By Ryan Tracy
WASHINGTON -- Mark Zuckerberg has spent the past two years
apologizing to a chorus of critics for misinformation, privacy
violations and more. On Thursday, the Facebook Inc. chief executive
took the offensive, asserting a commitment to free expression as
consistent with American values.
In a rare policy speech that will likely stir further debate
over his company's role in politics and global social movements,
Mr. Zuckerberg said he worries that "increasingly today across the
spectrum, it seems like there are more people who prioritize
getting the political outcomes that they want over making sure that
everyone can be heard."
"I am here today because I believe we must continue to stand for
free expression," he said in a talk at Georgetown University that
cast Facebook as being in line with a tradition spanning the First
Amendment and the civil-rights movement.
Mr. Zuckerberg's speech on Thursday took place amid a brewing
disagreements about whether Facebook should make judgments over
whether political ads contain falsehoods, and days before the
executive will appear on Capitol Hill to face lawmakers.
His comments will likely inflame critics, mostly from the left,
who have argued the company should do more to prevent the spread of
misinformation as the 2020 presidential campaign roars into top
gear. At the same time, his speech was unlikely to fully satisfy
critics on the right, who complain frequently about what they view
as big-tech censorship.
While Mr. Zuckerberg has consistently cast himself as a defender
of free expression, Facebook has spent much of the last two years
trying to remediate public concerns about misinformation, hate
speech and safety issues on its platform. Thursday's speech
highlighted that the 35-year-old executive is worried about taking
that too far.
The event gave Mr. Zuckerberg a chance to address policy makers
on his terms, a contrast to congressional hearings where lawmakers
control the dialogue. He said ahead of the speech that he wanted to
communicate "an unfiltered take" on how he views questions around
free expression on Facebook.
The speech is also a part of Facebook's stepped-up effort to
court allies in Washington -- a campaign that has included Mr.
Zuckberberg meeting privately with President Donald Trump,
lawmakers in both parties and conservative commentators such as Fox
News host Tucker Carlson.
Facebook's standing in Washington has deteriorated since the
2016 election, with both parties criticizing the company for being
a vehicle for disinformation and for repeatedly breaking its own
promises to protect users' privacy.
This year, that political angst has hit the company's bottom
line. Facebook agreed to pay a $5 billion fine for privacy
violations in July, and its efforts to launch a new
cryptocurrency-based payments network are in doubt due to criticism
from policy makers. Most ominously, U.S. antitrust authorities, as
well as state attorneys general, are investigating whether the
company should face antitrust sanctions for abusing its market
power.
He acknowledged concerns about the company's power but he
positioned social media's rise as a positive, calling it a "Fifth
Estate."
"I actually believe the much bigger story is how much these
platforms have decentralized power by putting it directly into
people's hands," he added.
Facebook's power, along with that of other technology giants,
has been a recurring topic in the Democratic presidential debates
and on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers worry the company may be stifling
competition and misusing Americans' personal data. They also have
criticized Facebook's policing of content, but generally from
different perspectives: Republicans say the company censors
conservatives, while Democrats say the company allows right-wing
groups to promote falsehoods.
"It would be hard to be biased against both sides," Mr.
Zuckerberg cracked in a question and answer session with Georgetown
students.
In response to rising regulatory threats, Mr. Zuckerberg has
taken a much higher-profile role in Washington in recent months. He
told his top lieutenants in a June meeting that he planned to lead
the company more decisively during this critical phase.
This week he has been meeting more lawmakers, including the top
Democrat and Republican on the House Financial Services Committee,
where he is set to testify next week. By contrast, the company's
most visible face for the past few years, operating chief Sheryl
Sandberg, who has closer ties to Democrats, has had a lower profile
in the nation's capital.
Outreach to Republicans isn't without risk. After his speech,
Mr. Zuckerberg was set to tape an interview on Fox News. Media
Matters, a nonprofit group critical of that network, on Thursday
cited the interview and Mr. Zuckerberg's meeting with Mr. Carlson
as evidence of "Facebook's CEO acting like a fully indoctrinated
conservative puppet."
Silicon Valley peer Marc Benioff, the co-founder of
Salesforce.com Inc., tweeted at Mr. Zuckerberg on Wednesday that
Facebook "needs to be held accountable for the propaganda on its
platform."
Democratic presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Joe
Biden have also criticized the company for its policy not to take
down political ads, even when those ads contain false statements.
Ms. Warren has called for breaking up the company, which also owns
Instagram and WhatsApp. After the speech Thursday, Mr. Biden's
campaign said that Zuckerberg "attempted to use the Constitution as
a shield for his company's bottom line."
On Thursday, Mr. Zuckerberg said technology companies shouldn't
censor politicians in a democracy.
"I don't think most people want to live in a world where you can
only post things that tech companies believe to be 100% true," he
said. "We think people should be able to see for themselves what
politicians are saying."
Mr. Zuckerberg's speech evoked political themes. He mentioned
"Air Force moms," church groups and small businesses that use the
company's products. He touted Facebook's creation of an oversight
board to weigh in on decisions about appropriate content.
He also emphasized Facebook's American roots, pointing out the
company remains blocked in China because it hasn't been willing to
concede to regulations there: "If another nation's platform set the
rules, our discourse could be defined by a completely different set
of values," he said.
He held out hope that if platforms and policy makers can solve
some of the specific regulatory challenges, such as content
regulation, privacy and data portability, that would quiet talk of
breaking up the big tech companies. "If that happens then I
basically don't think that people will end up concluding that
breaking up the companies is the right thing to do," he said.
--John McKinnon contributed to this article.
Write to Ryan Tracy at ryan.tracy@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 17, 2019 18:04 ET (22:04 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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