Facebook has developed a censorship tool that could persuade China to allow the social media giant back into the country after a seven-year-ban.
According to reports on Tuesday from the New York Times, the software suppresses posts from appearing in people's news feeds in specific geographies.
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg met in March with China's propaganda tsar Liu Yunshan who hoped Facebook could strengthen exchanges and improve mutual understanding with China's internet companies, according to media reports.
"We have long said that we are interested in China, and are spending time understanding and learning more about the country," Facebook spokeswoman Arielle Aryah said in media reports.
"However, we have not made any decision on our approach to China."
China, which has the world's largest population of internet users, banned the website following the Urumqi riots in July 2009 in an effort to stem the flow of information about ethnic unrest which left 140 people dead.
While Facebook has developed the tool, it does not intend to suppress the posts itself, instead offering the software to enable a third party to monitor popular stories and topics that are shared across the network.
The third party partner would have full control to decide whether those posts should show up in users' feeds.
