Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot ZuckerbergDominant internet platforms must disrupt themselves Violence in Myanmar poses major test for Facebook US, EU must work together in wake of Facebook data breach MORE said in a recent interview that Holocaust deniers should not be removed from his social platform if they are not “intentionally getting it wrong.”
“Let’s take this a little closer to home,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with Recode released on Wednesday. “So I’m Jewish, and there’s a set of people who deny that the Holocaust happened. I find that deeply offensive.”
“But at the end of the day, I don’t believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong — I don’t think that they’re intentionally getting it wrong,” Zuckerberg continued. “It’s hard to impugn intent and to understand the intent.”
“I just think, as important as some of those examples are, I think the reality is also that I get things wrong when I speak publicly,” he said, further adding that he doesn’t think “that it is the right thing to say we are going to take someone off the platform if they get things wrong, even multiple times.”
Zuckerberg’s comments arrive as his social platform faces backlash for playing home to Infowars, a site known for creating and spreading hoaxes and unsubstantiated conspiracies, despite its push to push fake news sources off its site.
Still, the Facebook CEO said it did feature sites seen as offensive less prominently, without removing them.
“What we will do is we’ll say, 'OK, you have your page, and if you’re not trying to organize harm against someone, or attacking someone, then you can put up that content on your page, even if people might disagree with it or find it offensive,’ ” Zuckerberg said. “But that doesn’t mean that we have a responsibility to make it widely distributed in News Feed.”
The company is also currently running a television ad in which it apologizes and seeks to repair its image following revelations that Russian trolls tried to manipulate its platform to influence U.S. politics.
Edzward on July 18th, 2018 at 20:11 UTC »
Makes sense. If they start to ban people on Facebook because their own stupidity the place will be empty in no time.
test0ffaith on July 18th, 2018 at 18:50 UTC »
I mean they don’t ban all the other people doing horrible/idiotic things. 0% surprised
yanipheonu on July 18th, 2018 at 18:42 UTC »
"You really think someone would do that? Just go on the Internet and tell lies?"