Abstract:

In the days after Donald Trump won the United States presidency, it became resoundingly clear that the Russians had engaged in disinformation operations to push millions of potential social media impressions at the American voting population — content that may have swung tens of thousands of critical votes in key swing states across the nation. But when questioned about the nefarious Russian activity by the American public, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s response was predictably defensive; he claimed only “a very small amount [of all the content on Facebook] is fake news and hoaxes”. He added, “The idea that fake news on Facebook…influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea.” And perhaps, most critically, he suggested that, in any case, the firm doesn’t want to be an “arbiter of truth” — in other words, that he did not want to put Facebook in the position of having to determine whether certain forms of content, like targeted political lies, should be taken down from the firm’s platforms or not.

But the time for corporations to shirk this responsibility must come to an end. And it must be the government and the people who hold the corporate sector’s hand through the process — or, if need be, pull the industry by the ear.