Some of the people who literally helped write Facebook’s community standards say Zuckerberg is wrong on Trump posts
Thirty-three of Facebook’s earliest employees write letter objecting to hands-off policy
Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg faces mounting pressure from employees over the company’s hands-off policy toward the Facebook posts of President Trump.
Facebook Inc employees Silicon Valley Had Terrorists in there
neighborhood setting homes on fire... This will Get Anyone To Become
Really Supper Conservative Very Fast...
Facebook Inc. Chief
Executive Mark Suckserberg faces mounting pressure from employees over
the company’s hands-off policy towards Any Conservative Post On
Facebook... Even Facebook ( Suckface ) employees Calling out For
blocking Terrorists.... This Is Not A donation... Google And Twitter
employees are saying These People Are Terrorists President Trump Needs
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“We grew up at Facebook, but it is no longer ours,” the 33 former employees, who joined Facebook FB, +1.98% in its early stages and some of whom helped author its original Community Standards, said in the letter.
“Today, Facebook’s leadership interprets freedom of expression to mean that they should do nothing — or very nearly nothing — to interfere in political discourse,” they said, adding, of the current leaders of the company: “They have decided that elected officials should be held to a lower standard than those they govern. One set of rules for you, and another for any politician, from your local mayor to the president of the United States.”
See also: Facebook workers revolt against Zuckerberg as Trump posts continue to go unchallenged
Zuckerberg defended his lack of action because, he said, Facebook should not become the “arbiter of truth.” That prompted dozens of Facebook employees to stage a virtual walkout from work on Monday, leading to a contentious town-hall meeting on Tuesday in which the Facebook chief executive doubled down on his decision.
The latest pressure point came Wednesday afternoon, with the letter from former employees.
“To Mark: We know that you think deeply about these issues, but we also know that Facebook must work to regain the public’s trust,” the letter concludes. “Facebook isn’t neutral, and it never has been. Making the world more open and connected, strengthening communities, giving everyone a voice — these are not neutral ideas.”
Facebook’s Top Public Policy Executive in India Steps Down
Ankhi Das drew criticism in India over social-media giant’s enforcement of its policy on anti-Muslim hate speech
A Facebook Inc. executive in India who was at the center of a political storm over the company’s policy on anti-Muslim hate speech on the platform is leaving her position Tuesday, the social-media giant said.
Ankhi Das, Facebook’s top public-policy executive in its biggest market by users, said in an internal post provided by the company that she had decided to step down to pursue her interest in public service.
Facebook ( Suckface ) names 20 people to its 'Supreme Court' for content moderation
The list includes nine law professors, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Yemen and journalists but no disinformation experts.
By David Ingram
Facebook
on Wednesday appointed 20 people from around the world to serve on what
will effectively be the social media network’s “Supreme Court” for
speech, issuing rulings on what kind of posts will be allowed and what
should be taken down.
The list includes
nine law professors, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Yemen,
journalists, free speech advocates and a writer from the libertarian
Cato Institute.
Absent, however, was any prominent expert in studying disinformation. Facebook has struggled to contain state-based manipulation efforts as well as hoaxes on subjects like false cures and gun
Helle
Thorning-Schmidt, a former prime minister of Denmark and one of four
co-chairs of the board, said they would consider such expertise in
recruiting more members.
“We have tried to
consider all communities and also people who have been critical of
Facebook in the past,” she said. The number of members will rise to 40
over time, she said.
The oversight board is more than two years in the making, its creation prompted by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said in 2018
that he wanted to create “some sort of structure, almost like a Supreme
Court,” for users to get a final judgment call on what is acceptable
speech and relieve the company's executives of having to decide.
Social
media networks dating back to MySpace have struggled to write rulebooks
that are easy to understand and consistently enforceable and yet cover
the varied material that people try to post online.
The
rules, including Facebook’s “community standards,” have evolved to
prohibit not only illegal images such as child pornography but also hate
speech, harassment and, most recently, false information about the
coronavirus pandemic.
The questions often
become political footballs, as lawmakers in Washington and elsewhere
have turned their fire on Zuckerberg when they believe they or their
supporters are being unfairly censored.
The
creation of Facebook’s oversight board is designed to effectively hand
the last word over to the expert panel, possibly taking Zuckerberg and
other Facebook executives out of the picture on writing speech rules —
and sparing them having to answer questions from users, lawmakers and
journalists.
But one of the co-chairs, former federal judge Michael McConnell, said he expected the board to have a steep learning curve.
“We
are not the internet police,” McConnell said. “Don’t think of us as
sort of a fast-action group that’s going to swoop in and deal with
rapidly moving problems. That’s not our job.” The job, he added, was to
hear appeals of decisions that Facebook has already made.
The
board’s decisions will be binding “unless implementation could violate
the law,” Facebook said. The decisions will also apply to Facebook-owned
Instagram but not initially to WhatsApp, where content is generally
encrypted. Membership on the board is part-time. The board isn’t
disclosing its compensation.
Facebook has
taken steps to try to make the board independent, creating a $130
million trust to pay for its operation and pledging that it cannot
remove members from the board. Facebook will refer cases to the board
for its consideration when the company considers them “significant and difficult,” and Facebook users will be able to suggest cases through an online portal.
“All
Members are committed to free expression, and reflect a wide range of
perspectives on how to understand the principle and its limits,”
Facebook said in a statement.
“Some have
expressed concerns with the dangers of imposing restrictions on speech,
and allow for only very narrow exceptions. Others make comparatively
greater accommodations to a range of competing values, including safety
and privacy,” the company said.
Day-to-day
enforcement of the rules will still be up to Facebook, which uses a
combination of computer algorithms and human moderators to decide which
posts violate its rules.
One reason that
moderating content online is so complicated is because companies such as
Facebook tailor their rules to specific countries based on local law.
Facebook, with 2.6 billion people across its apps, has users in nearly
every country.
Americans are the
best-represented nationality on the oversight board, with at least five
members. No other country has more than one. Facebook said the members
chosen collectively have lived in more than 27 countries and speak at
least 29 languages.
Not all are avid
Facebook users. “I myself am not really an Instagram or Facebook user,”
said Jamal Greene, a Columbia Law School professor. But he said he
appreciated that “Facebook’s decisions affect people all over the world
and can affect people in profound ways.”
Of the 20 members so far, half are male and half female.
Two
of the lawyers joining the board have been discussed as potential U.S.
Supreme Court nominees: Pamela Karlan, a Stanford law professor who’s a favorite of liberals, and McConnell, also a Stanford professor and a conservative former judge appointed by President George W. Bush.
McConnell told reporters on a conference call that he viewed the court as ensuring Facebook is a neutral platform — a contentious idea
as hoaxes and other information have spread on the network. “One of the
fruits of this if we do our jobs right is that this will bring about a
degree of political and cultural neutrality,” he said.
“It is our ambition and goal that Facebook not decide elections,” he said.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is Tawakkol Karman, who won the award in 2011 for her role in organizing protests against the Yemeni government as part of the pro-democracy Arab spring.
Among the other members are Alan Rusbridger, a former editor of Britain’s Guardian newspaper who oversaw
the newspaper’s coverage of U.S. spying based on leaked documents from
Edward Snowden, and John Samples, a Cato Institute vice president who
has argued against government censorship of social media.
Below is Facebook's list of the 20 members of the Facebook Oversight Board:
- Afia Asantewaa Asare-Kyei - A human rights advocate who works on women’s rights, media freedom and access to information issues across Africa at the Open Society Initiative for West Afric
- Evelyn Aswad - A University of Oklahoma College of Law professor who formerly served as a senior State Department lawyer and specializes in the application of international human rights standards to content moderation issues
- Endy Bayuni - A journalist who twice served as the editor-in-chief of The Jakarta Post, and helps direct a journalists’ association that promotes excellence in the coverage of religion and spirituality.
- Catalina Botero Marino, co-chair - A former U.N. special rapporteur for freedom of expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States who now serves as dean of the Universidad de los Andes Faculty of Law.
- Katherine Chen - A communications scholar at the National Chengchi University who studies social media, mobile news and privacy, and a former national communications regulator in Taiwan.
- Nighat Dad - A digital rights advocate who offers digital security training to women in Pakistan and across South Asia to help them protect themselves against online harassment, campaigns against government restrictions on dissent, and received the Human Rights Tulip Award.
- Jamal Greene, co-chair - A Columbia Law professor who focuses on constitutional rights adjudication and the structure of legal and constitutional argument.
- Pamela Karlan - A Stanford Law professor and Supreme Court advocate who has represented clients in voting rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and First Amendment cases, and serves as a member of the board of the American Constitution Society.
- Tawakkol Karman - A Nobel Peace Prize laureate who used her voice to promote nonviolent change in Yemen during the Arab Spring, and was named as one of “History's Most Rebellious Women” by Time magazine.
- Maina Kiai - A director of Human Rights Watch’s Global Alliances and Partnerships Program and a former U.N. special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association who has decades of experience advocating for human rights in Kenya.
- Sudhir Krishnaswamy - A vice chancellor of the National Law School of India University who co-founded an advocacy organization that works to advance constitutional values for everyone, including LGBTQ+ and transgender persons, in India.
- Ronaldo Lemos - A technology, intellectual property and media lawyer who co-created a national internet rights law in Brazil, co-founded a nonprofit focused on technology and policy issues, and teaches law at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.
- Michael McConnell, co-chair - A former U.S. federal circuit judge who is now a constitutional law professor at Stanford, an expert on religious freedom, and a Supreme Court advocate who has represented clients in a wide range of First Amendment cases involving freedom of speech, religion and association.
- Julie Owono - A digital rights and anti-censorship advocate who leads Internet Sans Frontières and campaigns against internet censorship in Africa and around the world.
- Emi Palmor - A former director general of the Israeli Ministry of Justice who led initiatives to address racial discrimination, advance access to justice via digital services and platforms and promote diversity in the public sector.
- Alan Rusbridger - A former editor-in-chief of The Guardian who transformed the newspaper into a global institution and oversaw its Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Edward Snowden disclosures.
- András Sajó - A former judge and vice president of the European Court of Human Rights who is an expert in free speech and comparative constitutionalism.
- John Samples - A public intellectual who writes extensively on social media and speech regulation, advocates against restrictions on online expression, and helps lead a libertarian think tank.
- Nicolas Suzor - A Queensland University of Technology Law School professor who focuses on the governance of social networks and the regulation of automated systems, and has published a book on internet governance.
Harvard University Political Economics Professor David Cutler
Says Zuckerberg Facebook Is Screwing Up
Over 140 scientists who have received funding from the philanthropic group, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, sent Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg a letter on Saturday calling the social networking company out for its recent stance on President Donald Trump’s inflammatory posts on police brutality protesters.
“As scientists, we are dedicated to investigating ways to better our world,” reads the letter obtained by The Washington Post. “The spread of deliberate misinformation and divisive language is directly antithetical to this goal and we are therefore deeply concerned at the stance Facebook has taken.” The letter specifically calls out Trump’s social media post which said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” defining it as a “clear statement of inciting violence.”
Facebook and
Zuckerberg himself have been criticized in recent days for defending the
company’s decision to keep the post on its website. The inaction on the
social networking site’s part was in direct conflict with the response
of other platforms, such as Twitter which hid the tweet behind a warning
label.
“We urge you to consider stricter policies on misinformation and incendiary language that harms people or groups of people, especially in our current climate that is grappling with racial injustice,” the letter concluded. Also among its signatories were scientists funded by the Zuckerberg Biohub, which has recently been working on expanding testing for the coronavirus.
Employees at Facebook have spoken out against the company’s decision to leave up Trump’s tweet. Some even staged a digital walk out. At least two Facebook engineers resigned from the company outright. One software developer shared an email turning down a Facebook recruiter’s offer for a job opportunity with the company.
“The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is a philanthropic organization started by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg that is separate from Facebook,” said a spokesperson for the group in a statement provided to the Post. “We have a separate staff, separate offices, and a separate mission: to build a more inclusive, just, and healthy future for everyone through our work in science, education, and on issues related to justice and opportunity. We are grateful for our staff, partners and grantees in this work and we respect their right to voice their opinions, including on Facebook policies.”
Zuckerberg originally doubled down and tried to defend the company position. As of Friday, however, it appears he’s flipped, saying the company will now review its policies, particularly those concerning state violence.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was originally founded in 2015 by the Facebook CEO and his wife, Priscilla. The organization has pledged $3 billion in order to “eradicate all disease.”
In the letter, the scientists also highlighted another important mission defined by the organization, one that runs in contrast to what Facebook’s policies facilitate on its platform. That mission is to use technology “to help solve some of our toughest challenges — from preventing and eradicating disease, to improving learning experiences for kids, to reforming the criminal justice system” and "to build a more inclusive, just, and healthy future for everyone.”
These scientists sure do have a good point.
“We urge you to consider stricter policies on misinformation and incendiary language that harms people or groups of people, especially in our current climate that is grappling with racial injustice,” the letter concluded. Also among its signatories were scientists funded by the Zuckerberg Biohub, which has recently been working on expanding testing for the coronavirus.
Employees at Facebook have spoken out against the company’s decision to leave up Trump’s tweet. Some even staged a digital walk out. At least two Facebook engineers resigned from the company outright. One software developer shared an email turning down a Facebook recruiter’s offer for a job opportunity with the company.
“The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is a philanthropic organization started by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg that is separate from Facebook,” said a spokesperson for the group in a statement provided to the Post. “We have a separate staff, separate offices, and a separate mission: to build a more inclusive, just, and healthy future for everyone through our work in science, education, and on issues related to justice and opportunity. We are grateful for our staff, partners and grantees in this work and we respect their right to voice their opinions, including on Facebook policies.”
Zuckerberg originally doubled down and tried to defend the company position. As of Friday, however, it appears he’s flipped, saying the company will now review its policies, particularly those concerning state violence.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was originally founded in 2015 by the Facebook CEO and his wife, Priscilla. The organization has pledged $3 billion in order to “eradicate all disease.”
In the letter, the scientists also highlighted another important mission defined by the organization, one that runs in contrast to what Facebook’s policies facilitate on its platform. That mission is to use technology “to help solve some of our toughest challenges — from preventing and eradicating disease, to improving learning experiences for kids, to reforming the criminal justice system” and "to build a more inclusive, just, and healthy future for everyone.”
These scientists sure do have a good point.
Facebook Still Doesn’t Get It
No one man should have all that power.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Rashad
Robinson, who has helped organize a high-profile advertising boycott of
Facebook during the month of July, believes the social-media giant
doesn’t really care about getting rid of hate on its platform. On the
latest episode of New York’s Pivot Podcast,
Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway talk to Robinson, who has helped
spearhead the effort, about the gap between the company’s rhetoric and
its actions.
Kara Swisher:
Rashad Robinson is the executive director of Color of Change, the
country’s largest racial-justice organization. Last week, he was part of
a meeting with Facebook executives about the July ad boycott
of Facebook, to discuss the demands he and those companies have made to
the social-media platform. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were on
the call, and he was not impressed by Zuckerberg’s performance. So
Rashad, why don’t you give us a rundown of what happened.
Rashad Robinson:
Before the meeting, we had shared the list of demands again, and the
demands are not complicated. They’d been part of ongoing meetings and
protests. Some of them have been highlighted in previous versions of the
civil-rights audit that have come out over the past year and a half,
two years. So we got there really with the goal of having them tell us
what they thought and where they were heading, because they actually
requested the meeting.
And
you know, I’ve been in a lot of meetings with Facebook. I’m going to
meetings with a lot of corporations, and they get trained on how to run
out the clock. They have these strategies on how to have a meeting where
they get you to talk a lot and then they don’t actually have to tell
you anything new. And so I took the lead. I really sort of pushed him,
like, “Hey, you’ve got the demands. We actually want to go through
them.”
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Swisher: Give me an example of one or two of the demands.
Robinson:
So one is bringing in a C-suite civil-rights leader that has the budget
and the ability to oversee and weigh in on product and new policy.
Another was specifically to deal with their political-exemption policy
and the way they talk out of both sides of their mouth.
On
one hand, they’ll say there’s a political exemption, but they don’t
really use it, and no one ever gets exempted. And then Donald Trump will
get exempted. And then they’ll say, “Well, that’s because he didn’t
violate the policy,” but they can’t ever tell you when he will violate
the policy. It’s just like you’re talking in circles. That’s just
another example of how you end up with the situation where we have spent
years working on getting rules in place only for them to not enforce
them when it actually matters.
And so I wanted them to go through this. My last meeting with Mark and Sheryl was on June 1, right after the “looters and shooters” post, right after those posts around voter suppression,
where I, at the end of the meeting, was like, “What are we doing here?
Why are we continuing to meet if I don’t feel like anything’s happening
and if you’re trying to just explain to us why you’re working hard?”
They spent a lot of time in the meeting telling us why they’re doing
more than all the other social-media platforms.
Swisher: They’ve gone around to advertisers and said that too.
Robinson:
They’re so much better. They’re working so much harder. They have done
things that other folks won’t do. This is the kind of constant line. At
some point, someone in the meeting said, “So, I guess what you’re saying
is that you’re doing everything right and that we’re just crazy.”
They’re like, “No, no, that’s not what we’re saying.” I’m like, “Well,
what are you saying?”
Swisher: Their own audit
said exactly what you were saying, which was that they have created a
really dangerous situation by favoring their version of free speech over
civil rights. Why do you think that is? You have spent time with them.
If you were them, what would you do to fix their structure?
Robinson:
I would separate the decisions about moderation and content from his
global policy shop. There is not a scenario moving forward where Joel Kaplan
overseeing this is going to be fine with anyone. If Zuckerberg replaces
Joel Kaplan with someone else that has to oversee their relationships
in Washington, other folks are not going to be comfortable with that.
The
fact of the matter is if these decisions are made through the lens of
how to keep policy-makers and policy leaders happy, then you’ve actually
violated one of the tenets of fermenting connection, because you are
making decisions rooted in keeping powerful people and powerful forces
comfortable and happy. It happens here in the United States, and we have
a particular experience with it. But folks in other parts of the world
have a different experience, where protests might be illegal, where
speaking out might be illegal. The fact of the matter is that Facebook
will tell us one thing about their intentions, but every single decision
is rooted in profit and growth. Every single decision is through that
lens.
Galloway: 100 percent.
Robinson: And so in order to keep profit and growth going, they actually have to stay friends with those in power.
Swisher: This is Scott’s opening, because this is one of the main points he makes all the time.
Galloway:
First off, kudos to you and Color of Change. I was really skeptical
that this boycott was going to have any impact, but it’s had more impact
than almost any other effort I can see today. So first off, well done.
Secondly, quite frankly, I’m not sure it’s going to do anything. Let’s
speculate that if you call on Facebook’s better angels, that no one’s
home — and that you have to move back to applying financial pressure.
Can you give us a sense of the state of the boycott and how you put
pressure on the better angels of the people at organizations that spend
money on Facebook?
Robinson:
I think financial pressure is important as well as hopefully changing
the political levers in Washington. That to me is the long game, because
even this type of effort feels like something that we just can’t be
constantly doing, going against the largest advertising platform the
world has ever known. It just can’t simply be about asking advertisers
to walk away. I’ve had a lot of conversation with advertisers, a lot of
conversations recently with the Madison Avenue firms who manage
advertisers, trying to continue to get a pulse of where folks are at. I
think one thing that’s been really helpful here is that this
conversation has trickled up to the board level at a lot of companies.
I
also think that some of the things that Mark has said about advertisers
coming back, some of the flip ways he has responded to this — it’s one
thing for Mark to call us weak, for us to say he doesn’t have to think
about what we are demanding. But you know, a bunch of corporate CEOs, at
what point are you all going to stand up? At what point are you going
to say that you’re not going to let this person walk all over you? I
think that has been part of Facebook’s missteps. They have stepped on
the ego of a lot of folks who have ego and who don’t want to be treated
like that they’re not valuable or their opinions don’t matter.
Swisher:
One of the things is they don’t like Facebook. You can talk to most of
them — they tolerate it because they need it, because it’s the only game
in town.
So,
two things I’d love to know. What do you think the impact right now is
of what Facebook is doing on people of color? Because you have a group
that’s not just people of color — you have the ADL, you’ve got the
NAACP, you’ve got so many groups you’re working with. What is the impact
on society right now for these continued — I would call them — abuses
by Facebook?
Robinson:
The technology that’s supposed to bring us into the future is in so
many ways dragging us into the past. We had created a sense of social
contracts around the ways that white nationalists could organize, right?
They can’t organize at the Starbucks in a public space and have a
meeting. They couldn’t do things out in public, but the incentive
structures at Facebook have allowed people to not only organize, but … A
15-year-old that is searching for one thing runs into some
white-nationalist content and then goes down a hole because they get
served more and more of this content. Because the ways that the
algorithms are set up, people are almost indoctrinated into these ideas
that we’ve tried to put at the margins. Facebook has created a space
that feels like home, that makes these things comfortable, that makes
these things acceptable. And to that extent, they’ve been damaging.
At
the same time, Facebook has refused to be accountable. I was having a
conversation with Alicia Garza, who’s one of the co-founders of Black
Lives Matter. Alicia famously posted “Black Lives Matter” on Facebook
right after the Zimmerman verdict.
Kara Swisher: Which got it started.
Robinson:
Mark talks about it. He talked about it in his free-expression speech
at Georgetown. And Alicia gets regular death threats on Facebook. She
has to go through the same decision tree that anyone else has to go
through. She’s had about 20 death threats over the last several months.
And Facebook has declined to take action on every one of them through
automation. They say something about how it doesn’t violate terms. And
she’s never gotten a phone call from Facebook, no outreach, no
engagement that one would expect. This is Alicia, who’s on TV, who is
well known — and Facebook actually uses her name. They use her work in
the cases they make around this, and they don’t even respond to the
attacks that she’s getting. It’s because they don’t care. The same way
Mark can say that these Fortune 500 advertisers don’t matter, he’s on
the other hand saying that Black activists’ voices don’t matter either.
This is one would imagine how he would have treated SNCC organizers,
how he would have treated the civil-rights leaders that we lionize
today in terms of the ways in which they were attacked and targeted. All
of this is because you’ve got this person that has far too much control
and believes that they, and they alone, understand what’s right. We
don’t actually have the leverage to challenge them. And so I really
appreciate what you said around the boycott. I feel really proud of what
we’ve been able to do. But part of this, from my perspective, has
always been about raising the level of attention and energy and focus so
that we can advance the real conversation about 21st-century rules of
the road. It’s not just Facebook. It is that all of these platforms, if
left to their own devices, will rely on the wrong set of incentive
structures because profit and growth are key drivers to why they exist.
Galloway:
What are the one or two things any of the 3 and a half billion Facebook
users could do right now if they wanted to be supportive of your
actions? What’s the call to action?
Robinson:
A couple of things, I think that folks need to, first and foremost,
vote in this upcoming election. I think that people need to make sure
that politicians know that we want to hold big institutions accountable
and that we vote, because the long game is a new set of rules and we
just don’t get that by wishing. The second thing, I think, for folks who
are actively using Facebook, is that if they see negative content, if
they see content that’s hateful and they see an advertiser next to it,
send that to the advertiser. Advertisers need to consistently hear from
consumers — why are you sponsoring this type of content? Why do you have
your brands next to this type of content? The vast majority, the
overwhelming majority of advertisers are not trying to have their stuff
next to this.
But
Facebook is telling them one story and there’s a totally different
story that’s actually happening. And then finally, I think that all of
us have to be really active users about the content that’s coming our
way. What are we clicking on? What are we sharing? What are we engaging
with? Because the level of disinformation and misinformation that’s
going to be on platform as we head into this election is going to be
outrageous. We all, in our day-to-day lives, can play a role in
disrupting that and pushing back on that.
Swisher: And what is your next move? More boycotts? Continuing the pressure?
Robinson: Continuing the pressure. July 27, Mark testifies in front of Congress
on antitrust issues. A corporation that has become so big and powerful
where they don’t listen to major corporations, where they don’t have to
listen to social-justice leaders, means that there are questions about
whether the platform has become too powerful. And whether it needs new
rules. I think that’s the next phase in this work. The problem for
Facebook is that they are asking people to trust them and big companies
to trust them. And I think the message I have for big companies is: Do
you think that they’re going to embarrass you? Because I have a quick
answer for you. They will. And so just know that time and time again,
they have no problem with embarrassing you, embarrassing your brand.
Swisher:
Rashad, thank you so much. I don’t know what to say. It’s great to hear
a voice like you. Your whole group is fantastic. You all should pay
attention and advertisers should absolutely be paying attention to this
as we’re going forward. And anything we can do to help, we certainly
will.
Robinson: Appreciate you. Thank you.
Pivot is produced by Rebecca Sananes. Erica Anderson is the executive producer.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Facebook’s Top Public Policy Executive in India Steps Down
Ankhi Das drew criticism in India over social-media giant’s enforcement of its policy on anti-Muslim hate speech
A Facebook Inc. executive in India who was at the center of a political storm over the company’s policy on anti-Muslim hate speech on the platform is leaving her position Tuesday, the social-media giant said.
Ankhi Das, Facebook’s top public-policy executive in its biggest market by users, said in an internal post provided by the company that she had decided to step down to pursue her interest in public service.
__________________________________
Sen. Ted Cruz on Fox Blasts Big Tech Censorship: We Are Seeing Silicon Valley Billionaires Drunk With Power
Sen.Ted Cruz: Big Tech is Drunk On Their Power
Appears on CNBC, Fox News, 'The Dana Show,' and Axios podcast Re:Cap to discuss developments in Big Tech censorship
HOUSTON, Texas - U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) spoke with Fox News' Harris Faulkner, Dana Loesch, Axios' Dan Primack, CNBC's Kelly Evans and Dom Chu about Big Tech and Twitter's unprecedented censorship of the New York Post's reporting on the Bidens.
WATCH: Cruz on Fox Blasts Big Tech Censorship: We Are Seeing Silicon Valley Billionaires Drunk With Power
On Big Tech's blatant election interference:
"The New York Post has the fourth largest circulation of any newspaper in America, and right now, Jack Dorsey is just behaving as Joe Biden's press secretary. It is censorship. It is wrong." (Sen. Cruz, Fox News, 10/15/2020)
"It's not their role to determine who gets to speak and who doesn't. And by the way, if the emails are fake, you know what? The New York Post can be sued for defamation. If a media outlet puts out defamation, they can be sued. You know who can't be sued? Twitter. They're protected by Section 230. [...] Big Tech has a monopoly position. We have right now, roughly 70 percent of Americans get their political news via social media, that if Big Tech blocks it - and on Twitter, not only can you not tweet it out, they're blocking the New York Post from reaching their own followers and tweeting out their own story." (Sen. Cruz, Axios' Re:Cap, 10/15/2020)
"We're 19 days out from an election, and so the reason I focused on Jack Dorsey and Twitter is because Twitter is blocking the China story. Facebook right now is not blocking the China story. So Dorsey has doubled down. I think Big Tech, frankly, is just drunk on their power." (Sen. Cruz, Axios' Re:Cap, 10/15/2020)
On potential remedies for Big Tech's censorship:
"Big Tech has this special immunity from liability, Section 230. [...] They don't have any entitlement to that subsidy. They shouldn't be immune from liability, particularly if they're going to engage in blatant censorship. So that's number one.
"Number two is the antitrust laws, and the antitrust laws have been on the books for decades. And if you look at the Big Tech giants, you look at Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, they have power. They have a market cap that by any measure, they're bigger and more powerful than Standard Oil was when it was broken up under the antitrust laws. [...] You can't abuse monopoly power, and that's existing law.
"And third is, is consumer fraud and deception. And their basic promise is that that if you follow someone, you'll see what they say. If they follow you, they'll see what you say. They're breaking their promise. They're deceiving consumers, and if you lie to consumers, you can be held liable for that fraud." (Sen. Cruz, The Dana Show, 10/15/2020)
"I expect trial lawyers will be making the argument that they've abandoned the protections of Section 230. [...] But number two, from the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, and I have spoken repeatedly with the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, the Chairman of the FTC, the President of the United States, the Vice President; all about directing the enforcement authority of the administration to go after Big Tech and stop them from abusing their monopoly power, and they are monopolies under the antitrust laws, they are abusing their monopoly power." (Sen. Cruz, CNBC, 10/15/2020)
On the questions Jack Dorsey needs to answer:
"What are your standards, Mr. Dorsey? Why are you choosing to silence this media story and not other stories? How do you how do you determine who gets to speak in America and who doesn't? And how do you get to decide that you can use your corporate treasury to give what is, in effect, a multi-million dollar campaign donation to the Biden campaign, just 7 days out from an election."
__________________________________
Facebook Hit With Antitrust Lawsuits by FTC, State Attorneys General Violation Under Section 230
Brent Kendall
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
John D. McKinnon
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON—The
Federal Trade Commission and 46 states sued Facebook Inc. on Wednesday,
accusing the social-media giant of buying and freezing out small
startups to choke competition.
WASHINGTON—The
Federal Trade Commission and a bipartisan group of 46 states filed
broad antitrust lawsuits against Facebook Inc. on Wednesday, alleging
the social-media giant engaged in a yearslong campaign to buy up or
freeze out nascent technology companies that one day might have become
rivals.
The
FTC’s case is its most ambitious in recent memory and seeks to unwind
Facebook’s prior acquisitions of the photo-sharing app Instagram and
messaging service WhatsApp. It comes just weeks after the Justice
Department brought an antitrust lawsuit targeting Google’s flagship
search business. Each federal agency now has its own
once-in-a-generation case at the same time, a signal of the level of
U.S. concern about the power of dominant online platforms.
The
FTC, on a 3-2 vote, filed the case in a Washington, D.C., federal court
after an investigation that stretched more than a year. Commission
staffers had been preparing the lawsuit for months and recommended that
the FTC vote to bring a case.
“Personal
social networking is central to the lives of millions of Americans,”
said Ian Conner, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition.
“Facebook’s actions to entrench and maintain its monopoly deny consumers
the benefits of competition. Our aim is to roll back Facebook’s
anticompetitive conduct and restore competition so that innovation and
free competition can thrive.”
New
York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James announced the states’
lawsuit, which includes the District of Columbia and Guam.
The Federal Trade Commission and 46 states sued Facebook Inc. on
Wednesday, accusing the social-media giant of buying and freezing out
small startups to choke competition.
The FTC’s sweeping antitrust case seeks to force Facebook to unwind its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram, two of its landmark deals. The states filed a separate and similar lawsuit, alleging a lack of competition has harmed consumers, including by weakening privacy protections.
The lawsuits come weeks after
brought a case alleging Google was illegally maintaining a monopoly in its search business. Collectively, the cases reflect U.S. concern about the power of dominant online platforms.
“Facebook’s actions to entrench and maintain its monopoly deny consumers the benefits of competition,” said Ian Conner, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. “Our aim is to roll back Facebook’s anticompetitive conduct and restore competition so that innovation and free competition can thrive.”
The
FTC’s sweeping antitrust case seeks to force Facebook to unwind its
acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram, two of its landmark deals. The
states filed a separate and similar lawsuit, alleging a lack of
competition has harmed consumers, including by weakening privacy
protections.
The
lawsuits come weeks after the Justice Department brought a case
alleging Google was illegally maintaining a monopoly in its search
business. Collectively, the cases reflect U.S. concern about the power
of dominant online platforms.
New
York State Attorney General Letitia James outlined a sweeping antitrust
suit against Facebook by the Federal Trade Commission and a bipartisan
group of 46 state attorneys general, targeting the company’s tactics
against competitors. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via
“Facebook’s
actions to entrench and maintain its monopoly deny consumers the
benefits of competition,” said Ian Conner, director of the FTC’s Bureau
of Competition. “Our aim is to roll back Facebook’s anticompetitive
conduct and restore competition so that innovation and free competition
can thrive.”
New
York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, asserted that Facebook
“has used its dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals and
snuff out competition, all at the expense of everyday users,” and made
“billions by converting personal data into a cash cow.”
Facebook fired back by noting the FTC had previously approved the Instagram and WhatsApp transactions.
New
York State Attorney General Letitia James said Facebook has attempted
to ‘take advantage of users and make billions by converting personal
data into a cash cow.’
Photo: Kathy Willens/Associated Press
“The
government now wants a do-over, sending a chilling warning to American
business that no sale is ever final,” said Vice President and General
Counsel Jennifer Newstead. “People and small businesses don’t choose to
use Facebook’s free services and advertising because they have to, they
use them because our apps and services deliver the most value. We are
going to vigorously defend people’s ability to continue making that
choice.”
The
FTC voted 3-2 to file the lawsuit, which came after an investigation
that stretched more than a year. The agency’s two Democrats joined
Republican Chairman Joseph Simons for the suit, a sign it will likely
continue once President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
Mr. Biden’s transition team declined comment.
The
federal-state coordination signals the intensity of legal pressures
Facebook is facing, as well as the leading role state law-enforcement
officials are playing in antitrust battles with the nation’s most
powerful tech companies. Ms. James made public the states’ lawsuit,
which includes the District of Columbia and Guam. Both lawsuits were
filed in Washington, D.C.
Some
states also have joined the Justice Department in suing Google, and two
other coalitions of states are weighing additional cases against the
search giant, a unit of Alphabet Inc.
For
Facebook, Wednesday’s filings introduce a confrontation with the
government that founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has
described in the past as “existential.” Mr. Zuckerberg, who personally
engineered many of the actions being targeted by the lawsuits, has
expressed confidence that Facebook would prevail in court.
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SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
Do you think the states’ and FTC’s lawsuits against Facebook have merit? Why or why not? Join the conversation below.
The
cases present Facebook with one of its biggest challenges in its
16-year evolution from college startup to social-media giant. The
Facebook app alone has 196 million daily active users in the U.S. and
Canada, and more than 2.5 billion people use its products every day
world-wide.
In
Facebook’s early stages, public attention centered on the platform’s
ability to grow and make money while minting cultural touchpoints and
viral trends. But in more recent years the focus has turned to
Facebook’s power: its extensive collection of data and its ability to
shape users’ emotional states, accelerate the spread of hateful
conspiracy theories and potentially influence democratic processes
including elections. The company’s sway in business has come in for
scrutiny, too, over its ability to blackball particular apps, cut
preferential deals and use its financial power to acquire promising
startups.
Facebook
argues that its critics have no valid basis for claiming the companies
it bought would have emerged as major competitors had they remained
independent. Platforms such as Instagram have become enormously
successful precisely because Facebook purchased them and invested
heavily in their development, Mr. Zuckerberg has said.
Facebook
has been building its legal arguments for months against a likely FTC
lawsuit and plans to argue that the commission’s efforts targeting its
past acquisitions would defy established law, harm consumers and cost
billions of dollars if the government pursues a breakup.
More Facebook Coverage
Facebook to Buy Kustomer, Startup Valued at $1 Billion (Nov. 30)
Political Groups Elude Facebook’s Election Controls, Repost False Ads (Nov. 1)
Facebook Links Instagram and Messenger (Sept. 30)
Facebook’s Hate-Speech Rules Collide With Indian Politics (Aug. 14)
Facebook Executives Shut Down Efforts to Make the Site Less Divisive (May 26)
The
two lawsuits tell a similar story. The FTC and the states each allege
Facebook chose to buy companies rather than compete with them. Facebook
recognized in 2011 that Instagram was becoming a viable competitor on
mobile photos and that it could threaten the company’s position, the
lawsuits allege. Buying Instagram neutralized that threat while
discouraging any other photo-sharing apps, the suits claim.
The
commission and states likewise argue that the WhatsApp deal removed
another worry for Facebook, making it harder for future mobile-messaging
apps to acquire scale and threaten to enter the social-networking
space.
Much
of Facebook’s maneuvering was aided by its acquisition of an Israeli
company, Onavo Mobile Ltd., that had developed a tool to monitor usage
of scores of applications, allowing Facebook to identify competitive
threats, according to the states’ complaint.
The
lawsuits also say Facebook hobbled competitors by cutting off access to
its platform for third-party app developers that wanted to offer
services that encroached on Facebook’s core functions.
The
states’ lawsuit alleges privacy harms created by Facebook’s conduct.
The company’s monopoly position allowed it to retreat from early
promises and collect data more aggressively about its users’ activities,
the states allege.
Sizable
mergers and acquisitions must be reviewd by the government before they
are consummated, and the FTC allowed the tech giant to acquire Instagram
and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Of the dozens of companies
Facebook has acquired over the past decade, some required government
clearance while other smaller deals didn’t.
The
commission’s lawsuit comes two months after a U.S. House antitrust
subcommittee published a report on Big Tech dominance that concluded
Facebook held a monopoly insulated from competitive threats because any
potential rivals faced high barriers trying to challenge the tech giant
with competing products. The panel found that Facebook also maintained
and expanded its dominance by buying companies that might be threats and
by selectively excluding other apps from building services on its
platform.
Mr.
Zuckerberg said in House testimony in July that Facebook continues to
face intense competition. He has singled out the popular video-sharing
app TikTok, which has gained hundreds of millions of global users.
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Facebook
reached a record $5 billion settlement with the FTC last year to
resolve a non-antitrust probe involving consumer-privacy violations.
Facebook said that it had made big strides on privacy and that the
settlement was part of rebuilding public trust.
Some
lawmakers, antitrust experts and consumer advocates have criticized the
FTC as not doing enough to address the growing dominance of large tech
companies. The Facebook lawsuit marks a departure from the commission’s
reputation for being risk averse in its enforcement actions. It famously
decided in early 2013 not to bring an antitrust case against Google
after spending more than a year investigating the company. The search
giant escaped with no binding legal requirements.
The
FTC shares antitrust enforcement authority with the Justice Department,
but the five-member bipartisan commission needs a majority vote to file
a lawsuit. FTC Chairman Simons, a Republican appointed by President
Trump, cobbled together that majority during the presidential
transition, as the Biden administration will have an opportunity to
shape the commission after he takes office. Democratic Commissioners
Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Slaughter voted with Mr. Simons. Republican
commissioners Noah Phillips and Christine Wilson voted no.
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The
cases are likely to take years to resolve. The commission and the
states can’t impose changes on the company’s business; they first must
prove in legal proceedings Facebook it violated federal antitrust law
and that such changes are needed. The social-media giant already has
moved to integrate different services it has acquired.
In
addition to unwinding past transactions, the lawsuits seek to prohibit
Facebook from engaging in future practices that harm competition, such
as imposing restrictive conditions on software developers.
During
the 2012 review of the Instagram deal, some at the FTC were worried
about the competitive implications of the transaction but weren’t sure
they could win a case, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
Facebook
is also under increased antitrust scrutiny in Europe. The European
Commission—the European Union’s top antitrust enforcement body—has been
conducting a preliminary investigation into the company’s control over
and use of user data, including for advertising purposes. The probe
could turn into a formal investigation or end up being dropped.
“It’s
a huge investigation, a lot of data coming in,” European Commission
Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager said at a press conference
last week.
Facebook has said it is committed to cooperating with the probe.
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