Elizabeth Linder: If Moldovan Authorities Wanted To Spy on Journalists via Facebook, We Would Refuse Them

Elizabeth Linder, Facebook’s Government and Politics Specialist for Europe, Middle East and Africa, said on Wednesday at a presentation she made at the School of Advanced Journalism (SAJ) that if Moldovan authorities asked the company for personal data and private messages of Moldovan journalists so as to spy on their work, Facebook representatives would categorically refuse them.

“If we received a request from a Moldovan official saying that ‘This journalist has too much information, I want access to his messages,’ we would say, ‘No, man. It’s not ok,’ said Linder. The specialist made this statement as an answer to the questions asked by the students of SAJ about government supervision of social networks.

Elizabeth Linder specified that Facebook employees have no access to users’ emails. Private messages and posts can be accessed only by a small team specialized in the analysis of requests to lift confidentiality, most of them related to criminal activities.

“The FBI can ask for information, but it doesn’t mean that they will get it. However, they have ways of monitoring public content,” added the specialist, and recommended users to adapt their security settings to their needs. She added that Facebook representatives are trying, by means of the transparency reports that they began publishing, to oblige the world’s governments to be more transparent to their citizens.

As for the countries where Facebook is prohibited, Linder said that the company’s representatives are negotiating while taking into account the countries’ specifics. “In China, for example, where the population is so numerous, and our CEO Mark Zuckerberg agrees, we cannot leave outside the network one billion people if our mission is to connect the entire world,” explained Linder. She also said that the governments’ tactics of restricting public access to the Internet always turn against them.

“People from rural Kashmir in India read at one point in the Internet rumors that something terrible was happening in their region, so thousands of them fled. The government later blocked access to the Internet, claiming that social networks were the ones that misinformed the population. However, if the government had had a Facebook account, they could have themselves provided people with correct information, instead of scaring them even more,” exemplified Elizabeth Linder.

Insisting on the advantages of social networks, Linder also gave the example of Iran. She said that the representatives of the Iranian Cabinet had just created a Facebook account, although the network is prohibited for their population. “It is bizarre that the Iranian Government is practically breaking its own laws, but it is a first good step,” said Linder.

Regarding some Facebook decisions to block certain types of content (pornography, violence, negation of Holocaust, etc.), Linder specified that such measures are always carefully examined. “Sometimes we might not make a good decision, and then we will try to redress the situation. Still, we always consider whether our decision is something we can implement globally and whether our users would be comfortable with it,” concluded the Facebook specialist.

Elizabeth Linder visited Chisinau between the 22nd and 24th October and participated in various meetings with the representatives of the government, mass-media, civil society, and businesses.

Photo Source: Vallo Kruuser