Mark Zuckerberg on lies in political ads: ‘I don’t think it’s right for a private company to censor politicians’
Mark Zuckerberg defended Facebook’s policy of letting politicians lie in political ads — along with free speech more broadly — in a speech today at Georgetown University. “I don’t think it’s right for a private company to censor politicians” he said.
Zuckerberg’s speech, which amounted to a rallying cry for the First Amendment during a time when speech rights are under siege globally, acknowledged the fact that Facebook profits off misinformation — but said that’s not why the company decided to allow inaccurate ads to remain on the platform:
Given the sensitivity around political ads, I’ve considered whether we should stop allowing them altogether. From a business perspective, the controversy certainly isn’t worth the small part of our...