So, Mark Zuckerberg wants to repent for Facebook’s sins? He can start here
During Yom Kippur, Zuckerberg asked for forgiveness for Facebook’s wrongs. Real repentance requires change — and there is no better time to start than now.
By Ellen Goodman
Along with his fellow Jews, Mark Zuckerberg introspected over Yom Kippur and asked for forgiveness via Facebook from “those I hurt this year … for the ways my work was used to divide people rather than bring us together”. He promised to “work to do better”.
Presumably, Zuckerberg was referring to the two types of harm that Facebook has recently acknowledged causing: allowing Russian nationals to purchase Facebook ads to aid Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and allowing ad buys on hateful search terms.
It took congressional investigations, a special counsel investigation, and great reporting by Politico to get Facebook to fess up to these sins. It took President Obama pulling Mark Zuckerberg aside shortly after the election and schooling him in Facebook’s responsibility for distributing electioneering lies.
But even so, Zuckerberg could have met these revelations with a shrug. After all, Facebook has long contended that it is “merely a platform” for…
