This week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg publicly denounced the political positions of Donald Trump's presidential campaign during his speech at the company's annual F8 conference.
“I hear voices that are afraid of building walls and distancing themselves from people they label as ‘others,’” Zuckerberg said, without mentioning Trump by name.
“I hear calls to block free speech, slow immigration, reduce trade, and, in some cases, even block access to the internet.”
This year's F8 showed that the 31-year-old billionaire is willing to get involved in public politics. Zuckerberg has donated to campaigns in the past, but it wasn't always clear who he was supporting or Facebook's policy on such actions.
Inside Facebook, the political debate has been more explicit. Last month, some Facebook employees used a company poll to ask Zuckerberg whether the company should try to “help block Trump’s election in 2017.”
Every week, Facebook employees vote in an internal poll on what they want to ask Zuckerberg in an upcoming Q&A session. One question from the March 4 poll was:
“What responsibilities does Facebook have in helping to block Trump in 2017?”
It's obvious that some Facebook employees are anti-Trump. Of course, the company's policies seem to align with those of the rest of Silicon Valley: pro-immigration, pro-trade, and pro-internet.
Here we should remember that more than 1.04 billion people use Facebook. It is the place where they find new things, share their opinions (political or not) and interact with friends, celebrities and politicians.
And Facebook of course has no legal responsibility and can only provide a filtered view of what is happening on their network.
“Facebook can promote or block any material it wants,” UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh told Gizmodo.
“Facebook is using the same First Amendment right that the New York Times is using. They can completely block Trump if they want. To hinder him or to promote him.
But Facebook is not a mass media and is not designed to inform us, although many use it for that purpose.
It is not a newspaper, magazine or news website.
If Facebook decides to interfere with its algorithm, it can change what we see, just like an editor decides what should go on the front page, or what should not appear.
The difference is that readers of traditional media (including the web) can educate themselves (learn) about the political orientation of the company and choose what to read.
Of course, this practice promotes one-sided information... a vicious circle..
Continuing with the Facebook phenomenon, we should mention that it has the potential to reach many more readers than any other website.
With Facebook, no one knows what they see, what political party they support, what their guidelines are. So we can't know in what way it might affect the way we see the world.
For those who don't remember, Facebook has "played" very dirty tricks in the past.
During the 2012 presidential election, Facebook secretly manipulated 1.9 million news feeds. The company also manipulated news feeds in 2010 during a pilot experiment involving 61 million people to see how it could affect the real world.
In 2012, Facebook deliberately experimented with its users' emotions. The company, again, secretly manipulated the news feeds of 700,000 people and concluded that it could essentially make you feel whatever it wanted you to feel.
So regardless of your political views, the Trump story comes to remind us of the role of social media in the way we live, act, and feel.
However, there are still too many who believe they read..
