Mark Zuckerberg Rejects Donald Trump’s Comments that Facebook Has Always Been Against Him
Mark Zuckerberg has rejected President Donald Trump’s comments that Facebook has always been against him.
President Trump accused Facebook of “collusion” on Twitter, branding it “anti-Trump”.
He made the same claim against the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Facebook will shortly hand over 3,000 political adverts to congressional investigators probing alleged Russian meddling in the US election.
The social network believes the ads were probably purchased by Russian entities during and after the 2016 presidential contest.
Facebook, Twitter and Google have been asked to testify before the US Senate Intelligence Committee on November 1 about the allegations of Russian interference.
Google and Facebook have confirmed they have received invitations to attend the committee hearing, but none of the social media giants have yet said they will be present.
Image source Wikimedia
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In a Facebook post responding to President Trump’s criticism, the social network’s founder Mark Zuckerberg said he was striving to make “a platform for all ideas”. He said that aside from “problematic ads”, Facebook’s impact ranged from “giving people a voice, to enabling candidates to communicate directly, to helping millions of people vote”.
Mark Zuckerberg noted that both ends of the political spectrum were upset about content they disliked, and that liberals in the US had accused him of enabling President Trump’s victory.
The 33-year-old said the candidates’ campaigns had “spent hundreds of millions advertising online,” which he called “1000x more than any problematic ads we’ve found”.
Mark Zuckerberg said he regretted saying on the day Donald Trump was elected that it was “crazy” to say that misinformation on Facebook changed the election’s outcome, because it sounded dismissive.
He promised Facebook would “continue to build a community for all people” – and to “defend against nation states attempting to spread misinformation and subvert elections”.
Mark Zuckerberg’s response attracted 65,000 “likes” within two hours of being posted.
Russia has long denied any form of interference in the US election, and President Trump has railed against allegations that his staff had improper links to Russia.
However, US intelligence agencies have concluded Russia tried to sway the vote in favor of Donald Trump. Congressional committees and an FBI inquiry are currently probing the matter.