Mark Zuckerberg has released a lengthy response to claims Facebook’s lax content quality controls allowed American voters to be swayed by blatantly false information.
In it, the social media monolith’s founder argues that the overwhelming legitimacy of content posted on the platform “makes it extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the outcome of this election in one direction or the other,” and that the site doesn’t intend to introduce any sweeping changes to current policy.
This latest message from Zuckerberg comes after Facebook faced mass condemnation for apparently doing very little to stem the tide of BS info from reaching impressionable voters on both sides of the howling political divide.
FWIW, we made the same argument. We wrote Facebook “simply does not give a shit” about cutting back on people and organisations spreading demonstrably false information, as evidenced by their decision to replace human oversight of the Trending section with a purely algorithmic system.
Now, it appears Zuckerberg and Facebook’s management have stuck to their predominantly hands-off position regarding the issue. He writes “identifying the “truth” is complicated,” which is true, but we’d also argue identifying (and excising) outright lies is easier.
He continues in that impartial vein, saying “I believe we must be extremely cautious about becoming arbiters of truth ourselves,” and that the platform intends to promote its community-led program of flagging utter shite found on the site.
Furthermore, as we recovered from Donald Trump’s shock victory, we argued that it was a shock partly because Facebook’s algorithms limit viewpoints contrary to a user’s own from popping up on their News Feeds.
Zuckerberg says “I think it’s important to try to understand the perspective of people on the other side,” but didn’t directly address how Facebook may make doing so more difficult.
Facebook isn’t Twitter, that lawless Mad Max-esque wasteland where racist egg-people band together under platinum blond warlords, but today’s message reaffirms Facebook’s clear intent not to overtly influence users, even if they’re being totally misled.
Read the full post below:
Source: Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook.
Photo: Mike Windle / Getty.
