Mark Zuckerberg Stands Firm on Not Fact Checking Political Ads on Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg at Georgetown
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS /Getty

In a recent interview with CBS This Morning, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg doubled down on the firm’s recent decision not to fact check ads by politicians.

During an interview on CBS This Morning, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg doubled down on the social media giant’s decision to not fact-check advertisements posted to the platform by politicians. Zuckerberg has argued that it is not up to Facebook to censor the speech of political figures and that voters should see what politicians have to say, even if it is false.

Speaking with CBS host Gayle King, Zuckerberg explained his reasoning further. Gayle began the conversation by stating: “The main thing that people are talking about are the political ads, that you don’t want to take down political ads that people know are false, that they contain false information.”

Zuckerberg replied: “What I believe is that in a Democracy it’s really important that people can see for themselves what politicians are saying so they can make their own judgments. And, you know, I don’t think that a private company should be censoring politicians or news.”

King noted that not all at Facebook agree with Zuckerberg’s decision and have called on him to reverse it, stating: “But a small group of your employees, about 200, wrote a letter saying that they hope you would reconsider because they say that ‘free speech and hate speech are not the same,’ do they have a point?”

Zuckerberg finally stated: “Well, this is clearly a very complex issue and a lot of people have a lot of different opinions.”

Watch the full interview by CBS This Morning on their Facebook page here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com

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