Facebook deletes blogger's account

[caption id="attachment_288" align="alignnone" width="650" caption="Account deleted: Chinese blogger Michael Anti's facebook account was deleted based on the company's strict policy against pseudonyms."][/caption]

CHINESE blogger and activist Michael Anti is fuming after having his Facebook account deleted.

Anti, a popular online commentator whose legal name is Zhao Jing, said in an interview on Tuesday that his Facebook account was suddenly cancelled in January.

Company officials told him by email that Facebook has a strict policy against pseudonyms and that he must use the name issued on his government ID.

Anti argues that his professional identity as Michael Anti has been established for more than a decade, with published articles and essays.

Anti, a former journalist who has won fellowships at both Cambridge University and Harvard University, said he set up his Facebook account in 2007.

By locking him out of his account, Facebook has cut him off from a network of more than 1000 academic and professional contacts who know him as Anti, he said.

"I'm really, really angry. I can't function using my Chinese name. Today, I found out that (Facebook founder Mark) Zuckerberg's dog has a Facebook account. My journalistic work and academic work is more real than a dog," he said.

Facebook officials weren't available to comment on his case.

The company says its policy leads to greater trust and accountability for its users.

"We have tried to keep the rule simple and fair by saying personal profiles must always be set up in the real legal name of the individual concerned," it said by email to Anti.

Dissidents in a variety of countries have argued that Facebook's policy can endanger human rights activists and others if their identities become known.

Anti said there is a long tradition in China for writers and journalists to take pen names, partly as protection from retaliation from authorities.

If Facebook requires the use of real names, that could potentially put Chinese citizens in danger, he said.

"For my fellow Chinese, this policy could easily help Chinese police identify them," he said.

It's not the first time Anti has had problems with an internet site.

In 2005, his blog on a Microsoft site was shut down by the company following pressure from Chinese officials.

Microsoft's action led to a public outcry.

Zuckerberg recently set up a Facebook page for his newly acquired puppy, "Beast," complete with photos and a profile.

Facebook in no rush to IPO

[caption id="attachment_282" align="alignright" width="316" caption="Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg says going into China would raise "hard questions" and "issues" for Facebook. Picture: AAP"][/caption]

FACEBOOK is in no hurry to go public or to get into China, where it is officially blocked, according to Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of the social networking giant.

Mr Zuckerberg, in an interview with Charlie Rose's PBS television program to be aired later on Monday, also said the role of social media in the Arab Spring uprisings may have been "a bit overblown''.

In the interview conducted last week at Fachebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, California, Mr Zuckerberg said that going into China would raise "hard questions'' and "issues'' for Facebook, which has more than 800 million members.

"But since, for right now, we're not available, and we don't have an immediate path to become available, these are not policy decisions we have to make,'' he said.

"At some point I think there would be some discussion around what it would take to go there, and then we'd at that point have to figure out whether we were willing to do that,'' Mr Zuckerberg said.

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, who was interviewed along with Mr Zuckerberg, said entering China, which has more than 500 million internet users, is "not really our choice''.

"It's the government's choice,'' she said.

"We're not available because they've chosen to make us not available.''

Beijing has set up a vast online censorship system sometimes dubbed the "Great Firewall of China'' that aggressively blocks sites and snuffs out Internet content on topics considered sensitive.

The system currently prevents most of the nation's web users from accessing Facebook.

As for going public, Mr Zuckerberg repeated earlier statements that Facebook would conduct an initial public offering at some point but was in no hurry to do so.

"Honestly, it's not something I spend a lot of time on a day-to-day basis thinking about now,'' he said.

"A big part of being a technology company is getting the best engineers and designers and talented people around the world,'' he said. ``And one of the ways that you can do that is you compensate people with equity or options.

"At some point we're going to make that equity worth something publicly and liquidly, in a liquid way,'' he said.

"ow, the promise isn't that we're going to do it on any kind of short-term time horizon.

"The promise is that we're going to build this company so that it's great over the long term,'' he said.

"And that we're always making these decisions for the long term, but at some point we'll do that (go public).''