I hear your point. He should ignore both sides.
So does everyone. But ignoring can go both ways here, and would provide an elegant solution. The right and left can whine at FB, and then it can ignore them instead of whining about them whining about FB. Everybody is ignored and people can be left to sort out what is and isn't true on FB, as informed adult users of the site should be compelled to do.
I do. He should not be regulating anything. He has terms of service that ban certain things (the ludicrous ban on display of female nipples comes to mind). But if he wishes to call himself a platform, he cannot start sifting content for truth and banning what he deems untruthful. That's a journalist's job.
I hear this from the left and right. The right says he is somehow burying conservative content. How, I have no idea. The left says he's allowing Russian bots to flood FB with untrue content about Democratic candidates.
First, if you'll let FB posts inform your voting decisions, I have no time for you. You're an idiot who should be removed from the gene pool. But putting that aside, FB is simply a connective device. You don't punish the bullhorn manufacturer for the ramblings of maniac using it to scream awful things on the street corner.
He does. But you're asking him to play "god of content." What criteria shall he use to determine what's true and what's not? Real, actual media can barely do that effectively. FB is supposed to sift through billions of posts and eliminate that which it deems lies? There's a Flat Earth Society on FB. Should that be banned because it's clearly untrue? How about creationists? What about gold bugs predicting economic collapse?
What about politicians who lie? Shall we ban Warren's FB ads promising student loan forgiveness because we know she can't seriously think she can actually deliver it -- that it's clearly just an empty promise?
The suggestion there are 37 genders which exists on FB is untrue. It's scientifically unserious. Should that be banned? Some doctors think fibromyalgia is a made up disease. Ban that? Aspergers has been removed from the DSM-IV. Remove all references to it?
What about Pluto? Should Zuck decide if it's really a planet?
And more broadly, how should he deal with opinion pieces? Should he establish spheres of deviance that he likes and ban opinions that he deems to be based on sketchy facts or misunderstanding of facts?
Next time there's a murder trial involving clear guilt of an alleged perpetrator, should FB remove all stories offered by defenders of the accused? During the next OJ-like fiasco, should FB side with the overwhelming facts and declare anyone accusing the police of a frame-up to be trafficking in lies? Because if you're going to ban lies, you're going to ban a whole lot of what we call 'advocacy."
TV runs ads filled with lies all the time. If I had to list all of the snake oil pitches one sees on TV, I'd need a room full of servers to hold them all.
It taught me that there are arrogant people in the country with the temerity to say the following:
I think it's unfair that a lousy candidate lost an election because dumb people were manipulated. I think we should put safeguards in place to make sure dumb people cannot be manipulated, and I think my view of what is and isn't worthy of voters' eyes should be used as the measuring stick.
Channeling Hitchens in reply to a ludicrously arrogant critic (and I've seen him do this in the flesh): "To that, sir... Uh, fuck you. Fuck you."
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