The truth is nowhere to be found, but it is especially hard to find on social media. Mark Zuckerberg, head of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, wants to make it even harder.
He sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee complaining about the “pressure” the Biden administration was exerting to censor posts that deal with conspiracy theories and outright lies about COVID and vaccines in general. He says Meta will take a tougher approach to this in the future.
Well, what exactly does Zuckerberg want to reject?
Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
Social media has always been about getting ourselves and our ideas out there to friends, family, and—if you’re lucky or the algorithms catch you—the world. But it’s not about providing the world with accurate information.
At its most benign, we censor ourselves. Why would we tell others that we lost a $5 bet? Or that you ran out of cat food and had to go back to the store in your pajamas?
In the most malicious cases, individuals or groups post false information that can harm or even kill others, such as jokingly discouraging people from getting vaccinated to protect themselves from a deadly disease.
Your publisher – Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, X, YouTube, TikTok – has a duty to act responsibly and do everything possible to prevent the spread of such misinformation, just like any other newsroom. And if they don’t, they expose themselves to criminal and civil penalties.
It’s fair to say that all of these things fail all the time. Things that shouldn’t be out there aren’t just out there, they’re shared and the excitement about them grows and grows and grows.
If publishers (they say platforms) cannot police themselves and rely on the public to help them by reporting bad things, what is the problem with a government agency complaining just as any individual can?
For example, if you object to a post on Facebook, Facebook moderators will investigate and decide whether the content in question violates the company’s terms of service. The posts in question will then either be deleted – or not.
A government agency responsible for public health and welfare should surely have the same freedom to report things as a grumpy person who thinks your new swimsuit is too revealing.
Nobody says the government orders posts to be taken down. The government finds those posts and reports them to Facebook. Even the Supreme Court says that’s OK.
In political matters, it is not so simple. Even lying about a candidate is usually free speech, and many people confuse opinion with truth in a bad case.
Zuckerberg mentions stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop being downgraded on Facebook after the FBI called and claimed the Russians were planting misinformation on the site and elsewhere. No one is claiming that Facebook was asked (let alone instructed) to “temporarily downgrade” the stories about the laptop. If Zuckerberg regrets that, that’s his fault.
So let’s see if we have understood all this correctly:
The head of one of the largest technology companies has sent a letter to Congress complaining about his own company’s behavior during the COVID epidemic when asked by the government to clarify the facts.
Have government officials always done everything right with COVID? No. Have they tried to save lives as best they could? If you disagree, please stop reading right here and contact your nearest cult deprogrammer immediately for help.
There is little doubt that the committee will be understanding. After all, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), who chairs the committee, is no fan of vaccinations – or the Biden administration.
And that’s really what it’s about. Facebook is the messenger of the message, even if Jordan and others claim that’s the message. When former President Donald Trump becomes President Donald Trump again, it will certainly become standard practice to give Facebook a little substantive advice.
But whatever party is in power in the government, the government can ask – not tell. Facebook can say yes or no. Everything else is a purely internal matter for Mark Zuckerberg and the conscientious people of Silicon Valley and has nothing to do with the First Amendment.
It’s odd that the tech bros have so much influence over the life, death, and future of the American people through their control of information (how many children have died because of Internet fads?). It’s fair that the government gets a chance to get the truth out there.
And who knows what the outcome of all this will be? The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects freedom of speech and even lies. What it doesn’t do, however, is protect us from the consequences of speaking them.
Jason Fields is deputy opinion editor at Newsweek.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author.
