
Mark Zuckerberg: “People Should Decide What Is Credible, Not Tech Companies” - zachguo
https://deadline.com/2019/10/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-elizabeth-warren-joe-biden-political-ads-1202762675
======
michannne
This is how it _should_ work, and has worked for decades, centuries even.
Unfortunately more and more companies (with an emphasis on those based in
Silicon Valley) feel the need to coddle users, as if they're too stupid to
decide for themselves what information to believe, or even breaking down
matters of opinion into the "right" opinion and the "wrong" opinion.

Make a fact checking company. Let the burden of attracting users fall on that
company alone. Let them compete for ad space among users. Push the
responsibility of providing an accurate and unbiased service onto them. Let
them fail and go bankrupt if no one wants to use those services

In short, stop hiding behind the veil of keeping people "informed". People are
as informed as they want to be, and if you truly feel people desire to know
facts versus lies, make a company and compete in the free market like everyone
else who has an idea to sell.

------
eveFromKarmaFm
I think the problem here is ideological equality being corrupted by economic
inequality.

The problem is no different from the issue we see in mainstream media. When
our information flow is dominated by for-profit institutions, the information
is biased towards profitable agendas. See: Tesla coverage bias, Cambridge
Analytica, political debates favoring incendiary soundbytes because
intellectual discourse isn't profitable, etc.

In Mark's shoes, I'd publicly acknowledge the importance of democratic
information flow, ideological equality, etc and implement restrictions on the
reach of any individual organization (or even ideology). I don't care if you
have $1B to spend; you can only ever push your agenda to 1% of our audience at
the same time. It's the ideological equivalent of an income cap.

But of course, Facebook, Inc. is incentivized to reframe the issue of
"avoiding responsibility" in terms of "avoiding censorship" because avoiding
responsibility is more profitable. Why not compare what they're doing to an
oppressive dictatorship to really drive the angelic behavior home, while we're
at it.

How is it possible to uphold freedom of speech when you allow someone to
purchase my effective silence?

Obviously this would be challenging ~ how do you categorize ideology? ~ but I
think at least starting to think about ideological equality in digital spaces
is a worthy target of our cognitive and economic investment.

------
chickenpotpie
I'm really torn on this issue. On one hand does Facebook have to double check
every ad that comes through and make sure that it is factually accurate? On
the other hand, Facebook is incredibly influential platform and I don't want
anyone buying this election by giving Facebook money to spread blatant lies. I
know we like to pretend that we are all rational machines that can take the
time and do the research and be skeptical, but no one is ever that machine all
that time. If you buy enough ads and say enough lies people will fall for
them.

