The hard part is who is deciding what is true and what is not. It’s important to verify authenticity of the message (who the message claims to come from is actually who it’s coming from), but deciding what to disallow based on truthiness is a lot more problematic.
I can't read that, but nothing Facebook/Zuckerberg has done feels aligned with any principled standing that I agree with.
From a slightly different direction.. for instance: banning any content that contravenes the WHO's official recommendations for pandemic response definitely feels too narrow, esp given that the WHO might reverse course or admit they weren't optimal. I completely disagree with Trump's defunding of support for the WHO, I don't agree with everything the WHO says, but I also can't see how conferring 100% content authority to that body is aligned with democratic free speech. That position is also consistent with the idea of banning any content that isn't aligned with, say, this American administration's positions.
That was a link to Zuckerberg's speech at Georgetown in October 2019, which was basically his defense of not fact-checking politicians on the site. Quoting the Zuck:
"We don’t fact-check political ads. We don’t do this to help politicians, but because we think people should be able to see for themselves what politicians are saying. And if content is newsworthy, we also won’t take it down even if it would otherwise conflict with many of our standards. I know many people disagree, but in general, I don't think it's right for a private company to censor politicians or the news in a democracy."
Ben Thompson of Stratechery quoted the same bit I just did, and wrote, "I couldn't agree more. The only hangup is the person who was saying it. [...] The very structure of [Facebook] is antithetical to what is necessary for free expression to flourish; I believe that Zuckerberg is well-intentioned, but that doesn’t change the fact he is completely unaccountable."
"We don’t fact-check political ads. We don’t do this to help politicians, but because we think people should be able to see for themselves what politicians are saying..."
This is such a cop out. Many (I'd even venture on most) political ads on Facebook don't represent what politicians say.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/17/zuckerb...
The hard part is who is deciding what is true and what is not. It’s important to verify authenticity of the message (who the message claims to come from is actually who it’s coming from), but deciding what to disallow based on truthiness is a lot more problematic.