Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced that the social networking site will permanently stop promoting political groups. According to Forbes, Zuckerberg revealed the news on Wednesday, explaining that the company believes this is what its users want. “One of the top pieces of feedback that we’re hearing from our community right now is that people don’t want politics and fighting to take over their experience on our services,” he said. The move came just one day after Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) issued a critical letter to Zuckerberg, saying, “Facebook’s system of recommending political groups poses grave threats to American democracy and public safety.”
Facebook has been under fire for some time over the site failing to crack down on political extremists spreading false and unverified information. Many political leaders and experts have cited it as having been used by many Capitol riot insurrectionists to plan their march. Following the siege, Facebook banned former President Donald Trump, pointing to his refusal to acknowledge the election results, as well as making unfounded allegations of voter fraud, as having incited the crowd. “We believe the risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” Zuckerberg wrote at the time, adding that Trump would be banned until at least after “the peaceful transition of power is complete.”
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Later, Facebook vice president Nick Clegg announced that Trump’s ban would move to an oversight board, who will decide if it is permanent or not. “Our decision to suspend then-President Trump’s access was taken in extraordinary circumstances: a US president actively fomenting a violent insurrection designed to thwart the peaceful transition of power; five people killed; legislators fleeing the seat of democracy. This has never happened before — and we hope it will never happen again,” Clegg said, per The Verge. “It was an unprecedented set of events which called for unprecedented action.”
Clegg then added, “We believe our decision was necessary and right. Given its significance, we think it is important for the board to review it and reach an independent judgment on whether it should be upheld.” He also acknowledged that “some said that Facebook should have banned President Trump long ago and that the violence on the Capitol was itself a product of social media; others that it was an unacceptable display of unaccountable corporate power over political speech.” he clarified that all politicians “remain subject to our policies banning the use of our platform to incite violence.”
