immediately notice a typo or want to change the comment without having to delete it and re-type the whole thing.
Our initial tests show the time window in which edits are permitted to be about 12 seconds. After that, the only option is to delete the comment. Also, the Known Issues on Facebook Page that made the announcement mentioned that “if another person comments before you click the delete button, this edit option is no longer available.” The option is only available for comments, not initial wall or news feed posts. A post’s author and other commenters will only receive a single Facebook notification for a comment that has been edited and reposted multiple times. However, if they have email notifications enabled, they’ll receive a copy of each version of the comment. This means that users still need to be careful about anything they post as a comment, as the edit option doesn’t ensure people won’t see the original.
Facebook comment editing is reminiscent of Gmail’s option “undo” feature that lets users retract an email within a few seconds of sending it. Facebook recently moved to a real-time commenting system in February, though comment edits don’t appear in real-time to other users. They’ll have to reload the page to see the updated version of a comment. The purpose the feature is likely to encourage users to comment with more confidence, and to decrease the number of comment deletions. Long, thoughtful comments drive additional engagement, so it’s in Facebook’s interest to prevent situations where users delete comments rather than re-type them in order to fix a typo or insert a content change. |
| In Trying to Follow Copyright Law, Facebook Takes Down Innocent Pages Posted: 28 Apr 2011 01:52 PM PDT Recently, Facebook has removed several Pages of well-known organizations in response to copyright infringement claims that have turned out to be bogus. Facebook is experiencing the same problem with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act as other user generated content sites such as YouTube and Google’s blogging platform Blogger — namely that if it doesn’t work to ”expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing upon” copyright, it can lose its safe harbor status offered by the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act and can itself become financially liable for the copyright infringement. However, Facebook’s content removal strategy may be more aggressive than other sites, exposing a loophole for abuse by malicious users, so it might need to grow the team responsible analyzing complaints.
The most recent and prominent case of an innocent Facebook Page being removed is that of tech blog Ars Technica. It seems that a malicious third-party has complained that the Page was infringing on their copyright. As Facebook hosts too much content to be able to investigate claims individually while still remaining eligible for safe harbor from liability, it had to respond to the claims by immediately disabling the Ars Technica Page. Facebook’s copyright infringement complaint process is flawed because any email address can be used to submit a complaint, and these email addresses don’t have to be verified. This enables address spoofing that allows a random person to appear to represent a copyright holder. However, Facebook’s form follows the standard also used by Google; it requires a telephone number, mailing address, and details on what content infringes on copyright; and Facebook includes a statement on the form indicating that false claims can be considered perjury.
Facebook may be slow to reply to appeals of bogus infringement claims, but this is in part a consequence of it hosting nearly 700 million users but only having about 2000 total employees, not purposeful negligence. The company told told Ars Technica that“We take seriously both the interests of people who post content and those of rights holders. Abuse of DMCA and other intellectual property notice procedures is a challenge for every major Internet service but we work to ensure that we don’t take content down as a result of fraudulent notices.” Though Facebook may be at fault, the issue of users losing access to their online presences, and the negative impact on the public impression of web services that remove content that doesn’t violate copyright, stems from the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. We believe the law must adapt to address these issues by creating a grace period for investigation of claims before hosts become liable for content they haven’t removed. Copyright law wasn’t designed for the massive volume of content and users handled by today’s most popular websites. As long as the law continues to hold content hosts liable if they hesitate to remove content that’s been complained about, innocent users will have their accounts suspended and content removed, and web services will endure their reputation damaged. But until then, Facebook may need to reconsider its strategy and devote more resources to complaint resolution. |
| Facebook Hires and Departures: Engineering, Dublin, Austin and More Posted: 28 Apr 2011 09:00 AM PDT
New hires per LinkedIn and Other Sources:
Recent departures, per LinkedIn:
Prior listings now removed from the Facebook Careers Page:
Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry. |
| Facebook Careers Postings: Engineering, Gaming, Finance and More Posted: 28 Apr 2011 08:18 AM PDT
Posts added this week on Facebook's Careers Page:
Jobs posted by Facebook on LinkedIn:Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry. |
Facebook looks to have done a lot of hiring in sales and user operations recently, according to its feed on | You are subscribed to email updates from Inside Facebook To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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