Facebook is far from perfect, but Mark Zuckerberg’s willingness to withstand pressure from Democrats to police speech on his platform is refreshing:
“We have a different policy, I think, than Twitter on this,” Zuckerberg told Dana Perino, host of the Fox News show The Daily Briefing, in an interview clip. The full interview is expected to air on Thursday.
“I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online. In general, private companies probably shouldn’t be, especially these platform companies, shouldn’t be in the position of doing that,” Zuckerberg added.
Perino said that Zuckerberg told her that Facebook refuses to intervene in censoring public posts unless there’s a threat of imminent harm. She added that Facebook is “hands off” when it comes to political speech.
He’s right. https://t.co/8L4N6yQa0V
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) May 28, 2020
He is.
It’s up to journalists to counter misinformation, not Facebook but oops, you can’t do that because no one trusts you anymore. Enjoy the wonderful “muh narratives” bed you made!
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) May 28, 2020
But Zuckerberg’s inclination to let Facebook users make decisions for themselves doesn’t sit well with a lot of lefty authoritarian wannabes.
Facebook’s own research shows the platform is polarizing the country and driving people into extremists groups, but Zuckerberg is more worried about being called mean names by Trump. https://t.co/x6aXGjrCTq
— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) May 28, 2020
For what it’s worth, AOC disagrees with Tommy Vietor. Of course, her take is even stupider than his:
Zuckerberg is not worried about being bullied by Trump.
He is worried that Facebook’s PR operation is falling apart as it’s exposed that their platform relies on white supremacists & disinformation peddlers to be successful.
They aren’t ignoring them. They’re protecting them. https://t.co/DA4Fz6pc5q
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 28, 2020
Ah, yes. There it is.
It has nothing to do with race.
— Vance Murphy (@vancemurphy) May 28, 2020
Holy mackerel, the ease with which some whip out the "white supremacy" card is amazing. https://t.co/x0b86njXlQ
— jerylbier (@JerylBier) May 28, 2020
You can set your watch by it.
Facebook, Twitter, are out there for all to use. It's bad policy and bad politics to criticize, censor them because they are used by people you don't like.
— Mike Jasinski (@jasinskm) May 28, 2020
Donald Trump’s threats to use government muscle to go after social media platforms who don’t lick his boots are desperate and pathetic. But how is what he’s advocating for any worse than what AOC wants to do to Facebook and any platform that doesn’t cower before her?
And by the way, AOC is probably one of the last people who should be criticizing anyone for facilitating the spread of “disinformation”:
…says one of the crown princesses of disinformation peddling. Please.
— Bruce of Rayne (@brucehebert) May 28, 2020
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