Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg said the social media giant is taking steps to reduce the amount of political content on its platforms and news feeds to channel users into “healthier communities”.
“What we are hearing is that people do not want politics and struggle to control their experience in our service,” he said, clearly worn out by recent events. The commitment was vague. “We are still working on the best way to do this,” he acknowledged on Wednesday in a long conference call to discuss quarterly earnings. “We are still going to allow people to get involved in political groups and discussions, if they want,” he said.
The move follows a tumultuous electoral process distorted by misinformation, defined by growing extremism and culminating in a deadly siege of the United States Capitol. Zuckerberg did not mention (nor, incredibly, any analyst on the call asked) former President Donald Trump’s indefinite ban from the site for inciting violence and whether or when he could be allowed to return. That appears to be the decision of an unusual supervisory board of 40 individuals worldwide in charge of such decisions (and first reported by the New York Times earlier this week).
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Zuckerberg insisted that only a small minority of the platform’s content is political and the vast majority of users would like it to remain so. “There has been a frenzy in the whole society where many things have become political and politics is infiltrating everything. And we saw that people don’t want that. They come to connect with friends and family … We can potentially do a better job … ”
The change will not affect Facebook’s financial results, Wall Street executives said, calling political advertising just a “low-digit” revenue generator, even in an active political season.
Facebook posted a strong 2020 number in the fourth quarter, but noted headwinds this year, which include an antitrust suit by the FTC and most states and threats to repeal Section 230, which grants the Internet broad legal immunity and freedom to moderate content.
Zuckerberg declined to comment on the FTC, but said: “Regarding regulation in general, the point I would like to highlight is that it would be very useful for us and the Internet sector to have clearer rules and expectations around some of these issues social, around how content should be treated, elections should be treated, what privacy standards the government wants to see in effect. Because all of these questions have their payoffs. “
Freedom of expression, security, privacy and social equality “are all very important and it is difficult for a private company to balance them. It would be better to have a clear orientation and clear rules for the Internet. So, this is something that I will continue to defend ”.
He reiterated that he thinks Congress should in fact update Section 230, which is more than two decades old, “to make sure it works the way people intended.” The rule helped the nascent Internet to grow and prosper, “so any change must be thought out very carefully.”
The second theme of the call was the bad Apple, which Zuckerberg criticized for new policies that will restrict targeted advertising, which helped increase revenue for Facebook and other companies. (Apple released its quarterly results, which were excellent, after the market closed today.)
Zuckerberg accused the company led by Tim Cook of covering up a highly competitive and socially conscious movement. Separately, he noted several times how Apple makes it difficult to compete in messaging, as the iMessage application comes pre-installed on iPhones.
“I really think this is setting up as …” Zuckerberg started to sum up Apple’s situation – before the conference call link went down briefly and he missed the train.
Happiest note, VR. Facebook, a leader in the field through Oculus, is building “a continuous ecosystem for immersive space computing,” he said, clearly delighted with the technology. “Some of the things that we will be able to build with VR and AR are some of the types of experiences that I have wanted to build on since I was a child.”