Is Facebook’s Political-Ad Policy Really That Bad?
Intelligence staffers discuss whether Mark Zuckerberg deserves the barrage of criticism he’s getting over his company’s policy
By Brian Feldman, Benjamin Hart, and Max Read
Ben: Facebook is receiving a lot of incoming fire for basically giving up on fact-checking its political ads. Mark Zuckerberg’s stance, which he articulated rather poorly during congressional hearings yesterday, is that it is not his platform’s place to be the arbiter of truth and that users can sift through misleading or outright false claims and make up their minds themselves. The site does have some rules about extreme speech, but simply telling a lie doesn’t usually break them. Does Zuckerberg deserve all the flak he’s getting on this, or are the ill feelings many people have about him and his company causing a bit of an overreaction?
Brian: In this particular case, he absolutely deserves the flak. His argument is basically that a powerful distribution channel like Facebook shouldn’t police politicians, which I think is a good stance. but lies are … lies? Like, I don’t know how else to put it. Politicians should not be allowed to spread lies uninhibited.
