Mark Zuckerberg promised in a lengthy weblog post that the company wouldn’t build knowledge centres in countries with poor human rights.
But he selected to ignore Singapore’s monitor report in human rights, declaring the city-state residence to Facebook’s first information heart in Asia to “serve everyone.”
“As we build our infrastructure all over the world, we’ve chosen to not construct information centres in countries which have a monitor report of violating human rights like privateness or freedom of expression,” stated Mark Zuckerberg.
“If there are two things Singapore is understood for, it’s that there’s no privacy nor freedom of expression,” according to Zach Whittaker of TechCrunch.
For all its glitz and financial success, Singapore’s human rights document falls far beneath internationally recognised norms.
The state, with a inhabitants of 5 million, constantly falls near the bottom in worldwide rankings by rights teams for its oppressive legal guidelines in opposition to freedom of speech, restricted rights to privacy underneath its increasing surveillance system, horrendous treatment of those within the LGBT community along with suppressed media freedom and threats of defamation lawsuits by the federal government.
Reporters Without Borders stated Singapore has an “intolerant authorities,” and Human Rights Watch referred to as some of the country’s extra restrictive laws “draconian.”
The government in Singapore retains broad powers to limit citizens’ rights and to inhibit political opposition. In 2018, Singapore was ranked 151th out of a hundred and eighty nations by Reporters Without Borders in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index. (Thailand ranked a hundred and fortieth in the identical report)
Responding to criticism of Facebook’s choice to arrange data centres in the Asian city-state, Facebook rolled out a non-answer.
“Deciding where to locate a model new knowledge centre is a multi-year course of that considers dozens of different elements, together with entry to renewable power, connectivity, and a strong native expertise pool,” stated Facebook spokesperson Jennifer Hakes.
“ Official , nonetheless, is ensuring that we will protect any person information saved in the facility.”
Ironically, Facebook is commonly a target for Singapore’s authorities to crack down on vocal opponents of its draconian laws. Additionally ironic is the Singapore government’s heavy use of local social media as a way of spreading its news and propaganda.
Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Linode, DigitalOcean and OVH all have knowledge centres positioned in Singapore..