Today (September 14), Mark Zuckerberg published a long and detailed post on Facebook outlining the challenges the platform faces in terms of misinformation and election interference. With the U.S. midterms coming up in November, it would appear that Zuckerberg is keen to reassert his authority and demonstrate to the world that he has a grip on the big issues.
Covering fake accounts, ad transparency, and election interference, Zuckerberg goes into detail about the problems Facebook has faced and the actions its taking to solve them.
For example:
The most curious thing about Zuckerberg’s ‘manifesto’ is that, for all of its bullishness, it does also detail Facebook’s weaknesses. On the one hand he details how the organization is taking real and practical steps to solve huge problems, but within just a few paragraphs he hints at the limitations and weaknesses of Facebook’s community standards, and the difficulty of crafting a policy.
He wants us to know that Facebook knows exactly what its doing, but he also wants us to know that it needs everyone’s help. “Preventing election interference is bigger than any single organization” Zuckerberg goes on to write, before explaining how Facebook needs to be part of a joined up approach involving the tech industry, media and government.
It’s hard to disagree with that point, but to the rhetorical move from we’re deleting billions of fake accounts with machine learning to “we’re all in this together” (a phrase Zuckerberg actually writes) does seem a little odd.
It would seem that the media is a little confused about what to take from Zuckerberg’s post too: on the one hand, some outlets, like The New York Times and The Hill, take Zuckerberg’s assertions at face value, citing his point that Facebook is now “better prepared to fight election interference”. Others, however, like The Next Web and Business Insider focus on Facebook’s limitations, and Zuckerberg’s plea for support.
We may have to wait for the next instalment of Zuckerberg’s dispatches to get a bit more detail on how Facebook is going to handle ongoing political crises – but it’s safe to say it doesn’t look like there are going to be any more radical changes soon.
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