Facebook’s dangerous experiment in Cambodia

Catherine V. Harry is the founder of A Dose of Cath blog and a freelance writer in Cambodia.

Facebook’s latest experiment is playing a dangerous game with free expression in Cambodia.

This fall, Facebook decided that it would develop an “Explore Feed” for six small countries, including Cambodia. The change means that posted content from non-personal pages of institutions, including from news publishers, no longer show up in users’ default feed when they first open Facebook. Instead, Facebook shows users posts from the personal accounts of friends and family; in order to see posts from institutional pages and news outlets, users have to click to a separate section. Facebook has said that it does not plan to roll out Explore Feed beyond the current six countries and that the goal of the test is to understand “if people prefer to have separate places for personal and public content.”

Why does this seemingly small change matter to me? Over the past several years, I made a name for myself in Cambodia and abroad by creating and posting videos about taboo topics that Cambodian media would not touch. My videos centered on issues ranging from feminism to masturbation. I rely heavily on YouTube and Facebook to reach my audience. Within nine months of its start, my Facebook page A Dose of Cath attracted more than 170,000 page likes, with most videos averaging about 100,000 to 200,000 views. My video about how Cambodia puts societal value on women’s virginity hit 2 million views.

read mor https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/12/12/facebook-is-conducting-a-dangerous-experiment-in-cambodia/?utm_term=.e0ba692b5477