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Upon hearing news that Facebook was considering a “satire” tag on all links to news stories of that genre, I immediately thought that the move was in some way related to its Asian users.
Let me explain.
As a genre and as a concept, satire does not seem to be taught as much in the East as it is in the West. And that’s neither right or wrong, good or bad. The educational systems of the two regions simply tend to place emphasis on different things.
So while the internet gives every author a global audience, not every nation’s readership may be ready to deconstruct the nuances of hundreds of tones and perspectives that they now come into contact with as part of their daily diet of content – some from as far flung as the other side of the Earth – places they’ve only seen on screens and may never set foot on during their lifetimes.
What is matter-of-factly obvious to the western writer is often sublime, subtle, and scary to the Asian reader. Again, I do not in any way mean to demean Asian culture – I myself live in Southeast Asia on a little archipelago of 7,107 islands – but the situation must be stated for what it is: Asians just don’t get satire.
Facebook’s the front page of the internet, not Reddit
Bear with me now as I skip ahead a few steps. Most people think of Facebook as a social media company, or if you look at their business model a little deeper, an advertising company. Facebook is probably both those things, but it is most of all a media company.
When you open up your MacBook Pro, where’s the first site you go to, even if it may not even be set as your homepage? Facebook. Facebook’s the front page of the internet, no matter how Reddit’s branding tries to convince you otherwise. Facebook’s newsfeed collects media for our consumption – it takes articles and videos from outside and displays them in Facebook’s signature format – the clickable featured image, the preview text, and if you so wish, a few introductory words.
While we do self-curate the content we receive to an extent – we can choose who to follow, we can choose which of our friends’ pages to visit, we can choose whether to hide a link on our Newsfeed – Facebook is still a media company. We interact with Facebook’s content on their own terms, or more appropriately, terms of service.
While we tend to think of media companies as huge, monolithic entities that beam information and data at us, they do have responsibilities. Just think of all the people and organizations ready to express offense over how a show or film portrayed a particular demographic or used certain words or images. They express outrage because media companies are beholden to its audience for both the curation and moderation of its content.
Facebook’s satire tag is like a calorie label
Facebook is no different. As a media company, Facebook has a responsibility – some would even say an obligation – to its viewers. This includes broadcasting content that is not only appropriate, but accurately labeled for our consumption. No matter how ridiculous this may sound to you, this principle extends to those who misinterpret the intent of satirical articles and over-react online in some semi-embarrassing manner.
Yes, there are Americans who still believe what they read in The Onion , but a bigger constituency will come from Asia. Readers everywhere from Manila, Philippines to Tokyo Japan suddenly find themselves in an online world dominated by western media, much of which has cues and hues that they did not grow up sensing or seeing.
Those people, if my generalization is even remotely accurate, make up a significant part of Asia. Facebook users from Japan, China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines who have trouble telling an article from The Onion from the truth make up Zuckerberg’s Asian base.
As Zuck’s stakeholders, Facebook needs to be a safe and reassuring place – for this is the kind of ambiance that keeps us somewhere for hours. To accomplish this task, Facebook needs to push out high-quality content at us as fast as we can refresh our Newsfeed. Satirical articles can be high quality content – just think of the literary talent it takes to make a good Onion piece.
However, when satire is posted or shared out of misunderstanding, these writings become low-quality. They distress us and make Facebook a threatening, uncomfortable place.
The satire tag changes all that. In the same way that a calorie label on a piece of cheesecake can make us approach it with moderation, so can a satire tag help people approach a piece of writing with the right frame of mind. In the case of Asia, at least, the ideal perspective is one of levity. We can appropriately enjoy rather than take offense from an Onion article shared on our Newsfeed, and then go back to our regularly scheduled programming.
The post Is Facebook’s proposed satire tag secretly designed for Asians? appeared first on Tech in Asia.
