Facebook lobbyist: Maybe we’re allowing too much free speech

With President Obama visiting Facebook’s Silicon Valley headquarters today, the Wall Street Journal takes a look at the company’s ramped-up lobbying efforts in Washington. But one lobbyist’s quote, flagged by Time‘s Austin Ramzy, isn’t going to do the social networking giant’s public image any favors:

"Maybe we will block content in some countries, but not others," Adam Conner, a Facebook lobbyist, told the Journal. "We are occasionally held in uncomfortable positions because now we’re allowing too much, maybe, free speech in countries that haven’t experienced it before," he said.

The comments highlights the increasingly awkward relationship between Facebook and the democratic activists who have championed its use as an organizing tool.The company has never been entirely comfortable with this role, as the Journal notes, declining, for instance, to sign on to the Global Network Initiative, an agreement on conduct within authoritarian countries by companies including Microsoft and Google.

Facebook’s not in the business of promoting free communication, nor even "taking the entire social experience of college and putting it online". It exists to harvest self-provided user data to sell to advertisers and, at this point, any users who attribute other motives to it are kidding themselves. In that context, teaming up with Baidu to create a Facebook with Chinese characteristics makes complete sense, though somehow I doubt it’s what the president will highlight during his visit.