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Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday vigorously defended his company as a bastion of free speech for everyone, even as the company is also facing calls to be broken up for its outsize influence in politics.
“We can either continue to stand for free expression, understanding its messiness, but believing in that the long journey towards greater progress requires confronting ideas that challenge us. or, we can decide the cost is simply too great,” Zuckerberg said in the address at Georgetown University. “I’m here today because I believe that we must continue to stand for free expression.”
In his speech, Zuckerberg referred to the present time as “another crossroads” in history. He stressed repeatedly that he is in favor of more free speech online, rejecting the concept of clamping down on individuals’ rights to share their voices, even if the topics at hand might inflame public debate or upset peoples’ personal sentiments.
The speech came as Facebook is gearing up for what could be one of the more contentious presidential elections in recent American history. The company still bears the scars from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which that firm improperly gained access to the accounts of 87 million Facebook users during the 2016 election cycle.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of the top Democratic candidates currently running for president, has pledged to work to break up Facebook, and some other leading internet companies, because of their market dominance, should she win the White House in 2020.
Earlier this month, Zuckerberg said he was prepared to “go to the mat” to fight for Facebook’s independence should Warren proceed with her company breakup idea.
In September, Facebook added fuel to the debate over free expression when it unveiled a new policy that includes not fact-checking political ads, nor putting restraints on politicians’ speech on the Facebook platform. Warren responded this month by taking out ads on the service that made deliberately false claims about Zuckerberg, essentially daring Facebook to take the ads down.
Zuckerberg defended Facebook’s decisions Thursday by saying not fact-checking ads actually opens up the ability of individuals to determine for themselves the veracity of politicians’ claims.
“We don’t do this to help politicians, but because we think people should see for themselves what politicians are saying,” Zuckerberg said. “For the same reason, if content is newsworthy, we won’t take it down if it would otherwise conflict with our standards.”
Zuckerberg admitted that he knew not everyone would agree with Facebook’s policy about political ads, but said that “in general, I don’t think it’s right for a private company to censor politicians, or the news, in a democracy. In a democracy, people should decide what is credible.”
As part of his effort to promote Facebook as a proponent of free speech online, Zuckerberg spoke about the reasons why the company doesn’t operate in China, where the government puts strict limitations on its citizens’ access to the internet.
“I thought that, maybe, we could help create a more-open society (in China),” Zuckerberg said. “I worked hard on this for a long time. But, we could never come to an agreement for what it would take for us to operate there, and they never let us in.”
Those comments brought about a response from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who has been critical about Facebook’s political policies.
“Interesting. Now that Facebook is shut out of China, Zuck champions free speech,” Hawley said on Twitter. “But he told me in our meeting when I asked about Chinese censorship that Facebook ‘always complies with local laws,’ and offered this as explanation for why FB was ready to censor in (the) Chinese mkt.”
Advocacy groups and other critics were quick to attack many of Zuckerberg’s remarks Thursday.
“If Facebook is so invested in freedom of expression, then why do its content moderation policies
fail to meet so many best practices?” said Gennie Gebhert, associate director of research at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Users can’t count on Facebook to be fully transparent about what it takes down, or about what governments request it to take down.
“When Facebook removes content or suspends accounts in error, it doesn’t commit to giving all users a chance to appeal those decisions.”
Rashad Robinson, president of Oakland-based civil rights advocacy group Color of Change, said that by refusing to monitor political ads, the Facebook CEO was “doubling down on a business model that corrupts our democracy” and gives support to the actions of President Donald Trump.
“Under the guise of protecting voice and free expression, Facebook, as in prior elections, is giving Trump and the right-wing a free pass to spread lies, hate and misinformation on the platform,” Robinson said. “If Facebook won’t create rules for the platform that protect free elections, user safety and the sanctity of the truth, then Congress must intervene to ensure our civil rights are protected from out of touch leaders in Silicon Valley.”
In response to a question about Facebook censoring speech by both liberal and conservative politicians, Zuckerberg showed he had a sense of humor about all the diatribe his company faces.
“I think it would be very hard to be biased against both sides,” Zuckerberg said before adding, “We’re doing a very good job of making everyone angry with us.”
Zuckerberg’s comments on political ads come as several TV news networks have begun implementing more-stringent guidelines around such advertisements by refusing to run such spots if they include false content.
However, Zuckerberg insisted that political advertising on Facebook “is more transparent than anywhere else,” and added that “We keep all political and issue ads in an archive so everyone can scrutinize them for years to come. And that’s something that no TV or print outlet does.”
