Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Censorship Facebook Government Media

Zuckerberg Says He Regrets Not Being More Outspoken About 'Government Pressure' (thehill.com) 288

In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed regret for not being more vocal about "government pressure" to censor COVID-19-related content. He also acknowledged that Meta shouldn't have demoted a New York Post story about President Biden's family before the 2020 election. The Hill reports: Zuckerberg said senior Biden administration officials "repeatedly pressured" Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to "censor" content in 2021. "I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken," he wrote to House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). "Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction -- and we're ready to push back if something like this happens again," Zuckerberg added.

The Meta CEO also said the company "shouldn't have demoted" a New York Post story about corruption allegations involving President Biden's family ahead of the 2020 election while waiting for fact-checkers to review it. The social media company has since updated its policies and processes, including no longer demoting content in the U.S. while waiting for fact-checkers, he noted. Zuckerberg also said in Monday's letter that he does not plan to make contributions to local jurisdictions to support election infrastructure this cycle, like he did during the 2020 election.

The contributions, which were "designed to be non-partisan," were accused of being unfairly distributed between left-leaning and right-leaning areas and labeled "Zuckerbucks" by Republicans. "Still, despite the analyses I've seen showing otherwise, I know that some people believe this work benefited one party over the other," Zuckerberg said. "My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another -- or to even appear to be playing a role."
House Judiciary Republicans touted the letter as a "big win for free speech," writing on X: "Mark Zuckerberg just admitted three things: 1. Biden-Harris Admin 'pressured' Facebook to censor Americans. 2. Facebook censored Americans. 3. Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story."

"Mark Zuckerberg also tells the Judiciary Committee that he won't spend money this election cycle. That's right, no more Zuck-bucks. Huge win for election integrity," it added.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Zuckerberg Says He Regrets Not Being More Outspoken About 'Government Pressure'

Comments Filter:
  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @09:09PM (#64738084)
    this reads like the rambles from a certain ex-president's rallies. It sounds tailor made to get a certain type of voter who's guy is losing excited about voting again.

    Zuckerberg isn't good at very much, but he does know how to manipulate people. I'll give him that.

    As for why he'd do all this, well, Harris has made it pretty clear anti-trust law enforcement is a cornerstone of her economic plan, and Facebook has survived this long by buying up their competitors every time their main platform is at risk of becoming the "old person's" website.
    • Why is because he knows Trump is going to win, time to distance himself from the losers who were his allies and friends.
    • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

      The easiest way to avoid anti-trust litigation from the government is to simply agree to sell out your privacy warrant free. Worked for Microsoft and Google. Im sure facebook has a get-out-of-jail strategy that includes selling your info. My question is why didnt you see this a decade ago? By you I mean most people. I still have no social media accounts. This forum is about as close as it gets. Thats going all the way back to myspace days. The closest I got to myspace was when Geocities was giving free webs

  • Zuckerberg (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @09:22PM (#64738130)

    Zuckerberg has single-handedly done more to fuck over the world than any other individual in the last 75 years. He regrets nothing .. he knew exactly what he was doing. "They trust me ... fucking idiots"

    • Re:Zuckerberg (Score:5, Interesting)

      by echo123 ( 1266692 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @10:05PM (#64738242)

      Zuckerberg has single-handedly done more to fuck over the world than any other individual in the last 75 years. "They trust me ... fucking idiots"

      Rupert Murdoch: "Hold my beer"

      • Makes you think about how "mainstream" and "social" media moguls have helped to warp society.

    • Re:Zuckerberg (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @11:14PM (#64738386)

      As builders of dystopian internet nasties go, I'd say Sergey Brin and Larry Page are way worse than Fuckerberg. And Bill Gates and Larry Ellison form the pre-internet generation.

      Facebook is largely avoidable. Google is not. And if you work with computers in any way, shape or form and you need employment, neither is Microsoft. That's the big difference.

      • by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

        Very much this.

        People keep laughing at me and downvoting me, but just try to calculate, back of the envelope style, how much human time Microsoft wastes merely by making changes to the UI nobody asked for.

        There have been many wars that have cost less human potential. I know, I know, the comparison isn't quite apples to apples obviously but it is an eye popping number.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Apple is worse. Non-replacable batteries, hard locking down of products becoming acceptable, private corporations levying taxes on marketplaces and excluding the competition... A lot of the toxic behaviour that is now rampant is down to Apple making it acceptable.

        • Again, Apple is largely avoidable. If you don't like Apple's particular flavor of dystopia, you can buy / use something else. No so with Google for instance: if you want to avoid Google, you're essentially off the internet.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Apple is avoidable, but their policies are not. Almost every phone has a non-replacable battery now. All the major marketplaces copied Apple's 30% tax. It's taken the EU to do something about it.

            • Oh come on, greedy companies will be greedy companies. If Apple hadn't started the nickel and diming and the anti-repairability, someone else would've. It's not like corporations need Apple to show them how to be evil and get away with it.

            • The battery thing sounds like capitalism at work. If there was a large market for removable batteries and a smaller market for non-removable batteries we would see phone sold with removable batteries.

              If a company saw a way to take profit from apple by doing that, they would. Same with App Store fees.

              • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                The problem is that the iPhone hype machine has made that kind of abuse acceptable. Actually it started with the iPod.

                Look at the situation with TVs too. Lots of people here say they want a dumb TV, but nobody makes them. At least not for consumers, you can buy very expensive signage displays, but they tend to suck in other ways anyway.

                Markets often fail to address a need, if that need would reduce profits for everyone. Fairphone do make phones with batteries you can swap, but they are crap in other ways li

                • So you are saying fair phone doesn't think they could sell more phones to justify a better camera? They must have a reason for a shittier camera. I'm guessing market research shows most people who want the removable battery don't care about camera quality at the price point required to get it.

                  Just like dumb TVs. Most people don't care. Some of us do, but not at the price point it would take to inventory them for the niche users who give a shit. If there is a market for it that is worth it, they will make it

          • Interesting. I don't use a single google product in my day to day life. I have a legacy gmail account that I check once every 3 months to ensure it stays active in case I forgot to move something.

            Search - Kagi
            Email - iCloud
            Cloud storage - iCloud
            News - variety of things, but not google news
            Chat - Signal or for casuals iMessage/SMS
            AI - Kagi
            Browser - Safari and sometimes Firefox when safari doesn't work
            OTP - my password manager for casual things, Yubico authenticator for serious things
            Password manager - 1 of t

            • Interesting. I don't use a single google product in my day to day life.

              Uh, dude. That's all Apple stuff. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire. I mean, sure you proved you can get off of Google but do you really want to be in Apple stuff instead? Now you've got to change your phone too, and pretty much any other peripherals you have in order to get into their little walled garden.

              • I like it, use what works for you. Apple isn't in the business of selling my data to advertisers and iCloud advanced data protection meets my privacy needs. Many of those iCloud services could be replaced with other non-google services such ask proton for email, cloud storage, calendar, etc.

                The post said if you wanted to avoid google you were off the internet. That is false.

    • Zuckerberg has single-handedly done more to fuck over the world than any other individual in the last 75 years. He regrets nothing .. he knew exactly what he was doing. "They trust me ... fucking idiots"

      Rupert Murdoch would like a word, while Musk is watching angrily from the sidelines plotting his next takeover of the public discourse.

  • by Bob_Who ( 926234 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @09:24PM (#64738134) Journal

    The only way to make the media impartial is to eliminate all forms of paid advertisement as well as any possible influence "off the books".
     
    In other words, I really do not think we can expect any degree of measurable impartiality from any mass media source.
     
    Advertising sucks as much as censorship, This is a hopeless situation for consumers of truth and fairness in all mass media.

    • The media isn't supposed to be impartial. It's supposed to be multifaceted. One of the most important series of publications in U.S. history is the Federalist Papers. The origin of news is rich dudes who want you to know their side of the story.

    • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

      At least back in the era of Walter Cronkite, he actually tried to be impartial. You could tell he knew bias existed but worked hard to keep it bottled up. Nobody even tries now. It all feels like Pravda.

    • by RobinH ( 124750 )
      We can keep doing what we've always done: drag the dirty laundry into the daylight and let the sun disinfect it. It's gruelling work, but it's important and valuable. What we shouldn't do is burn the whole system down because it's imperfect.
  • He deeply regrets (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @09:33PM (#64738152)
    The ad revenue lost when the government pressured them to stop posting lies, conspiracy theories, hate speech, misinformation and disinformation. Moving forward, Meta will be certain to vocally defend it’s right to host ANY content that will make ad revenue, regardless of source. Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, conspiracy theorists and extremists everywhere can now rejoice.

    Don’t. Get. Your. Info. From. Social. Media.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Yes, politicians & pundits seem to get enraged about Russia, China, Iran, & North Korea, trying to manipulate US elections. However, they seem perfectly happy to allow Israel far greater influence & to sponsor deposing elected representatives who the Knesset doesn't like. Haaretz (Israeli newspaper) ran an article about it but it's paywalled: https://www.haaretz.com/us-new... [haaretz.com] Here's an Al Jazeera article from 2022 (before the latest Gaza counterinsurgency campaign started): https://www.aljazeera [aljazeera.com]
    • This is the only decent and mature response thus far. JFC some of you here are dim.
    • "Dear Republican committee that relies on conspiratards for votes, yes, Democrats slowed the flow of disinformation through Meta during the height of the pandemic. Let me testify in a way that helps you so you can take the restraints off me and I can REALLY milk the rubes going forward"

      Dumbass doesn't even realize he'd be under Trump's thumb in a really uncomfortable way. Just another idiot who thinks he'd be the exception to the rule that Trump uses and then discards everyone.

      • Given the success of Truth Social, I'd say it's pretty clear Trump has zero power over someone like Zuckerberg. He can't get people to stop using Zuck's products. Zuck could buy and destroy Trump's empire 10 times over without batting an eye. Trump is impotent.

        • Trump is a fairly obvious and unsophisticated con man, but put him in the POTUS seat and he has a lot of power. He shouts, and an army of sycophants try to do whatever he is screaming that he wants.

          Sure, there are smarter people behind the scenes trying to manipulate him, but that's difficult with someone with Trump's lack of intelligence combined with his aggressive bull-headedness.

          Of course, there's a bootstrap issue - his power comes from appearing powerful, and I think that time is over for him. By al

    • Re:He deeply regrets (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sound+vision ( 884283 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @10:11PM (#64738256) Journal

      When Fox News started to lose viewers to OAN and internet Alex-Jones-alikes, they slid further down the rabbit hole in order to stay competitive, and deliver what the audience was demanding.

      Facebook looks so much less hip than Xitter nowadays, so Zuck has to get up there and pretend to be a freezepeach warrior like Musk. In order to stay competitive.

      The same thing is happening in churches in the US. The ones that aren't politicized are losing members. The congregations are demanding sermons compatible with Q-Anon. If they don't get it, they move church.

      • by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Facebook looks so much less hip than Xitter nowadays

        Does it really though? Last I heard X was hemorrhaging money because advertisers didn't want their ads showing up next to those of far right racist trash. Not sure why Zuck at Facebook would look at that and go "Gee, I'd like to lose ad revenue too".

    • Facebook stopped pushing right wing content. It's actually caused a bit of a crisis among the right wing influencers because nobody organically seeks out their content and they have seen their view counts drop by 90%. Something like Prager U can you use their billionaire cash to buy their way onto YouTube and the following to go with it but outside of those guys and the daily mail that doesn't work. Right wing media tends to have the same problem the atheist media does where they're rehashing the exact same
      • "Why did they change their algorithm?"

        My guess is it's because of people like me who stopped using their service precisely because of the algorithmic degeneration of interaction. Around the time it became clear Russia was using it to do things like setup BLM rallies next to Proud Boys rallies.

        The whole thing just seemed like a cesspool. Like 4chan, but without all the creativity. The algorithm needed to change to stop the bleed.

        Not to say I'd ever go back. Facebook rode a moment of ubiquity that will never

      • Facebook stopped pushing right wing content.

        If you're seeing right-wing content on Facebook, it's because your friends are sharing it. It's also possible if you participate in the dumpster fire that is their discussion forums, but that's also something you have to seek out before Facebook shoves it in your face. I think for the most part both sides have just dialed back on the idea that you can get someone else to change their vote by posting dumb memes.

        Left-wingers, right-wingers, people sitting uncomfortably with a slight lean to either side in t

    • Don’t. Get. Your. Info. From. Social. Media.

      Ironically we'd need to ignore your comment if we were to follow it. Remember, fundamentally social media is just media that is provided by the masses, and fed to you via some means.

      This story exists because Slashdot promoted it. Your comment is highlighted because moderators put it up. Your comment exists because you put it on this social platform and your comment is devoid of any references and is confidentially making a prediction while also being little more than personal opinion. This *IS* social media

      • by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

        Unfortunately, I don't have mod points right now. You're hitting the nail on the head.

        The tragedy of it all is that this extends to science, too. Since we can't all have doctorates in every scientific field, we are absolutely dependent on proper scientific journalism. When that breaks down, and it has often enough to be a major problem, what is a layman to do?

    • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

      The one part you missed was that the government is supposed to have its hands tied. Doing all of what you allege, regardless of how noble you feel it is, is supposed to be prohibited actions performed by the government. See amendment #1. If the government cannot prevent flag burning or cross burning, it cannot actively influence content. It is one thing to say meta had the right as an individual company to censure what it does with its platform. It is entirely another for the government to take ANY role in

  • Repent! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stolidobserver ( 4112531 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @09:42PM (#64738178)

    Is this like that Catholic thing where you profess your sins, and then continue on doing them until the next time you get caught?

  • by Gibgezr ( 2025238 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @10:27PM (#64738296)

    I don't see how " we waited to fact-check" is somehow being considered a BAD thing. Like seriously, WTF?

    • They were waiting for fact checking to remove false information, this leaving the lies up. Sounds bad to me...

      • No, they demoted the stories until their fact-checking was done.
        "The Meta CEO also said the company "shouldn't have demoted" a New York Post story about corruption allegations involving President Biden's family ahead of the 2020 election while waiting for fact-checkers to review it. The social media company has since updated its policies and processes, including no longer demoting content in the U.S. while waiting for fact-checkers, he noted."
        So they did the correct thing, yes?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Because the fact checkers are ideologically captured partisan hacks
  • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2024 @02:11AM (#64738634)

    ... (from posting medical misinformation and conspiracies during a global pandemic)

  • by jgfenix ( 2584513 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2024 @03:36AM (#64738746)
    The only part I don't believe is the "pressure". He was a willing collaborator.
  • Ok, it was wrong, so how do we stop mass hysteria? It seems like it's slowly leading to civil war by alienating people and allowing the spread of extreme, fake views (especially manipulated ones). In the past, this wasn't a problem because talking with people and having friends calmed down our amygdala. How do we solve this problem now, with all the propaganda around - corporate, Russian, Chinese, religious, anti-religious, LGBTQ+, anti-LGBTQ+, flat-earthers? Or maybe we should just rename those platforms
  • What he just said here hurts the Harris campaign. If Trump wins - heaven forbid - he'll remember it.

    But if Harris wins, he'll be lauded for his stance on censorship.

    Either way, Fuckerberg wins. Brilliant move.

  • I guess he contributed equally to both political parties, ignoring the fact that there are more than two political parties in the US. So, in essence, he directly supports the bi-partisan government that we all know and love.
  • by CEC-P ( 10248912 )
    Zuck is betting on both colors on the roulette wheel right before an election. 100% typical CYA behavior when he sees the writing on the walls.
  • by yog ( 19073 ) * on Tuesday August 27, 2024 @05:32PM (#64741426) Homepage Journal
    He can express regret all he wants, now that he and other tech oligarchs were proven wrong. His dropboxes and algorithmic manipulations in 2020 probably helped tip the election toward Biden-Harris, particularly the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Had the laptop not been suppressed, and had the NY Times not published those 50 intel people claiming it had all the markings of a Russian disinformation scheme... perhaps some of the swing states that Biden won by a few thousand votes might have swung in the other direction. Anyway, it's water under the bridge. The question is, have Americans learned anything from the experience? It seems not. Our dependence on massive social media platforms with built-in biases, rather than competing journalists who are (used to be) paid to dig up dirt on all the candidates, seems to have undermined even the dim perception the average people have about fairness and balance. In other words, it's easier than ever to be in one's own bubble and never hear a single competing idea. This does not bode well for freedom and democracy.

God made the integers; all else is the work of Man. -- Kronecker

Working...