As most of you are probably aware, Mark Zuckerberg showed up on Capitol Hill Wednesday ostensibly to talk to the House Financial Services Committee about his criminally insane plan to launch a cryptocurrency.
If Congress and regulators are any semblance of competent, they will never (ever) let Libra escape from the lab. Short of a nuclear holocaust or a scenario where Ebola goes airborne, it would be nearly impossible to conjure a nightmare more frightening than Facebook effectively becoming a central bank and unleashing a cryptocurrency Zuckerberg dreamed up into the wild.
“I don’t know if Libra is going to work”, Mark said, “but I believe in trying new things”.
Right. “New things”. Like letting the man who (wittingly or not) allowed the Kremlin to run sophisticated influence campaigns designed to upend western democracies control the money supply. Or like letting a guy who has demonstrated time and again that if you trust him with your data, he’s gonna find a way to screw you – even if he has to do it by accident – issue a global currency.
Anyway, leaving aside the Libra lunacy, lawmakers also took the opportunity to grill Zuckerberg on Facebook’s policies around political ads. One person who relished her time was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“You announced recently that the official policy of Facebook now allows politicians to pay to spread disinformation in 2020 elections and in the future. So I just want to know how far I can push this in the next year”, she said, on the way to asking whether she could pay Facebook to target African American voters and trick them into thinking the election was on a different day.
“If anyone, including a politician, is saying things that can cause — that is calling for violence, or could risk imminent physical harm, or voter or census suppression, when we roll out the census suppression policy, we will take that content down”, Zuckerberg responded.
“So there is some threshold where you will fact check political advertisements. Is that what you’re telling me?”, AOC asked.
Here is the entire clip:
The exchange that grabbed headlines on Wednesday is transcribed below (you can watch it starting at the 3:00 mark):
Ocasio-Cortez: Could I run advertisements on Facebook targeting Republicans in primaries saying that they voted for the Green New Deal? I mean, if you’re not fact-checking political advertisements, I’m just trying to understand the bounds here, what’s fair game.
Zuckerberg: Congresswoman, I don’t know the answer to that off the top of my head, I think probably.
Ocasio-Cortez: You don’t know if I’ll be able to do that.
Zuckerberg: I think probably.
Ocasio-Cortez: Do you see a potential problem here with a complete lack of fact-checking on political advertisements?
Zuckerberg: Well, Congresswoman, I think lying is bad, and I think if you were to run an ad that had a lie in it, that would be bad.
Right. But not bad enough for Facebook to take it down or to disallow it.
The answer to AOC’s question would appear to be yes. If she wants to run ads that contain outright, blatant lies about Republicans, Facebook will take her money and disseminate the ads.
That, despite the fact that Facebook most assuredly does not need that revenue stream.
Zuckerberg has bent over backwards recently to explain the company’s position on this. If you’re not up to speed on his contortions, that’s absolutely fine. All you need to know is that there is only one right answer here, and Mark steadfastly refuses to give it.
The fact is, Mark Zuckerberg is in a position to singlehandedly make a huge dent in the spread of propaganda and misinformation in America (especially that disseminated by politicians). Efforts to curb “clickbait” and purge dubious accounts notwithstanding, the fact remains that he has not committed to bringing the full power of Facebook to bear in the service of putting a genie he had a big part in freeing back in the bottle.
Ocasio-Cortez’s last line of questioning is especially poignant.
“In your ongoing dinner parties with far-right figures, some of them advanced the conspiracy theory that white supremacy is a hoax. Did you discuss so-called ‘social media bias’ against conservatives and do you believe there is a bias?”, AOC wondered.
Zuckerberg faltered. Which was fine, because she didn’t want an answer.
She quickly moved on. “Can you explain why you’ve named The Daily Caller a publication with well-documented ties to white supremacists, as an official fact-checker for Facebook?”, she asked, staring Zuckerberg down.
“Congresswoman, sure. We don’t actually appoint the fact-checkers, they go through an independent organization… that has a rigorous standard for who they allow to serve as a fact-checker”, Zuckerberg said.
“So, you would say that white supremacist-tied publications meet a rigorous standard for fact-checking?”, an incredulous AOC responded.
Rather than take responsibility, Zuckerberg punted.
In case it’s not clear enough from the above, one of the two people in that five-minute exchange is worthy of the public trust.
The other one is the CEO of Facebook.
Out of curiosity… would it be even remotely possible to fact check all the garbage being posted on facebook? Is that why Mark is refusing to answer?
Hate to say it but agree with Zuck on this. Censorship is a slippery slope.
You agree that Facebook should let politicians pay the company to post political ads that Facebook knows contain outright, demonstrable, verifiable lies?
If I move to your town, would you be ok with me taking out an ad in your local newspaper that accuses you of being a convicted felon even if that claim has no basis whatsoever in reality? and what would you say to the paper if you proved to them ahead of time that I was lying and they took my money and ran the ad anyway? and what if you asked the paper to stop publishing the ad each and every day and they told you to piss off because they don’t “censor” paid ads.
you’d probably sue me, and the paper, wouldn’t you?
exactly.
non sequitur here, but I find it crazy that a billionaire punk goes out in public with a bowl cut or whatever that hair style he wears is. While currently not a fashion critic or hair expert, I maintain that Zuckboy looks like a moron and acts like a moron and totally agree that FB is a dumpster fire!
I’m starting to think that Zuckerberg just ain’t that bright.
He’s an accident.
I actually agree. He does not come across the same way Dorsey does, let alone Elon or Bezos. In fact, Zuck comes across as almost challenged at times. And I mean, he’s so rich you don’t even really need any caveats with the criticism. Like, most of the time I would say “Not to take anything away from him…” or “having said that, he’s clearly done well…”, but that’s kinda superfluous here. He’s worth $100 billion. But I wouldn’t trust him with even simple tasks that don’t involve a computer. I really, really wouldn’t.
As a friend of mine put it, you’re watching Artificial Intelligence
I don’t get it.
Why is it so hard for him to renounce the Daily Caller?
I mean, he’s jewish, for Christ’s sake (pun not intended), his wife is Asian-American.
Rejecting some half-baked, right-wing, fake news website with a proven track record of antisemitic, white-supremacist contributors should be a no-brainer for him.
As stated in the article, he’s not dependend on their money.
Plus, Facebook has more than 2 Billion users worldwide, the Daily Caller is read by a handful of far-right wingnuts mainly in the US.
I’m in no way a republican and I know you are a big fan of the “New democrats” but it appears to me AOC is pretty much just asking questions for media effect without expecting an answer. Questions along the lines of “what did you eat for breakfast on Oct 22, 2001?” and acting surprised that he doesn’t remember. More like a witch hunt than anything else.
False advertisements are not new (say on billboards). They come with consequences (i.e. the advertiser getting sued and pays damages). Not a lawyer, but I don’t think billboard owners have ever been held responsible/liable for the content of the ads..Don’t recall the courts holding billboard owners liable for false advertisement in the tobacco company cases. Could be wrong and would like to know (with references) if I am. Facebook is just an online billboard. I believe there are laws protecting web platforms from liability related to content. If not, they would have all been shut down long ago and we wouldn’t have to suffer through taxpayer-funded AOC infomercials like these.
What’s needed is for the “smart” folk in congress to modify the existing laws as they deem fit to avoid a repeat of the “Russian influence” fiasco. See if that flies..
Your getting into an area where public domain and free speech get warped. Facebook users agree to use the service and thus its terms of service (agreements) and basically FB owns all the content from everyone, including the fine folks that are pushing political agendas and feeding-in false information. FB acts as almost a utility, distributing communication, thus it is regulated:
The next time users visit Facebook, things might not look different, but big changes are brewing behind the scenes. The FTC’s record-breaking $5 billion settlement requires Facebook to conduct a massive overhaul of its consumer privacy practices. The settlement also makes major changes to Facebook’s operations and CEO Mark Zuckerberg no longer has sole control over privacy.
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2019/07/what-ftc-facebook-settlement-means-consumers
Therefore, how does one compare FB rights to that of a billboard owner that puts of nazi porno? I assume that a community can enforce rules to establish local control, not unlike a town telling strip clubs or pot shops to not do business next to a school zone — and there maybe a grey line as to how to deal with a small town newspaper printing up nazi porn and suggesting newspapers have rights and need money to continue operating.
Your apparent dislike for AOC does sort of paint you into the pro nazi porno supporter and most likely you belong to a very small (minded) minority that clearly can’t see the big picture!
Ha ha ha! Here’s an example of dislike “non sequitur here, but I find it crazy that a billionaire punk goes out in public with a bowl cut or whatever that hair style he wears is. While currently not a fashion critic or hair expert, I maintain that Zuckboy looks like a moron and acts like a moron and totally agree that FB is a dumpster fire!” – posted by YOU. You are essentially ridiculing someone’s appearance and associating that with his intellectual ability. And you are pointing fingers at me! I guess that’s how the communists roll..
FB is not a regulated utility, yet. Not by decree or ruled as such by a court. A lot of companies settle rather than fight as a matter of convenience. And I clearly said that congress should act on it and make it so rather than waste my time and money on sideshows.
And BTW, I’m way browner than AOC so not everyone that diasgrees with/dislikes her is a Nazi. Last time I checked, The First amendment is still intact..
Says “I’m in no way Republican,” and then calls liberals “communists.” Yeah, sure, you’re no Republican. Riiiiight.
“Whataboutism” is propaganda 101.
and here’s how people like myself short-circuit it: I don’t give a shit about tobacco ads on billboards. that’s irrelevant. there’s no point in bringing it up, because regardless of whether tobacco companies lied about cancer risk on billboards, Mark Zuckerberg is knowingly facilitating the spread of misinformation and he’s accepting money from the people who are spreading it.
sure, billboard owners do the same thing. also, people illegally poach seals. also, people sometimes rob houses. also, i drove over the speed limit today.
but none of those misdeeds in any way, shape or form ameliorates the fact that Mark Zuckerberg has a political ad policy that allows people like Donald Trump to run ads which contain outright, blatant lies. That people selling billboard space to tobacco companies probably surmised that inhaling toxic smoke into one’s lungs was a bad idea but ran the ads anyway has no connection to Facebook, no matter how many times you try to say it does. Just like it would have no connection to Facebook if it turns out that a guy selling snow boots out of a shack in the arctic surmised ahead of time that the last person he sold boots to was probably going to go club baby seals over the head.
the simple fact of the matter is that AOC is asking Mark Zuckerberg a series of straightforward questions, one of which is, basically, “You know you’re doing something that is objectively shitty, right?”
he clearly knows the answer is “yes” — “yes, I do know that, but I’m gonna do it anyway”.
of course, I really didn’t have to take the time out of my evening to type this, because you know she’s right, I know she’s right, and everyone with working eyes and ears who clicked on that video knows she’s right.
Nice â˜ðŸ»