Zuckerberg: Facebook is not designed to be addictive

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Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended his social network's effort to tackle online disinformation during the US election period in his Senate hearing. Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey were summoned by the Justice Commission to answer for their actions during the days of the vote. The two social networks are accused by the Republicans of being biased against the Conservatives and by the Democrats of not doing enough to fight online hatred and hoaxes.

Zuckerberg said, we have taken seriously our responsibility to protect the integrity of this election

We do not create addiction

The Facebook CEO, on the other hand, did not directly answer the question of the president of the Senate Justice Commission, Lindsey Graham, who asked him if he was not worried about the addiction that the social network, according to numerous medical studies creates in numerous users.

We don't want our product to be addictive but we want it to be useful and meaningful, said Zuckerberg, who called the conclusions of the medical studies cited by Graham, who compared social networks to tobacco non-definitive. At first we thought it was useful and we also provided it to our troops but then science changed our minds, Graham said.

Bannon and the Blacklist

With Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, who asked him if he could commit to banning Steve Bannon, a former strategist of Donald Trump, Zuckerberg was elusive. Bannon had published a post calling for the beheading of White House virologist Anthony Fauci and FBI director Christopher Wray. Facebook had removed the content but had not banned Bannon.

Zuckerberg explained, we didn't do it because it takes several violations to be banned, automatic profile exclusion is triggered for content on terrorism or child exploitation. In the case of Bannon, however, Facebook's policies did not provide for an immediate ban, the manager added.

Zuckerberg responded negatively to Senator Josh Hawley who asked him to reveal the black list of subjects, hashtags, content and websites kept by the moderators of the social network. We will update, it would be better to discuss it first with my team, Zuckerberg replied to the senator, who replied that Congress could obtain this information through a legal process but is offering him the opportunity to do so voluntarily. Hawley called Zuckerberg's response completely unacceptable and completely predictable accusing him of previously denying the existence of such a list. The Facebook founder then denied coordinating content moderation policies with Google, Twitter and other large digital companies. Hawley then asked if a log is kept of every time a Facebook employee accesses the communication or personal data of users. Zuckerberg said he did not know but believed not. Hawley then asked if a log is kept of every time a Facebook employee accesses the communication or personal data of users. Zuckerberg said he did not know but believed not.

More to the left than to the right

The Facebook founder later admitted that most of the company's employees are somehow left, maybe more than somehow" Zuckerberg was answering a question from Republican Senator Ben Sasse who accused Facebook of being biased against conservatives and argued that having conservative views is a stigma in the Silicon Valley industry. Zuckerberg replied that Facebook's goal is to be a platform for all ideas and that it is precisely the prevalence of an ideological alignment among its employees that ensures that particular care is taken to avoid prejudice" in the moderation of contents. And yet, he added,

Agree with Twitter CEO Jack Dorseyalso heard by the Commission, Zuckerberg then argued that social platforms must collaborate with political authorities to reform Section 230, which relieves them of responsibility for shared content. But the rule should not be canceled, as US President Donald Trump had asked as this would seriously damage freedom of expression.

Without Section 230, platforms could potentially be held accountable for everything people say, Zuckerberg noted platforms would censor much more content to avoid legal risk and would be far less likely to invest in technologies that allow people to express themselves. in new ways. Second, the Facebook founder said again the norm.