Mark Zuckerberg says he doesn’t want misinformation ‘going viral’

Mark Zuckerberg insists that Facebook is effectively fighting misinformation surrounding the upcoming U.S. elections and the coronavirus. 

In an interview with the BBC, Facebook CEO answered questions about the company’s anti-misinformation campaign, the Covid-19 pandemic, upcoming elections, and his near-total control over the world’s largest online social network. 

Zuckerberg said the company has been removing content that’s likely to result in “immediate and imminent harm.” 

“Even if something isn’t going to lead to imminent physical harm, we don’t want misinformation to be the content that is going viral,” he said. 

Still, he said he wanted to allow the “widest possible aperture” for freedom of expression. Facebook made a similar argument when defending its controversial decision to allow politicians to lie in their Facebook ads. 

Facebook was widely criticized over its role in the 2016 presidential election, when Russian trolls leveraged the platform to spread fake news. We’re in an election year once again, but, according to Zuckerberg, Facebook is far better prepared this time. 

“We have learnt a lot since 2016 and I feel pretty confident that we are going to be able to protect the integrity of the upcoming election,” he told the BBC. 

Zuckerberg also addressed the criticism that he has too much control over Facebook despite owning a fairly small percentage of the company. 

“If it had been different then we would have sold out to Yahoo years ago and who knows what would have happened then,” he said.