This quote from Zuckerberg (attached below) is clever.
(Link to Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Post)
I’m also particularly amused how everyone is celebrating Twitter’s completely lazy abdication and PR stunt while scorning FB’s attempts to engage with the hard problem through speeches and a principled stand.
Reminder (if you didn’t listen or understand his speech)
Zuck doesn’t need the money or headache
Facebook doesn’t need the money or headache
He believes that shutting down political ads advantages incumbent power (see: trump)
Speech is hard. It’s also core to America’s promise
Why am I defending Facebook and Zuckerberg so much? A number of reasons:
This reminds me of the furor against Uber because of tipping. We knew that tipping was anti-labor because it pushed the burden of risk onto the driver and the cognitive load onto the customer. There’s a reason why only the US does tipping. But outrage culture persisted, so we added it anyway. Mobs don’t understand nuance and unintended consequences. Related: I’ve been close to senior people getting this kind of pressure and have a lot of empathy for them and their position.
It feels very hypocritical to me for Congress and the media to be dragging Zuckerberg over the coals for not dealing with an unintended consequence of his platform when they are the people intentionally doing a number of things I consider to be much, much worse for democracy (gerrymandering, corruption, misleading headlines, 24/7 propaganda, underfunding for education etc). It feels like a red herring distraction trying to scapegoat 1 guy instead of 20+ years of failed policymaking.
Let’s not forget who’s trying to post the misleading ads. The very Politicians who are acting outraged. How about they hold each other to account as well?
I think limiting speech you don’t like is easy to say but dangerous to do. I appreciate Zuckerberg trying to take a principled approach (even if we might disagree with where he’s drawing the line right now)
I do think the problem is much more complicated than it appears. It’s not easy to properly classify lies from exaggerations to spin etc.
I agree with Zuckerberg that outright banning political ads would disadvantage new voices
I don’t want to give Facebook more power. I don’t want a tech company to determine what is appropriate speech.