Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, has explained how the social media site used an algorithm to bury the Hunter Biden laptop scandal when it originally broke in 2020.
On Thursday’s Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan questioned Zuckerberg on how Facebook handles contentious news stories and the problem of media censorship.
According to Zuckerberg, the platform did not totally suppress the item as Twitter did, but it was nonetheless moved down users’ newsfeeds for up to a week until further information that would clarify whether the report was accurate or not was released.
Therefore, we chose a different route from Twitter. The FBI essentially came to us and several members of our staff and said, “Hey, can we help you? “Hey, just so you know, you should probably be really vigilant. In the 2016 election, there was a lot of what we believed to be Russian propaganda. We are aware that there will likely be some kind of dump of, or anything like. So just be alert.”‘
So, unlike Twitter, our protocol is distinct. Twitter acted by stating that you are not permitted to share this at all. That’s not what we did,’ Zuckerberg remarked. We also employ this third party fact-checking tool because we don’t want to be the ones to decide what is real and untrue when something is reported to us as possibly, disinformation, or crucial misinformation, he stated.
I believe it took around five to seven days to ascertain if it was true or not. Although Facebook’s distribution was lessened, sharing was still permitted. You may still distribute it. You may still eat it, he advised.
When questioned what he meant by “decreased dissemination,” Zuckerberg said that he meant that the article will appear further down on people’s newsfeeds.
We weren’t quite as categorical about it as Twitter was. We just assumed that the FBI, which is still in my opinion a genuine organisation in this nation, was a very skilled law enforcement agency. They approach us and alert us to the fact that we must exercise caution. Then I want to consider it carefully,” stated Zuckerberg.
Did they clearly state that you should be cautious about that story? Rogan enquired.
Zuckerberg said, “I don’t recall whether it was that explicitly, but it roughly matched the pattern.”
But Rogan persisted, asking what happened when the news was suppressed even though it turned out to be true.
‘Yeah. It’s awful how it ended out in retrospect, I mean. After the fact-checkers looked at it, nobody was able to refute it, correct?
In essence, it went through a time where it received less dissemination,’ remarked Zuckerberg.
“I think it definitely stinks, but I think in the same sense that perhaps going through something like a criminal trial, but ultimately being found innocent, stinks.”
Even if you were found not guilty at the conclusion of the criminal trial, it still stinks, he said.
I’m not sure whether the response would have been to do nothing or to have no procedure. The procedure seemed to me to be rather sensible.
We still permit sharing, but clearly you don’t want circumstances like that,’ he said.