Zuckerberg vs. Congress: COVID-19 misinformation on Facebook
We've always said the problem is Facebook is profiting off and amplifying disinformation that harms others because it's profitable.
This isn't a speech issue.
It's about Facebook's business model, that prioritizes engagement in order to keep people on Facebook's platform to serve up more advertisements, so I'll ask it very specifically.
What are you doing right now to protect people from demonstrably false claims related to this deadly pandemic?
Congressman, I'll certainly answer that, but I have to disagree with the assertion that you're making that this content is somehow helpful for our business.
It is not what people want to see We rank our what we show in feed based on what is going to be the most meaningful to people and is going to create long term satisfaction.
Not what's just gonna get engagement or clicks today, that's the common miss conception about the, ->> if that's true,
Covering.
If that's true, Mr.
Zuckerberg, how do you explain that On Monday, the second most popular post on Facebook was a Breitbart video claiming that you don't need a mask, and hydroxychloroquine is a cure for COVID.
And in the first five hours after being posted on Facebook, it racked up 20 million views and over 100,000 comments before Facebook acted to remove it.
Congressman,>> a lot of people shared that and we did take it down because it violates our policies.
We work with the CDC.
a million peterside over the period of five hours.
I mean, doesn't that suggest, Mr. Zuckerberg, that your platform is so big, that even with the right policies in place, you can't contain Deadly content?
Congressman, I don't think so I think we have on COVID misinformation in particular, a relatively good track record of fighting and taking down lots of false content as well as putting up authoritative information.
We have Build a COVID Information Center.
I understand that information from health officials.
Thank you.
I just have one more question for you to build on people.
I appreciate them.
It seems like we have a television station runs a false political advertisement.
They're held liable for that.
Why should Facebook or any other platform be different?
Well, you may not be a publisher.
You're responsible maybe not for the first posting, but you then take that posting and you apply a set of algorithms, that decide how you will disseminate that which is a business decision, not a First Amendment decision.
And it's hard to understand why Facebook shouldn't be responsible for those business decisions.
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Congressman in terms of political ads, we've modeled a lot of our policies off of the FCC guidelines on broadcasters, and their requirements to run political ads, equally from all different sides.>> Well, I think this
force of more Yeah, I think these examples unfortunate Mr. Zuckerberg, just the tip of the iceberg, it's not just about COVID.
Facebook hosts or enables countless pages and ads that are dedicated to conspiracy theories and calls to violence, including content that led to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017.
And Facebook gets away with it because you're the only game in town.
There's no competition.
Forcing you to police your own platform allowing this misinformation to spread can lead to violence.
And frankly, I believe it strikes at the very heart of American democracy
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