Joe Biden pens angry open letter to Mark Zuckerberg over fake news

Joe Biden is fed up with all this social media nonsense, and doggone it, he’s not going to take it anymore.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee published an open letter Thursday morning addressed directly to Mark Zuckerberg, letting the CEO know that he better shape up, mister, or there will be consequences. Specifically, the letter critiques Zuckerberg for failing to stem the tide of misinformation and lies spread on his platform by the Trump campaign.

Biden, in full old-man-lecturing mode, told the willfully obtuse billionaire that his company had failed to live up to its commitment to “improve American democracy” and, for some reason, hasn’t listened to the Biden campaign’s suggestions on how to best do so. 

“The [Biden] campaign has proposed meaningful ways to check disinformation on your platform and to limit the effect of false ads,” reads the letter. “But Facebook has taken no meaningful action. It continues to allow Donald Trump to say anything — and to pay to ensure that his wild claims reach millions of voters.”

Indeed, Facebook does take money to spread politicians’ lies. It’s part of the company’s business model, after all. However, the “following concrete recommendations” proposed by the open letter aren’t exactly something to build a regulatory foundation on. 

There is one distinct proposal contained in the letter that’s worth highlighting, though: 

“There should be a two-week pre-election period during which all political advertisements must be fact-checked before they are permitted to run on Facebook,” proposes Biden in the letter. 

And yeah, that actually is an idea. 

We reached out to Facebook for comment on that proposal specifically, but received no response as of press time. The company did publish a broad response to the strongly worded letter — and yes, it does really begin with “We live in a democracy[.]”

In other words, Facebook saw Biden’s “letter to your manager” energy and decided to one-up it with Debate Bro vibes. But the eye rolls don’t stop there. See, according to Facebook, the fault actually lies with elected officials — like, one might logically conclude, Joe Biden.  

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“Just as they have done with broadcast networks — where the US government prohibits rejecting politicians’ campaign ads — the people’s elected representatives should set the rules, and we will follow them,” reads Facebook’s letter — conveniently omitting the fact that, for years, Zuckerberg insisted that Facebook was not a media company or publisher. “There is an election coming in November and we will protect political speech, even when we strongly disagree with it.”

Nothing like taking a strong, principled stand that just so happens to line your pockets. 

As the election grows closer, it’s likely that this type of critique will only grow in volume and frequency from the Biden campaign. Facebook, after all, is a deserving punching bag. It would be nice, however, if the swings Biden’s campaign took were more than just for show.