This year has seen the world facing an unprecedented threat, one that has humbled humanity and reminded us that nature is a very powerful entity, one that cannot be ignored no matter how much you would like to try to do so. The covid-19 pandemic has resulted in a lot of things becoming a lot more apparent, with one of the most important things being that there is quite a bit of disinformation going around. Social media sites are responsible for a lot of the spread of misinformation that is going around, and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that they are forums that people use to talk to each other and exchange a lot of the ideas that they might have had with regards to how the world tends to work on a regular basis.
Facebook has been criticized for not being proactive enough in its attempts to quell the spread of disinformation and hate speech. While it has taken some steps, Mark Zuckerberg has received criticism for his unwillingness to mark Donald Trump’s posts in order to prevent people from getting wrong information from them. Zuckerberg claims that trying to do something like this would infringe on Donald Trump’s as well as other people’s freedom of speech.
Ex Facebook chief of security Alex Stamos seems to have a different opinion, though. In a recent interview the former Facebook executive praised Twitter’s policy of marking misinformation as such and labeling it so that people would know what they are reading before they read it. According to Stamos, if Zuckerberg had adopted a similar policy for Facebook two months ago, the social media platform wouldn’t be in such dire straits at present. Whether or not this is actually true is a matter of speculation, but the pushback that Zuckerberg has gotten from former and current executives truly is unprecedented.
Featured Image Credit: Win McNamee / Getty Images
Read next: According to an Independent Audit Report, Facebook’s Decisions on Free Speech Were Setbacks for Civil Rights
Facebook has been criticized for not being proactive enough in its attempts to quell the spread of disinformation and hate speech. While it has taken some steps, Mark Zuckerberg has received criticism for his unwillingness to mark Donald Trump’s posts in order to prevent people from getting wrong information from them. Zuckerberg claims that trying to do something like this would infringe on Donald Trump’s as well as other people’s freedom of speech.
Ex Facebook chief of security Alex Stamos seems to have a different opinion, though. In a recent interview the former Facebook executive praised Twitter’s policy of marking misinformation as such and labeling it so that people would know what they are reading before they read it. According to Stamos, if Zuckerberg had adopted a similar policy for Facebook two months ago, the social media platform wouldn’t be in such dire straits at present. Whether or not this is actually true is a matter of speculation, but the pushback that Zuckerberg has gotten from former and current executives truly is unprecedented.
Featured Image Credit: Win McNamee / Getty Images
Read next: According to an Independent Audit Report, Facebook’s Decisions on Free Speech Were Setbacks for Civil Rights
