Q&A with Mark Zuckerberg about Russia, fake news, InfoWars, Myanmar, and why he thinks Facebook shouldn't take down posts that deny the Holocaust
Kara Swisher got … Sarah Frier / Bloomberg : Zuckerberg Walks Back Defense of Holocaust Deniers on Facebook Rhett Jones / Gizmodo : Mark Zuckerberg Has a Great Idea for How to Fix Facebook Max Read / New York Magazine : Does Facebook Need a Constitution? Filipa Ioannou / San Francisco Chronicle : Zuckerberg says he did not mean to defend Holocaust deniers Lisa Marie Segarra / Fortune : They're Not ‘Intentionally Getting It Wrong.’ Mark Zuckerberg Says He Won't Ban Holocaust Deniers Osita Nwanevu / Slate : Bigotry Has No Innocent Intent NBC Bay Area : FB CEO Uses Holocaust Example to Defend Takedown Policies Michael Sykes / Axios : Zuckerberg calls Holocaust denial “deeply offensive” in clarification Paris Martineau / The Outline : Neither conservatives nor Mark Zuckerberg actually care about fixing Facebook Marrian Zhou / CNET : Zuckerberg: If someone gets fired for data abuse ‘it should be me’ Daring Fireball : Kara Swisher Interviews Mark Zuckerberg Robby Soave / Hit & Run : In Defense of Mark Zuckerberg Letting Holocaust Deniers Use Facebook Tom Krazit / GeekWire : Amid the 20th anniversary of open source, Tim O'Reilly warns that platform companies built … Lydia O'Connor / HuffPost : Mark Zuckerberg Says Facebook Won't Remove Holocaust Denial Content Tweets: Zeynep Tufekci / @zeynep : Harder to find a group of people more *intentional* about “denying” an atrocity in order to pave the way for more violence than holocaust-deniers. I mean happened in Europe, within living memory, with more documentation than almost any other mass killing. http://www.recode.net/... Renee DiResta / @noupside : But they decide what you see — and as long as the algorithms they write are proactively curating and ranking content (search; trending; reco) the platforms bear responsibility for what they curate and for the integrity of information on their platform. http://twitter.com/... Matt Ford / @fordm : The second-wildest thing about the Zuckerberg interview is that he wasn't even asked about Holocaust denial, he just said he'd keep it on Facebook on his own http://www.recode.net/... http://twitter.com/... Benjy Sarlin / @benjysarlin : So apparently Mark Zuckerberg is under the impression there's some good faith debate going on over whether the Holocaust happened? https://www.recode.net/... pic.twitter.com/ClLngQqesS Mathew Ingram / @mathewi : Mark Zuckerberg on Recode's podcast: “I don't think that we should be in the business of having people at Facebook who are deciding what is true and what isn't” http://www.recode.net/... Mitch Kapor / @mkapor : What Mark Zuckerberg needs to understand the intent of Holocaust deniers is not the sole proper standard of judgment. We can debate limits to free expression, but It's the impact that matters greatly, not just intent http://www.recode.net/... Tasha Robinson / @tasharobinson : “I don't think that they're intentionally getting it wrong.” I see the principle here — Facebook doesn't want to have to police intent or sincerity — but this is still a stance that all misinformation is fine, because it's just possible that propagandists are also true believers. http://twitter.com/... Alex Burns / @alexburnsnyt : Zuckerberg acts like the controversy is over whether he's personally offended by Holocaust denial, which is not at all the point http://twitter.com/... Cristiano Lima / @viacristiano : Zuckerberg on decision to not ban InfoWars from Facebook: “Look, as abhorrent as some of this content can be, I do think that it gets down to this principle of giving people a voice.” http://www.recode.net/... Kara Swisher / @karaswisher : Full transcript: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Recode Decode http://www.recode.net/... http://twitter.com/... Max Read / @max_read : facebook's “free speech” problem is that it pretends to be a liberal democracy when everyone can tell that it's a dictatorship. so maybe what it needs... is a constitution?? http://nymag.com/... Matthew Yglesias / @mattyglesias : Anyways tl:dr is Zuckerberg claims to believe Holocaust deniers aren't intentionally misleading anyone so I guess we can debate whether that's in any way credible. ¯\_()_/¯ http://www.recode.net/... Matt Rosoff / @mattrosoff : Facebook is “offering a powerful platform that reaches the entire world to lunatics who previously were relegated to handing out mimeographs while spouting through a megaphone on a street corner,” says @daringfireball http://daringfireball.net/... Walt Mossberg / @waltmossberg : This @karaswisher interview with Zuckerberg is great, a zillion times better than the Congressional hearings. It reveals his tortured efforts to argue that people who *intentionally* post clear falsehoods are somehow just mistaken & should remain. http://www.recode.net/... Jeryl Bier / @jerylbier : A little weird that Mark Zuckerberg would say about Holocaust deniers, “I don't think that they're intentionally getting it wrong...” http://www.recode.net/... http://twitter.com/... Andrew Kaczynski / @kfile : It is genuinely very alarming how little these tech people have thought about the responsibility of regulating some of the filth on their platforms. http://twitter.com/... Kevin Roose / @kevinroose : Among the revealing pieces of @karaswisher's interview with Zuckerberg: he seems to think there's a meaningful difference between domestic misinformation (wrongness protected by free speech) and misinformation abroad (which causes “real harm"). http://www.recode.net/... http://twitter.com/... Robert McNees / @mcnees : Dear Mark Zuckerberg, We promise you that infowars is intentionally misleading people. Sincerely, Everyone who lived in Austin in the late 90s/early 2000s when Alex Jones didn't hide the fact that he was acting and knew the things he said weren't true http://www.recode.net/... Michael Hobbes / @rottenindenmark : This is insane. He's right that there's a huge grey area between perfect truth and pernicious lies and that policing that zone is difficult. . . but Holocaust denial isn't in it! http://twitter.com/... Mathew Ingram / @mathewi : Key point that Mark didn't really address here: While FB may not want to decide what is true, by controlling what people see via the News Feed algorithm he is more or less doing so anyway, but in a less transparent way http://twitter.com/... Patrick LaForge / @palafo : Stay in college kids http://twitter.com/... @mccanner : folks, don't skip those humanities courses. http://twitter.com/... Ashley Feinberg / @ashleyfeinberg : so basically he's drawing an equivalence between Holocaust denialism and, like, accidentally saying it's Tuesday when it's Wednesday http://twitter.com/... Judd Legum / @juddlegum : Zuckerberg says its an important principle to give InfoWars, which claimed Sandy Hook victims were child actors, a voice on Facebook http://www.recode.net/... http://twitter.com/... John Harris / @johnharris1969 : Accidental global information king way out of his depth.... again. http://twitter.com/... Heather Kelly / @heatherkelly : His argument appears to be that some people just deny the holocaust by accident. https://twitter.com/... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : “Facebook is the devil you know” is an interesting new talking point http://twitter.com/... Ryan Mac / @rmac18 : The strangest thing about this is Zuckerberg voluntarily offers up Holocaust deniers as an example, suggesting that it was a practiced talking point. If you're at Facebook comms, why would you think that talking about the Holocaust would be a good idea? http://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer